Questions about Moday, March 12

Residency Personal Statement
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johnnydrama said:
My mistake - didn't realize they get their results the day before. I'm sure they get the rest of the list the day before too then (same logic).
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They DO NOT get the results before. It defeats the whole purpose of making us wait. Those results are easily leaked. Everyone finds out at the same time.
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^ Exactly ...
 
We get our "match list" on thursday, as you see.

We get the full list of where everyone on our rank list matched the following monday, 3/19.

Someone mentioned that students should get the "same thing", not sure what that is. You know you didn't match at any program higher on your list than your match program. I guess you could be told of the programs lower on your list, whether you "would have" matched there had you ranked them higher. Not sure that's really helpful, though.
 
aProgDirector said:
Someone mentioned that students should get the "same thing", not sure what that is. You know you didn't match at any program higher on your list than your match program. I guess you could be told of the programs lower on your list, whether you "would have" matched there had you ranked them higher. Not sure that's really helpful, though.
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I think that person wanted the match lists for each program on their rank list. Some of that information will be made public eventually but, again, I can't really fathom how that would be of any benefit.
 
So why can't we find out on Thursday too? Why the weeks of waiting?
 
aProgDirector said:
Someone mentioned that students should get the "same thing", not sure what that is. You know you didn't match at any program higher on your list than your match program. I guess you could be told of the programs lower on your list, whether you "would have" matched there had you ranked them higher. Not sure that's really helpful, though.
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Would just be nice to know where other people we met on the interview trail matched. These are our future colleagues. They should send a PDF of a list showing where everyone matched. It would also be helpful to future applicants to roughly gauge which programs they may be competitive for.
 
gutonc said:
I think that person wanted the match lists for each program on their rank list. Some of that information will be made public eventually but, again, I can't really fathom how that would be of any benefit.
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Well, I'd also wonder how knowing where people on their list matched helps program directors. Do they call up people and ask why they didnt rank them higher?
 
Chakrabs said:
Well, I'd also wonder how knowing where people on their list matched helps program directors. Do they call up people and ask why they didnt rank them higher?
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It helps them evaluate their interviewing and match strategy (or not). They have to do it again next year...you (hopefully) do not.
 
gutonc said:
It helps them evaluate their interviewing and match strategy (or not). They have to do it again next year...you (hopefully) do not.
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Not necessarily. I think you can read too much into that. No one really has any idea why a candidate may rank certain residencies higher or lower.

One place was a fine program, but my wife didn't like the city. Another place, the city has a very high rate of substance use in kids...great for psych, not the best place for our daughter to grow up. So, those programs dropped further down the list than they would have otherwise. Should the program alter their strategy because of that? Nah...

I am 100% in favor of more information though. I think the meager amount that we have to go on to make such a HUGE decision is crazy. Programs should post mean board scores of matched applicants, we should all see the same information at the end (or earlier), and the whole process should have more transparency overall.
 
digitlnoize said:
Not necessarily. I think you can read too much into that. No one really has any idea why a candidate may rank certain residencies higher or lower.

One place was a fine program, but my wife didn't like the city. Another place, the city has a very high rate of substance use in kids...great for psych, not the best place for our daughter to grow up. So, those programs dropped further down the list than they would have otherwise. Should the program alter their strategy because of that? Nah...

I am 100% in favor of more information though. I think the meager amount that we have to go on to make such a HUGE decision is crazy. Programs should post mean board scores of matched applicants, we should all see the same information at the end (or earlier), and the whole process should have more transparency overall.
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While I'm all for transparency, I actually think that the fact that programs do not have to report mean board scores of matched applicants and other such things is a good thing. Unlike with medical school admissions, programs are more free to choose people based on who they are as a person and not just a bunch of numbers. Even the top programs in the country are free to choose an individual who doesn't have stellar scores but they really want to hire and they think would be an amazing resident, instead of being "forced" to choose someone who looks perfect on paper because they have to uphold a reputation of taking the "brightest." I see this a little differently than medical school admissions because at the end of the day, they are looking to hire us to do a job, and I don't think that the highest scores necessarily correlate with being the best at this job, and I think residency programs know that.
 
