Pet Peeves about the whole match / setting up interviews process.

[LanceArmstrong]

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I just think there's always some stuff that's a little annoying to us in the match. So far, the top 2 pet peeves for the match for me are:

1) Programs invite you for an interview and then don't respond to email when you try to arrange a date (and when you call them they tell you to email them)

2) Too many programs interview on only wednseday. This is inconvenient in 2 ways - first it limits the number of interviews you can do in a certain time period and second: if you're doing a rotation and the interview is far away you lose 2 maybe 3 days traveling in the middle of the week, so the whole week ends up shot.

3) No programs interview on a friday (that i've seen)

4) No program interviews around christmas/new year (last week in dec.) when everyone is off.

5) Out of 10 programs where i have interviews only 1 offered to pay for hotel, no one is paying for flights, (true some programs give you hotel discounts and some hook you up with residents to stay with) but come on - the money they'll make off of us in the next 3-5 years should more than cover a night in a hotel...

Ok I'm really not as annoyed as I have put on, I just needed to vent a little. But please feel free to contribute you interviews pet peeves.

 

[Samoa]

1) programs that send out more invitations than they have interview slots

2) the whole suit business. Seriously, I'm going to be wearing scrubs all day every day for the foreseeable future, why not let us interview in them?

3) multiple-day interviews (I mean 2 full days of walking around in your suit, not just dinner the night before)

4) Programs in the same tier all offering interviews on the same date, and no dates that don't conflict with some other program of similar caliber.

5) Wondering if all my advisors were seriously wrong about the competitiveness of my application. Not that I'm not getting interviews, but when I tell them where and how many, they all frown as though they expected something different. And these are people who've seen my whole application.

1-4 are minor things that don't really bug me and I'm just venting. But #5 is a little unsettling, to say the least.

 

[Adam_K]

1) Programs invite you for an interview and then don't respond to email when you try to arrange a date (and when you call them they tell you to email them)

along with:

1) programs that send out more invitations than they have interview slots

👎

 

[mercury1980]

1) Programs that leave you hanging..if theyre not going to invite you for an interview the least they can do is send a rejection or tell you that you have been rejected over the phone..telling us (without looking at our files) that 'we might not have gotten to your application yet' doesnt help our nerves much at all!

 

[Onco]

A 2-day interview or an extra dinner bothers me a bit (unless its an ivy league program).. I have slashed off 1 interview invitation because of this

 

[deleted109597]

How about adding this

Separate residencies at the same school interviewing on completely separate days that seem illogical. As in, on interviews on Tuesdays and Fridays, the other interviews on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Makes it an incredible pain to try and interview with your spouse for the couples match.

 

[Doc Oc]

Paperwork that essentially repeats info on your ERAS application

Programs claiming that they did not receive board scores, personal statement, etc. when everyone else you applied to did - and this is through ERAS, so if some are getting it and some are not, it's not MY fault!

"Surprise" interviews not on your schedule when you were told that the day was over at a specific time, but surprise! you are interviewing for an HOUR with two more faculty not on your schedule! Yay!

Program coordinators not understanding that it is not in my best interest (or theirs) to tote my husband and toddler along for the entire interview. Yes, you read correctly, they WANT them to come along for the whole day!

Answers to questions that say things like "You'll get that experience if you step up", or "you'll need to be proactive, but it is available", or anything else that implies that a hospital's low volume is not the main reason you'll have difficulty getting certain experience. No, it is your fault for not "stepping up" to the patient that doesn't exist!

 

[Mista Suprane]

How about adding this

Separate residencies at the same school interviewing on completely separate days that seem illogical. As in, on interviews on Tuesdays and Fridays, the other interviews on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Makes it an incredible pain to try and interview with your spouse for the couples match.

couples matching gas/peds. we both applied all over the country, thinking we would be traveling together for our interviews. both of us have ~20 interviews scheduled so far, and we have exactly ONE interview coordinated at the same place on the same day. i really think this was only possible because the residency coordinators in our respective departments were willing to communicate with each other to help us out. big 👍 to UIowa.

this really is an important point. if you are couples matching in the future and reading this thread, you should realize that it will be very difficult/nearly impossible to coordinate interview dates at the same institution, sometimes even hard in the same city.

 

[drbetty]

How about adding this

Separate residencies at the same school interviewing on completely separate days that seem illogical. As in, on interviews on Tuesdays and Fridays, the other interviews on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Makes it an incredible pain to try and interview with your spouse for the couples match.

I really wish that all of our interview invites came out on one day, so that we could plan our schedule, comfortably purchase flights in advance, coordinate with significant others, and not have to compulsively check email 58x/day and thus be productive! Though I imagine programs would be overwhelmed with the volume of responses in one day, but it would be nice for the applicants!

At the least, I wish that websites included the days/dates during which interviews will be held. However, so far, my fiance and i have been fortunate in coordinating cities (8 are the same so far!!!) and hopefully more to come. He's medicine and I'm peds, so I think both fields tend to offer more dates than others. We both have had to reschedule some of those dates to make it work. All but one of the dates we requested were still available (whew!)

 

[ceftazidime]

How about the fact that the AOA match takes place a month before the ACGME match? So if you want to rank an ACGME program first and an AOA program second, and you match into the AOA one, you get pulled out of the ACGME match! Even though we DO students have a lot more residency options available, we still end up getting screwed 🙄

 

[jonb12997]

How about the fact that the AOA match takes place a month before the ACGME match?

isn't that the truth...

 

[yaah]

Interviewing only on wednesdays, that's a rough one. Our program interviews every day, usually only one, but sometimes two, candidates per day. So people can basically pick any day. But I know lots of specialties have multi-candidate interview days. They probably pick wednesday because it's easier to have all the necessary faculty available.

It is unfortunate that more programs are not flexible in regards to scheduling.

 

[vtucci]

I really wish that all of our interview invites came out on one day, so that we could plan our schedule, comfortably purchase flights in advance, coordinate with significant others, and not have to compulsively check email 58x/day and thus be productive! Though I imagine programs would be overwhelmed with the volume of responses in one day, but it would be nice for the applicants!

At the least, I wish that websites included the days/dates during which interviews will be held. However, so far, my fiance and i have been fortunate in coordinating cities (8 are the same so far!!!) and hopefully more to come. He's medicine and I'm peds, so I think both fields tend to offer more dates than others. We both have had to reschedule some of those dates to make it work. All but one of the dates we requested were still available (whew!)

I agree it is frustrating to try to schedule interviews when some come in before November 1st and when there is a huge geographical spread to try to arrange interviews at programs that notify you later in the process. Seeing as we cannot rely on getting interviews at these other places, it makes it such a crapshoot.

 

[yumita]

my peeve:
programs that have requisites that they don't advertise (USMLE minimums, no IMG's, etc...) so you waste your money applying to a program that wouldn't even think of reading your app.

 

[John Deere Gree]

my peeve:
programs that have requisites that they don't advertise (USMLE minimums, no IMG's, etc...) so you waste your money applying to a program that wouldn't even think of reading your app.

DING! DING! DING! we have a winner!