Real shot at residency wherever you interview?

[WorriedRes]

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I had a PD tell me that I do not necessarily have a legitimate shot at some places, even if they have offered me an interview. I respect the guy, but I'm still surprised to hear it.

Do programs really interview applicants that may not have a legitimate shot at their program?

 

[Bartelby]

Your home program might offer you a courtesy interview with no real intent of taking you. Otherwise I think you have a shot. However, getting the interview does not put you on equal footing with more accomplished applicants, so if you are on the less competitive end for your specialty you should apply widely and assume that your chance at each interview is lower than a very competitive applicant's would be.

 

[OveractiveBrain]

I had a PD tell me that I do not necessarily have a legitimate shot at some places, even if they have offered me an interview. I respect the guy, but I'm still surprised to hear it.

Do programs really interview applicants that may not have a legitimate shot at their program?

I can most certainly say that, unless you are a terrible human being, try to sleep with the PD's wife, or get arrested for prostitution DURING your interview, you will be on the rank list. The point is, only EXTREME circumstances get you "not ranked."

That being said, most programs interview for 5-10 times the number of slots they have. 30 spots, 300 interviews. 5 spots, 25-50 interviews. 5 being the usual, 10 being probably too many. What that means is that if you are in that bottom 5x, you are not likely to match in that program. People who are in the top 1x are guarenteed acceptance, people in the 3x range will more than likely get in, and people in the 5x generally do not.

So... "you don't have a shot necessarily" means that you interviewed, but ended up in the 5x slot on their rank list. Possible? Certainly. Worrisome? Nah. The point is that if you manage to get a UCSF interview, but then all your others are community programs or second-tier categoricals, you're probably going to be UCSF's 5x. If you get Duke, Yale, Harvard, Hopkins, Wash U, and UCSF... you're 1x on those community programs and probably 3x on the big dogs. Translation: the more quality programs you apply to, the more likely you will have a spot higher up on multiple rank lists.

Make sense?

 

[airplanes]

Makes sense, but I think the question is more along the lines of:

Once an average applicant receives an interview, are most applicants at a given interview day on equal footing? This would assume the interviews then becoming all important and stats/LORs etc are neutralized. Or is reality more like highest achievers still have a clear advantage, even if they interview okay and the average applicant well.

The answer is probably somewhere in the middle, and program specific.

 

[mimelim]

Makes sense, but I think the question is more along the lines of:

Once an average applicant receives an interview, are most applicants at a given interview day on equal footing? This would assume the interviews then becoming all important and stats/LORs etc are neutralized. Or is reality more like highest achievers still have a clear advantage, even if they interview okay and the average applicant well.

The answer is probably somewhere in the middle, and program specific.

People are not on the same footing just because they are interviewing. That would just be silly. If you are a weaker applicant on paper, you have more ground to make up on interview day.

As previously stated, it is hard to not get ranked. But, considering the number of residents applying to certain slots, just being ranked doesn't mean much. I think this primarily applies to people that get courtesy interviews. If you get an interview based only on your relationship with an institution either home, place you did an away, place you did research etc. you really don't have much of a chance to match there.

 

[airplanes]

And I completely agree.

 

[C5toC9]

sucks to be given courtesy interview if you have no real shot of landing there

 

[Law2Doc]

People are not on the same footing just because they are interviewing. That would just be silly...

Nor really. actually the equal footing approach is extremely common. Programs don't interview the "weaker applicants". They get 1000 applications for 10 spots, interview the strongest 100, and for the most part rank them the way they like them. If you are in the 10% who the program deems worthy of interviewing, you have already made the on paper cut, so there isn't a great reason to revisit that. THAT would be silly.

The interview, and how you are regarded by the residents, and who you networked with, etc are thus extremely important. Whether you made the interview cut with a 235 versus a 250 on your Step 1, not so much.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

I'm going to agree with most of the opinions on this thread.

Other than your home program, there's no such thing as a courtesy interview. If a program interviews you, then they are at least somewhat interested in you. It's a waste of my time to interview people in whom we have no interest -- so that basically won't happen. The exceptions:

1. Home program -- some programs interview all internal candidates, even those they have no interest in ranking. Whether this is good or bad depends on your point of view. Sometimes programs will interview internal candidates early -- this gives them a "practice interview" at least.

2. Away rotation during recruiting season -- some programs will interview external rotators if they happen to be doing so during interview season. Programs may want external rotators to think well of them, and getting a rejection while you're actually at a place is kinda a downer.

Remember that getting an interview at your home program or as an external rotator may mean that they are very interested in you also!

As mentioned above, just because you get an interview doesn't "level the playing field". I think it's fair to say that you come in on equal footing with others with your same level of performance, and your interview will help rank you within that group. Each program is different.

It's not quite as hard to get unranked as suggested above. Most programs will rank 95%+ of those they interview, but we remove people from the rank list if concerns are raised in the interview process. We've removed people for hitting on residents at the dinner the night beforehand, poor interpersonal skills during the interview day, falling asleep during the interview day, and all sorts of things like that.

However, all is not lost if something untoward happens during your interview day. I fell asleep at the end of morning report at my #1 (was so nervous I couldn't sleep the night beforehand), was interviewed by the chief resident whom I was certain had noticed, and still matched there.