clarabelle said:
While I'm all for transparency, I actually think that the fact that programs do not have to report mean board scores of matched applicants and other such things is a good thing. Unlike with medical school admissions, programs are more free to choose people based on who they are as a person and not just a bunch of numbers. Even the top programs in the country are free to choose an individual who doesn't have stellar scores but they really want to hire and they think would be an amazing resident, instead of being "forced" to choose someone who looks perfect on paper because they have to uphold a reputation of taking the "brightest." I see this a little differently than medical school admissions because at the end of the day, they are looking to hire us to do a job, and I don't think that the highest scores necessarily correlate with being the best at this job, and I think residency programs know that.
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Oh I totally agree with that, but most programs, especially in certain fields still prize board scores.

What I'd really like to see (but never will), is the mean step 1 & 2 (and COMLEX 1 & 2, if accepted) scores, the standard deviation, along with the RANGE of scores accepted. That way you could say, "ok, well their mean is 240, but they did take someone with a 198 one year, so maybe I have a shot."

Programs really need to provide more detail about each specific rotation. Right now, everything typically reads like a travel brochure. "You'll spend 4 weeks working with our world-renowned trauma service, where you will gain experience in a variety of settings." What that really means is, "you'll work 95 hours per week, but report 80 hours, dealing with penetrating traumas to patients with infectious diseases neither you nor the CDC have ever heard of, with little to no supervision.

If I was living in my dream world, I'd like a "day in the life of a resident" shadowing video (taken from a POV camera) for each rotation in the residency. That way you can really get a feel for what it's like there. Warts and all. But, that will definitely never happen.

You can't have too much information. Unless you don't have enough hard drives. Then you can totally have too much. Moral: Get more hard drives.
 
Chakrabs said:
Well, I'd also wonder how knowing where people on their list matched helps program directors. Do they call up people and ask why they didnt rank them higher?
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That's exactly what I do, although I do it by email.

digitlnoize said:
So why can't we find out on Thursday too? Why the weeks of waiting?
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Note that you wait exactly 22 hours longer than me. The "weeks" of waiting is so that the NRMP gets it right -- they double and triple check the whole process. See the AUA's match disaster a few years ago for how bad it can get.

However, I don't know why they really tell me 1 day early. I'd be fine waiting until Friday.
 
aProgDirector said:
Note that you wait exactly 22 hours longer than me. The "weeks" of waiting is so that the NRMP gets it right -- they double and triple check the whole process. See the AUA's match disaster a few years ago for how bad it can get.

However, I don't know why they really tell me 1 day early. I'd be fine waiting until Friday.
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That's all I'm saying. I know it's only 1 day difference, but I don't get why there's a difference at all. In fact, I'd argue that if anyone gets to find out first, it should be us, since we're the ones who are up-rooting our lives, moving, buying houses, etc. Not that a day really matters, but it's more the principle of the thing....

I am 100% in favor of multiple quality control checks, although I'd like to know exactly how often their first attempt is found to be incorrect. I bet it's a very, very small percentage. If that is the case, I'd like to see us get "tentative" matches before we wait for a month, pending quality control, since there's probably a 99% chance the first one is correct. That's better than pretty much every medical test we use to make life or death decisions, so it should be good enough for a "tentative match" message.
 
digitlnoize said:
That's all I'm saying. I know it's only 1 day difference, but I don't get why there's a difference at all. In fact, I'd argue that if anyone gets to find out first, it should be us, since we're the ones who are up-rooting our lives, moving, buying houses, etc. Not that a day really matters, but it's more the principle of the thing....

