PM&R residency interviews

[flightdoc165]

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Greetings, I am a current Naval Flight Surgeon applying to PM&R residency this year. My question relates to interview dates: when were the bulk of your interviews, and how much leeway/control did you have in scheduling these dates? The reason I ask is because I have a class to take in early December, from November 30th to December 9th, which would prevent me from scheduling interviews the first week of December. Will this really hurt me? If it would, there is a chance I could move the class up to late October/early November, but this may not be possible. I am also curious to know, from previous PM&R applicants, the following information: 1. how many programs did you apply to, 2. how many interviews did you go on, 3. did you feel those numbers were sufficient or did you wish you had applied to more programs or accepted more interviews, and 4. what limited the number of interviews that you went on (e.g. money, scheduling issues, or interview offers). Thanks for all of your help, the information I have gleaned so far from SDN has been extremely valuable!

 

[dc2md]

not at all. not being available for the first week of december won't matter in the least. my interviews were spread pretty evenly b/t nov., dec, (early) jan...then i got burnt out and skipped two others in mid-late january.
i applied to ~30 programs and got only 10 interview offers. USMGs had much better results than me though. and yes, money was a factor for not going on the last two interviews, but burn-out was a bigger factor. i skipped JFK and pitt and i wish now i had gone to those. oh, and i failed to go on a second look at one of my top programs too...big mistake cuz i ended up not even being ranked by them. and yes, take the advice of scheduling your (anticipated) lower ranked programs first so you get a feel for how it goes and work out the kinks in your interviewing skills.
good luck.

 

[JEB4]

I think you should be fine if you have to take the class in early December, but based on how my interview dates worked out, I would try to take the earlier class if possible. I had one interview in early November and the rest were in the first half of December and then January. If your experience ends up being anything like mine you'll get invites at different times and sometimes the dates offered end up conflicting, especially when you are trying to coordinate prelim/TY interviews in the same cities to prevent multiple trips to the same city. The more open dates you have, the easier it will be to schedule interviews. I applied to 11 rehab programs and about 10 or 11 prelim/TY programs. I got interviews at all of my rehab programs and most of the prelim/TYs. Some people applied to more, but I would say most people I asked on the interview trail applied to 12-15. It obviously varied, with some people applying to 5 or 6 programs and others 20+. It depends on how competitive you think you are (based on honest opinions from advisors etc.) and your budget and schedule. So you will likely be fine regardless of when you take the class, but if I were in your position I would at least try to take it earlier. The point about burnout is a good one. By the end you have answered so many of the same questions so many times, and been on so many hospital tours it becomes very hard to stay excited about the interviews unless you really love the program. Hope that helps. Here is another point that is slightly off topic but still somewhat related since we are discussing scheduling. Another question that often comes up is when to schedule interviews at your early favorites. I scheduled mine at the end because I wanted some experience before going into them. I think one or two interviews should give you a feel for what they are going to be like and work out the jitters. Too many and you start fighting burn out. Take that for what it's worth.

 

[armonia]

I applied to 12 PMR and 5 or 6 prelim/transitional. I didn't have the finances, time (I had a core clerkship in January), or energy to go to all the interviews (I went to 10 PMR and 4 prelim/transitional). I think that was probably a good number of programs to apply to, although I did feel like I was taking a bit of a gamble on the prelim front. I definitely got a very concrete sense of what I was looking for in a PMR program that I wouldn't have figured out had I not gone on as many interviews as I did (didn't change my first choice, but the rest of my final rank list was different from anything I would have imagined pre-interviews).

You have a little bit of flexibility in how you skew your interviews, since most places have several interview dates. Sometimes the programs don't tell you about all of their dates. I remember calling one program to say that I wouldn't be able to make any of the interview dates available, and ended up with another 2 interview date possibilities. My general feeling was that the bulk of interview dates were December through pre-mid January.
All that being said, I would agree with JEB4 about trying to schedule the course for and earlier slot if possible.