Questions regarding Away rotations

[cyanide12345678]

I've applied to 7 different programs for a 2 month slot for away rotations. I ended up getting an offer from my backup program which I wasn't too keen on, so my questions are:

1) How bad is it to accept something right now and then later decline if I get something better. Yes I understand that I likely won't be invited to an interview there after this. But is that really all that happens? I mean I can live without one interview.

2) Has anyone ever simply sent an email to the rotation coordinator and asked them what the probability of getting scheduled is? Would it be better if I sent an email to my top 4 programs and asked them if I'm likely to get scheduled? If I don't hear from them, then I can just take what I already have I guess.

Thank you all for your time 🙂

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[cyanide12345678]

Other concerns regarding the place I just got the acceptance from :

1) Some reviews on SDN are talking about some medical students having really bad experiences. I hadn't read all this information before.
2) 50% of patients are spanish speaking only. I don't speak spanish. I will be slow with an interpreter, and not as good as I can be. It will really make it difficult to shine with a language barrier with half of the patients. And I really want to shine at my away rotation.

 

[Porfirio]

I've applied to 7 different programs for a 2 month slot for away rotations. I ended up getting an offer from my backup program which I wasn't too keen on, so my questions are:

1) How bad is it to accept something right now and then later decline if I get something better. Yes I understand that I likely won't be invited to an interview there after this. But is that really all that happens? I mean I can live without one interview.

2) Has anyone ever simply sent an email to the rotation coordinator and asked them what the probability of getting scheduled is? Would it be better if I sent an email to my top 4 programs and asked them if I'm likely to get scheduled? If I don't hear from them, then I can just take what I already have I guess.

Thank you all for your time 🙂

If you are willing to accept the possibility of not interviewing there, what does it matter? Most programs that I have applied for allow you to decline the away rotation as long as you give 1 month advanced notice. Many of the programs that I have seen do not like students contacting them to ask them about the probability of getting a rotation there. What I did to get around this was contact a faculty member at my school that knew of someone at the program, and I asked them to put in a good word for me with the program. All of the faculty members that I contacted ended up putting in a good word for me. So far, nothing has happened, but it could be too soon to tell.

 

[Donald Juan]

I haven't gone through it yet myself, but from talking to people that have I've gotten the impression that this is a common thing. Many people apply to multiple places for the same time frame and you can only ultimately go to one. I don't think it looks terrible as long as you let them know within a month or whatever their deadline is.

 

[cyanide12345678]

Thanks for your responses guys. Just got a second away invitation today from Cinci before I accepted my first offer. Now I can go ahead and withdraw from everything else. Good luck guys.