Hello, sir.
In your experience, are programs sending more interviews for this cycle or sending same number as previous years?
In talking with other PDs there's a split.
Some places are relying more on internal candidates since it's so much harder to evaluate someone virtually (so they're interviewing less)
Some places are increasing the number since you can talk to more people virtually when you don't have to set up an in-person process (so they're interviewing more).
But the ones interviewing more haven't increased their numbers by orders of magnitude. Some more people in the gray zone may get invites... but not a massive number.
What ends up happening is that people who are really strong, rather than just applying to a handful of places, apply everywhere (because the limit on number of interviews you can go on is higher since you don't have to physically go anywhere). So when I compare my spreadsheet this year to last year, I'm seeing the biggest increase in the top quintile of applicants by overall score. Quantity in the other groupings are up also but not by as much.
I don’t need a visa I’m American. Still filtered out as less than...
In years past, whether you need a visa or not was a searchable field on the application. Now that field shows up as "Screened". So at this stage I don't know if someone needs a visa or not. The DIO can unlock that field for all programs in the hospital but as of yet that isn't done. The system does allow for filtering by "US Medical School" or not but personally I haven't found that filter to be very useful. By the fellowship stage, if you've successfully completed a US residency, then where you went to medschool is less important. The relevant training occurred here in the US.
So then why for us do we have a bigger percentage of our interviewees that are AMG vs IMG (US citizen)? On average... it's board scores. The AMGs track a little higher. So that ends up playing a bigger role. But different places will weigh different components differently. So YMMV.
The factors that play into IMG (non-citizen) percentage being lower is complicated.
Within the constraints of my free time I'm happy to give feedback to people about where their application landed on my spreadsheet and why. Whether the feedback is useful or not I can't say. But my PMs are open.