What are the reasons that you would not rank a candidate that you had interviewed? Meaning, why would you take someone off the rank list? Just curious....
Question for Program Directors
- Thread starter Jessipeds
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Being charged with terrorism, murder, having relations with program directors wife, using the words "yolo or swag" in your thank you letter, fighting the attending interviewing you, sex-trafficking, suicide, armed robbery, running a drug cartel, calling other interviewee's ethnic slurs, and threatening the program director to rank you "or else."
Just a guess as I'm not a PD, but most of those are probably in there.
Just a guess as I'm not a PD, but most of those are probably in there.
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Being very weird at the interview.
Getting into a fight with security over where to park (really happened)
Being a marginal candidate to begin with, and then being really boring at the interview.
Getting into a fight with security over where to park (really happened)
Being a marginal candidate to begin with, and then being really boring at the interview.
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a program director told me that they had a candidate dress up in heels and a red cocktail dress for the interview day and that she just had a weird demeanor the whole day, another girl got drunk at the interview day lunch (the lunch was at an off campus restaurant) and another applicant went through the whole day without saying a single word to any of the residents.
Interesting, never thought about that before....
So a program director would prefer filling those spots through the scramble, with someone they don't really know, rather than taking the weird or boring candidate? Do you typically get good people through SOAP?
How many people typically get taken off the ROL in a given year? Is it 5%, 10%, 20% of interviewees?
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No, "a" PD (not "aPD") would rather those spots go unfilled. If you're talking about a program with 30-50 people each year, a couple of unfilled spots is nothing compared to 3+ years of dealing 2 or 3 freaks/drama llamas.
I'm not sure I understand this question. Are you asking how many people who are interviewed that don't get ranked? Or are you asking how many people an average program routinely has to fill outside the main Match (SOAP or later)?
If the former, I'd venture to guess that for less competitive specialties it's probably in the 10% range. If you're the Derm PD at Stanford OTOH, you can probably afford to only rank 2 or 3 people for every spot you have...even if you interview 10 people for every spot. But the reality is that programs don't have much to lose by not ranking every decent applicant.
If you're asking the 2nd question, the answer is also very program dependent but, in the aggregate, approaches 0.
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One PD told me he didn't rank someone because they were playing on their smartphone while the department chair gave his welcome to the group.
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Sounds like a good enough reason to me. If you're playing on your phone during the interview day...especially in front of someone important like the chairman, then you are sending the message that you don't really care to be there.
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You act arrogant/cocky/strangely/bored, you prefer your iPhone to eye contact, you were rude at dinner/to a resident/to the PC/to anyone, your interview was cringe-worthy, you dominate the group discussion and don't let others talk, you act like you've done us a favor by coming to interview..... Basically you do anything that lets us know you will NOT fit into our program and you may consider yourself off the list. Hopefully no one thinks USMLE scores are the only thing we look at - people skills are just as important. This year we did not rank 11% of those we interviewed. I agree with gutonc - we'd rather go empty than take an unsuitable applicant.
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Where do you get these things?
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Dammit! That's not good.
My phone went off in the middle of the interview to remind me it was my dad's bday. The 2 PD's were surprised by the sound of calm waves that seem to come on all of a sudden. Facepalm.
Not to play Devil's Advocate here, but wouldn't it make more sense to rank these people very low on the list rather than not ranking them at all? Because if you got someone from SOAP who you didn't interview at all, and have never met in person, they could be an even bigger d****bag than the person you interviewed and hated?
And doesn't it make a program "look bad" to go unfilled? I could be wrong, but just wondering if that's the case or not.
I'm just a med student and have no idea what goes on in residency decisions, so just thinking aloud here....
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Better to get someone who will struggle academically in the SOAP than a smart one with a personality disorder. You can fix academic struggles with remediation, one on one sessions, and more. Personality disorders are for life.
During SOAP most programs will hold phone interviews before ranking, so they'll get to know the applicant a little rather than ranking them blindly.
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Exactly. Better to at least have a shot of getting someone you wouldn't hate working with than have to deal with someone you KNOW you couldn't stand for the next 3+ years. Why it doesn't look "good" to go unfilled, that's still preferable to dealing with a constant headache for several years.
Completely agree with this.
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Is it public knowledge which programs didn't fill and have to find candidates through SOAP?
Obviously if you don't match you find lists of programs with openings, but is this information only accessible to those who don't match?
Obviously if you don't match you find lists of programs with openings, but is this information only accessible to those who don't match?
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On the Monday of Match Week, the list of openings is only released to unmatched applicants. Eventually the results of all programs are released publicly.
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Yes. AFAIK, the unmatched can see the list, but the NRMP prohibits them from releasing that information to anyone else, even those who have matched. Ofc, in reality no one is stopping them from posting it online. However, at that point of time they are too busy trying to save their future to bother about letting others know what went unfilled. The lists eventually surface a few days after the match.
Also, now that everything must happen through NRMP, that restriction makes less sense. In the scramble anyone could apply to the unfilled programs - registered for the match or not - but now it makes little difference because those who can apply can see the list. No one else can apply even if they can see the list.
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Last question, do programs find out at 12 PM on the 15th as well?
I assume so, but last year a friend of mine received a text from the program director where he matched before he opened his letter. My school is quite large and we can't open our letters until everyone gets theirs, so it ends up not being until 12:30 that we open them (I don't know if he received the text between 12:00 and 12:30).
I assume so, but last year a friend of mine received a text from the program director where he matched before he opened his letter. My school is quite large and we can't open our letters until everyone gets theirs, so it ends up not being until 12:30 that we open them (I don't know if he received the text between 12:00 and 12:30).
Communication between unmatched applicants and programs with unfilled positions shall be governed by Section 7.0 of this Agreement. Matched applicants and programs may not contact each other prior to the general announcement of Main Residency Match results at 1:00 p.m. eastern time on Friday of Match Week.
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from my understanding, residency programs and med schools find out the day before match.
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This is correct. We find out a day early. I understand why schools need to know a day early (since they often generate a list of all matches which gets handed out), but there really is no reason I need to know until after the match. Contacting matches before 1PM is prohibited, but I imagine there are some PD's who get a thrill out of contacting people. Or perhaps they just thought that match day was at 12 noon, so it would be OK to contact people after that (and was an honest mistake).
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