I am 100% in favor of multiple quality control checks, although I'd like to know exactly how often their first attempt is found to be incorrect. I bet it's a very, very small percentage. If that is the case, I'd like to see us get "tentative" matches before we wait for a month, pending quality control, since there's probably a 99% chance the first one is correct. That's better than pretty much every medical test we use to make life or death decisions, so it should be good enough for a "tentative match" message.
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That sounds great to most of us and I would've loved that as well. But in the grand scheme of things, it cannot be done. It only takes ONE person to be extremely pissed off after their "last chance dermatology rank" doesn't turn out to be correct in the "tentative algorithm results." At that point, it doesn't matter what the legal agreements were, because whether the person can win or not, they will attempt to sue the pants off of NRMP and anyone else they can. And you know very well they will create enough noise to get a class-action lawsuit going with everyone in their situation joining. That sounds like a huge headache for the NRMP and I'm sure they have spent time thinking about these things. This is why they MUST get it right. And down the road, if it turns out they got it wrong, you will never know about it in order to avoid these very things.

The system works. Waiting sucks for all of us, but it really does make a lot of logical sense from the NRMP's standpoint. Before a medical match algorithm was set in place in 1952, students were signing contracts as early as their M2/M3 years before even knowing what they'd like to do or what they were good at. The system is not perfect and it cannot possibly be with the great diversity of people involved. It does work though.

Be patient, we'll all know soon enough. :highfive:
 
digitlnoize said:
That's all I'm saying. I know it's only 1 day difference, but I don't get why there's a difference at all. In fact, I'd argue that if anyone gets to find out first, it should be us, since we're the ones who are up-rooting our lives, moving, buying houses, etc. Not that a day really matters, but it's more the principle of the thing....
.
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Life's not fair. Get over it already; in the grand scheme of things, a three week wait means very little. Your constant whining over the issue is tiresome.
 
b-real said:
Life's not fair. Get over it already; in the grand scheme of things, a three week wait means very little. Your constant whining over the issue is tiresome.
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Hey, no whining. Just talking. Discussing something on a discussion forum. Go figure. I guess I should not do that. :rolleyes:

Look, I really don't care that much, but I think discussion is good, and information is better. I wish someone from the NRMP would just offer up an explanation, at least. In the modern age of computers, it just doesn't make sense why it would take so long to run a relatively simple algorithm, or why the PDs get the information first, or any of the other myriad of questions we applicants have.
 
digitlnoize said:
]In the modern age of computers, it just doesn't make sense why it would take so long to run a relatively simple algorithm, or why the PDs get the information first, or any of the other myriad of questions we applicants have.
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The 3 weeks are there for human manipulation of the data. They also keep the computer that runs the algorithm separate from their web server - they claim it's for security, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're still using punch cards for the actual match.

They're cheap, inefficient, and technologically incompetent. But they're all we've got.
 
johnnydrama said:
The 3 weeks are there for human manipulation of the data. They also keep the computer that runs the algorithm separate from their web server - they claim it's for security, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're still using punch cards for the actual match.
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What is "human manipulation of the data?"

I appreciate them taking steps to ensure the match isn't hacked though. That's nice of them...


They're...inefficient, and technologically incompetent. But they're all we've got.
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Sounds like our government. Except the cheap part, which I removed for you.
 
I answered this in a different thread, but I'll post it here again. There are several things that slow the process down:

1. Allowing people to certify their lists post deadline. If you're foolish enough to de-certify your list just before the deadline and then not get it certified again prior to the deadline (some people do this every year), The NRMP usually allows those people to re-certify their old list without changes. Fixing these sorts of problems takes a day or two.

2. The NRMP needs the results of CaRMS to run the match. Hence, they need to wait for CaRMS to do all their data processing / matching / error checking.

3. They double and triple check the outcome. Then they probably check it some more. They need to be 100% certain it's right.

