Pre-Application 2010 Questions

[IzzyMD09]

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What is the general consensus on sending letters of interest to programs you have not rotated at but are planning on applying to in terms garnishing more information?

Also I have heard from some residents that their road to glory included some of them sending out these letters with CV's and a list of references.

Finally. in regards to personal statements, did many of you write a seperate personal statement for Dermatology Derm/Peds Derm/Med and your preliminary year, or did one personal statement suffice?

Thanks for the help!

Izzy

 

[Dermguy]

What is the general consensus on sending letters of interest to programs you have not rotated at but are planning on applying to in terms garnishing more information?

Also I have heard from some residents that their road to glory included some of them sending out these letters with CV's and a list of references.

Finally. in regards to personal statements, did many of you write a seperate personal statement for Dermatology Derm/Peds Derm/Med and your preliminary year, or did one personal statement suffice?

Thanks for the help!

Izzy

I have not heard of sending letters of interest. I don't think it's a bad idea, though, because you've got to do whatever you can to set yourself apart from the competition. If you got advice to send that out with a CV and references, I'd go for it.

I wrote the same personal statement for everything. I had several positive comments on my personal statement from Derm places, and I definitely wrote it with them in mind, and prelim places don't care what your personal statement is like in my opinion.

My advice for the personal statement is to write about your noble plans and really sell what you want to do. I think it's dangerous but potentially really helpful to write specific comments about what you like about different programs in the personal statements. For example, Vandy asks you to talk about any ties in your app. If you really do that I think you will stand apart from people like me who just sent the same generic statement everywhere.

Good luck!

 

[asmallchild]

What is the general consensus on sending letters of interest to programs you have not rotated at but are planning on applying to in terms garnishing more information?

Also I have heard from some residents that their road to glory included some of them sending out these letters with CV's and a list of references.

Finally. in regards to personal statements, did many of you write a seperate personal statement for Dermatology Derm/Peds Derm/Med and your preliminary year, or did one personal statement suffice?

Thanks for the help!

Izzy

I've never heard of that but I guess sending out letters of interest coupled with an impressive CV/references could set you apart from the pack. (On the flip side, some programs could be annoyed by it)

Regarding personal statements, I created many different personal statements. In the end, felt like a waste of time. I really don't think personalizing the statements makes a huge deal (unless you are applying to a program that requests it like Vanderbilt)

 

[Cheebs09]

I wrote one personal statement for all of my applications.
While that didn't seem to hurt my invites in terms of #s, one of my classmates personalized each personal statement to include a paragraph explaining why he wanted to go to that program (for TONS of programs!) and I suspect that this was helpful, as he said some interviewers were impressed by that. Keep in mind he was also an outstanding candidate.

 

[Iwy Em Hotep]

What is the general consensus on sending letters of interest to programs you have not rotated at but are planning on applying to in terms garnishing more information?

I thought about doing this, and was advised against it, even after publishing a number of papers that weren't included on my ERAS. At best, you get a glance that you probably would have gotten during the review process anyway. At worst, it annoys someone up top.

Finally. in regards to personal statements, did many of you write a seperate personal statement for Dermatology Derm/Peds Derm/Med and your preliminary year, or did one personal statement suffice?

I wrote one personal statement, although I did send different letters to prelim/TY programs. I can't imagine that it hurts to do it, as long as you do a good job of tailoring each PS to the people most likely to read it, instead of just changing one line.

 

[IzzyMD09]

Whats the general consensus of Transitional Year vs Prelim Year?

Is one looked upon more or less favorably by programs if you have to apply again after either of the two?

Is it wise to stick to one or the other?

Is it better to have a Tranny year because you have more time for research or Derm electives?

Whats the deal

Izzy

 

[asmallchild]

Whats the general consensus of Transitional Year vs Prelim Year?

Is one looked upon more or less favorably by programs if you have to apply again after either of the two?

Is it wise to stick to one or the other?

Is it better to have a Tranny year because you have more time for research or Derm electives?

Whats the deal

Izzy

Prelim year is a much better idea. Fairly or unfairly, transitional years are looked upon as laxer, weaker internship years.

If you are going to reapply, I'd rather have a prelim year under my belt.

It is still possible to apply for both, and link your transitional years to derm programs, so you'll only go into a transitional year should you match your advanced position.

 

[Dermaholic]

I know some people ahead of me who matched in derm but did not apply to a prelim/transitional year. One of them didn't match the first go round in anything and did a research year then matched.

Is it a poor idea to only apply to derm programs without prelim/transitional backup plans?

 

[asmallchild]

I know some people ahead of me who matched in derm but did not apply to a prelim/transitional year. One of them didn't match the first go round in anything and did a research year then matched.

Is it a poor idea to only apply to derm programs without prelim/transitional backup plans?

well, you have to have prelim/transitional year plans because if you do match in dermatology, you'll need one to serve as your internship year

you cannot go straight into derm from medical school

 

[IzzyMD09]

so transitional years are not a good idea then

not even if you stay close to your home department and can do a research month and an elective month with them

i figured it would be better since you cant do that during a prelim year

i dont know let me know

hopefully more advice from more people would be great

izzy

 

[Dermguy]

so transitional years are not a good idea then

not even if you stay close to your home department and can do a research month and an elective month with them

i figured it would be better since you cant do that during a prelim year

i dont know let me know

hopefully more advice from more people would be great

izzy

In your secondary rank list you can put all the transitional programs you want in whatever order you want because there's nothing your Derm program can do.

At the end of your primary rank list, though, you should put one or two Prelim Medicine programs in case you don't match for derm because it looks bad to reapply from a transitional year program, even though that's probably unfair.