Programs and competitiveness - anesthesiology (WAMC)

[Esmolol]

I think I have a good shot at some good programs, but I cannot gauge that. I would gratefully appreciate any help and input.

Here are the stats:

School: US-MD (not the greatest program, ranked in the 60-80 range by US News), Step 2: 261

Academics: 1st quartile cumulative in MS1-MS3, first two years are P/F at our school, MS3 grades were A/B/C/F - 6 A's, 1 B (family med), applying for AOA, merit scholarship throughout all four years of school.

Research projects in anesthesiology since the Summer of MS1, participation, and leadership in a unique anesthesia program at our school (I cannot give more details b/c it would easily identify me; it is, however, something that does stand out), continued research in anesthesiology with publications/presentations, etc.

Other things: non-traditional student, previous career in academia, research/publications/presentations (19 peer-reviewed pubs), PI on national grants, etc.

Geographic ties to the West Coast, Midwest, and the South.

I have hesitated for a long time to post this here out of fear of misperception. This is not intended as a "brag." It is an honest question motivated by the limited number of signals we can give to programs. Nobody would want to waste a signal on a program they cannot match. The competition seems to be rough, and there are a lot of great and well-qualified candidates out there. I am not looking for things like UCSF, Stanford, Harvard... I am rather looking at programs like UCSD, UCLA, Mount Sinai, Cedars Sinai, etc.

Thoughts? Opinions? Suggestions?

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[Dr. Anonymouss]

So for what it’s worth we have similar scores (260 step 2), and I have good research. Three peer-received journal pubs in orthopedics. I switched to anesthesia halfway through third year after doing the anesthesia elective and addressed this all in my PS. But I talked to my home PD and the PD where I did an away rotation and they all said I had a very strong application and should receive interviews at a majority of the places I apply to. They said I shouldn’t really be worried about applying to any specific place and that I could apply anywhere…. So just based on my subjective experience I think you’re good to apply to any of the programs you want to. I mean realize that they will interview a large amount of applicants. The interview gets your foot in the door and how you perform during the interview will greatly help where you get placed on that rank list. So in terms of making it past the first cut and getting the interviews I think you are in a good position. Maybe use 10 signals for the high tier programs and 5 signals for more average academic programs.

 

[Esmolol]

Thanks! The thing is, anesthesia this year has 15 signals - 5 gold and 10 silver. It's stupid, because when a program gets a silver signal it's like - "Yes, you signaled us, but we know we are not your top 5... so..." Why they did that, I don't know. They should've just given us 10-15 signals of equal weight and that's it.

 

[Dr. Anonymouss]

Thanks! The thing is, anesthesia this year has 15 signals - 5 gold and 10 silver. It's stupid, because when a program gets a silver signal it's like - "Yes, you signaled us, but we know we are not your top 5... so..." Why they did that, I don't know. They should've just given us 10-15 signals of equal weight and that's it.

I agree. It’s hard to say how programs will interpret this. For what’s it worth the 2 PDs I talked to said they will be valued the same. A signal just meaning you really want to attend this program. I imagine there will be a few programs who get caught up in the gold versus silver but I think the majority will value them the same.