MD Ophthalmology advice for the current cycle

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4th year medical student here who will be applying for the upcoming match cycle for ophthalmology!

Stats

• Honored years 1, 2 and 3 of medical school (honored IM, surgery, peds, OBGYN, high passed psych, FM, neuro)
• Junior AOA
• Top 6% of class
• Step 2 score: 248, Step 1 PASS
• Research: 5 ophtho journal articles (1 first author), 9 non-ophtho published journal articles (1 first author), 15 presentations/abstracts/conferences across both ophtho and non-ophtho (1 presentation at NIH conference,), 3 articles submitted (1 first author ophtho article, 1 non-first author ophtho article, 1 first author non-ophtho article)
• Med school: MD school, but not top 50
• 4 leadership positions and 5 volunteer activities done throughout med school

I had the following questions
1) What is my competitiveness for the upcoming cycle?
2) My plan was to apply to every single ophthalmology residency program; thoughts on this?
3) I have 3 ophtho letters of recc, 1 from PD of nearby hospital (but not home hospital), 2 from ophtho faculty from home hospital (1 of them is from a big name in a subspeciality of ophtho who I published a paper with). How can I leverage my connections and mentors to help with getting interviews?
4) This year for the match candidates have 7 signals. How should I utilize these?
5) Any other advice/recommendations

Thank you all in advance!

 

[MDMechEngr]

 

[eyeeye_captain]

1. Average to above average if your letters are good

2. Probably unnecessary, but if it helps you sleep at night, ok

3. It’s pretty simple - talk to your folks and ask them to talk you up to people they know at programs you want to go to. This is an incredibly small field. If your big name is really a baller and likes you, they can shoot a quick email to their buddies. I had a mentor who was kind of a low-key big name who was good friends with multiple department chairs, and looking back at my resume, that got me some prime interviews I probably didn’t deserve on paper. Ask the mentors where they think you should go if they aren’t able to keep you at home and they can do some work.

4. I’m too old to know what a signal fully entails, but clearly you don’t need one for your home and local programs since you can get on the phone. Again, don’t know the game, but obviously your otherwise first choice, maybe a couple reaches, and then realistic programs you like.

5. First, breathe. Second, research which programs match your priorities. The post-interview reviews in the spreadsheet above tend to be a little rosy but do give some reasonable info. Third, I’ll direct you to my overly long posts from last year on middle tier programs below (although I still wish I’d gotten more participation from the audience). Fourth, I’m cool with a PM if you’d like to talk behind the scenes.

Ophthalmology Middle Tiers