4. This year, they then need to feed that data to ERAS so that ERAS knows who is eligible for SOAP. This is a new step.
 
Chakrabs said:
Would just be nice to know where other people we met on the interview trail matched. These are our future colleagues. They should send a PDF of a list showing where everyone matched. It would also be helpful to future applicants to roughly gauge which programs they may be competitive for.
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What if people don't want their name on a list? What business of yours is it where I matched? And it won't help future applicants at all. You don't know what criteria each program uses to evaluate their applicants.
 
IDBasco said:
What if people don't want their name on a list? What business of yours is it where I matched? And it won't help future applicants at all. You don't know what criteria each program uses to evaluate their applicants.
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Agreed. It's really just being nosy, and doesnt merit a change. It's a stretch to suggest this helps others because everyone and every programs decision process is based on very different factors. If you want to know where others you met on the interview trail ended up, email them. If they want you to know, they will tell you.
 
Last edited:
Is the location of our advanced match revealed to us if we need to scramble for a prelim spot? I've seen this alluded to in previous years' threads
 
Law2Doc said:
Agreed. It's really just being nosy, and doesnt merit a change. It's a stretch to suggest this helps others because everyone and every programs decision process is based on very different factors. If you want to know where others you met on the interview trail ended up, email them. If they want you to know, they will tell you.
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Exactly. I have the emails/phone numbers/SDN names of friends I made on the trail. Can easily share match results with them
 
daptomycin said:
Is the location of our advanced match revealed to us if we need to scramble for a prelim spot? I've seen this alluded to in previous years' threads
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I believe not, although that would be very helpful.
 
smq123 said:
Actually, I think you can call the NRMP and ask. I don't think it is automatically revealed to you, though.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showpost.php?p=12041833&postcount=2
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showpost.php?p=4874491&postcount=3
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not sure of what happens in this situation but i have heard that if u did couples match and one matched and the other didn't, u can call nrmp to ask (though they still don't tell the specific program) so that the partner can try to scramble to unfilled positions in the same state/city. not sure what level of info they tell u (state/city) though i guess if ur partner only applied to one place in that location, they could guess where they matched. so there might be exceptions (at least partial info anyways), doesn't hurt to try and ask...they could just say, "sorry but no, we don't give out that info"
 
What if you match to a prelim surgery? Do you get to SOAP any advanced programs?
 
medicine12 said:
What if you match to a prelim surgery? Do you get to SOAP any advanced programs?
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Depends. If you only ranked prelims, no. If you ranked any advanced & didn't match, yes.
 
umz said:
Depends. If you only ranked prelims, no. If you ranked any advanced & didn't match, yes.
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I am ranking both and applying to multiple specialties too, so how can I tell if I matched to a one year prelim surgery or prelim medicine?

Also do you know what that list of "Programs accepting shared pairs" is? Under "My Reports" tab in the NRMP account. Thank you.
 
So who am I supposed to makeout with today? Or is that only on Friday?
 
digitlnoize said:
Right now, everything typically reads like a travel brochure. "You'll spend 4 weeks working with our world-renowned trauma service, where you will gain experience in a variety of settings." What that really means is, "you'll work 95 hours per week, but report 80 hours, dealing with penetrating traumas to patients with infectious diseases neither you nor the CDC have ever heard of, with little to no supervision.
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best post in this thread
 
Magician19 said:
Umz,Are u polish?
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Czech.

& johnnydrama: I personally called the NRMP and they told me that I had to make out with someone in my class that matched in the same city as me. They couldn't tell me what programs we matched to, but were able to tell me the city so that I could have an idea of who I should be making out with.
 
umz said:
Czech.

& johnnydrama: I personally called the NRMP and they told me that I had to make out with someone in my class that matched in the same city as me. They couldn't tell me what programs we matched to, but were able to tell me the city so that I could have an idea of who I should be making out with.
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So it's like a cross between new year's eve and musical chairs with a geographical component? Czech, I mean check.
 
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