Questions about Away Rotations

[babinski2020]

Hey guys,

I have a strong geographical preference for a major city (NYC), go to school in another city close by, and am trying to decide where to apply to aways. I would consider doing all of my aways in NYC, but I am worried that it may decrease my chances at other places. I've spoken to many people in person and have gotten a very wide range of advice, so I am seeking clarification on some questions.

1) Do other programs even know where you do aways? I know that aways will only show up on your app if you get LORs and that technically programs aren't allowed to ask you where you did your aways on your interviews. Some people have told me that they rarely got asked about aways, others have told me that almost every program asked where they did aways. Any insight?

2) If other programs do, in fact, know where you do aways, are they less likely to accept you if you have done all of your aways in one city? Could a student justify doing aways in one area because of the convenience of being local and having housing (which I would in NYC)?

3) I realize this is crazy - but would it be looked down upon doing 4 aways? I would have no problem using a vacation block to do an away outside of NYC if that solved all of these issues, but I feel like programs would then think that I'm weird for doing four.

Thanks for any replies - having a very tough time with this due to my strong desire to be in one place coupled with some of the horror stories that I've heard about good students putting all of their eggs in one basket. Any advice would be appreciated

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Lya]

1) You are correct: Programs don't know where you did aways unless you get letters or you mention them during your interviews. If you are pursuing a competitive specialty, programs will likely ask you about where you did aways. Expect to get asked about aways and even be prepared to compare among those programs.

2) If you are a strong applicant, you will get invited from many places outside NYC and will get ranked highly regardless of where you did aways. Not all interviewers will ask you about aways, so faculties may not even talk about aways when they discuss your candidacy. Doing aways, submitting ERAS, tuition, etc. are all expensive, so I would think that being local and having housing already set up are reasonable rationales when you are asked to justify why you did aways in NYC.

3) No. I have seen people who did 4 aways. There is nothing wrong with exploring other institutions and their programs firsthand.

 

[doyouhaveaflag]

This may be specialty-dependent. You could be limiting yourself a bit geographically to only rotate in the NE but at the same time you probably increase your chances of matching there by doing more rotations there. At least for plastics, a high proportion of people match at someplace they rotated (a 2014 paper found that 43% of people had rotated at the program they matched to).

To address your specific questions:

1) No, places can't tell directly where you rotated, but they find out anyway. For one, at least one of your letters should come from an away and it may be better to get two. The letterhead will give it away. Additionally, people tend to ask about it. I got asked on almost every single interview, and I was frequently asked to say what I liked about each or what I learned from each, what cases they do, etc.

2) Two of my three rotations were actually 35 miles apart. I justified it on interviews by saying I did it to save money and live with family and that the way VSAS worked they were the two I heard from first and I didn't want to turn either down. It was the truth, but not the whole truth. I only received 3 interviews on the opposite coast, but who knows if I would have received more if my aways were more geographically distributed.

3) 4 aways isn't crazy if you have the time and money. I have a classmate who did 4 and one was on her vacation time, but she's maybe a less competitive applicant. I rotated with a guy who did 5 but he had no home program and I think one or two may have been a two week rotation. If you perform well, I think you increase your chances of matching to one of the places you rotate. However, you do run the risk of them saying no thanks at the end. There are a bunch of programs that are notorious for interviewing only a small fraction of their rotators. On the flip side, there are a handful of programs that are known to only match people who rotate there (in plastics anyway).

 

[babinski2020]

Thanks a lot for the replies guys. Should have clarified - I'm preparing to apply to ortho, not sure if this changes anything.

 

[deleted480308]

Thanks a lot for the replies guys. Should have clarified - I'm preparing to apply to ortho, not sure if this changes anything.

are you actually competitive for ortho or is it a reach?

 

[NotAProgDirector]

Your aways may be listed on your transcript.

Programs can ask you about away rotations. There's no rule about this that I know of (unless this is something specific to ortho)

 

[babinski2020]

Thanks guys.

Didn't know about the possibility of the transcript listing them - I'll definitely ask, though I've been told by some admins here that other programs won't see aways, so I don't think that's the case.

I'm competitive (step 1 high 250s, all clinical honors so far, good amount of research).

 

[Donald Juan]

You sound pretty competitive, so you would probably be fine to primarily focus your app on your desired location.

From just a strategic point, going to another area might slightly help you get a few more interviews and decrease the chance you go unmatched. But if you are going to rank all the NYC/NE programs over say the SE or Midwest, then it might be low yield to go on aways and a lot of interviews to these other areas when you will likely match in the NE. Also, rotating at programs in your desired area might increase your chances at matching at them, and it will get you exposure to more programs that are actually desirable to you.

You ultimately have to decide for yourself what is more important: maximizing your chances of matching no matter where the place is, or just maximizing your chances of matching in your desired region and getting more exposure to the programs in that region.

And yes, in ortho you will likely be asked about where you rotated. It's not against the rules, and it's often just a conversation starter; you can talk about some of your experiences at different programs or talk about people you mutually know. Don't think of every question in an interview as some ulterior motive to find out information about your rank list.

 

[babinski2020]

You sound pretty competitive, so you would probably be fine to primarily focus your app on your desired location.

From just a strategic point, going to another area might slightly help you get a few more interviews and decrease the chance you go unmatched. But if you are going to rank all the NYC/NE programs over say the SE or Midwest, then it might be low yield to go on aways and a lot of interviews to these other areas when you will likely match in the NE. Also, rotating at programs in your desired area might increase your chances at matching at them, and it will get you exposure to more programs that are actually desirable to you.

You ultimately have to decide for yourself what is more important: maximizing your chances of matching no matter where the place is, or just maximizing your chances of matching in your desired region and getting more exposure to the programs in that region.

And yes, in ortho you will likely be asked about where you rotated. It's not against the rules, and it's often just a conversation starter; you can talk about some of your experiences at different programs or talk about people you mutually know. Don't think of every question in an interview as some ulterior motive to find out information about your rank list.

Very informative. Thanks