Regional Bias

[Newt23]

Hey all,

I am an average ophtho applicant from a lesser known school from the South. I know there are strong regional biases in the match. So my question is...how to combat them.

Do you away rotation in random areas of the country work? What else can one do in order to not be pigeonholed in a particular region?

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[Eye Applicant]

An away outside your region could be a good idea. I only did one away rotation in the next state over, applied very broadly, and received multiple interviews in every single region of the country. We'll see where I match.

 

[medphysik2015]

Don't just do any away rotation. Try to find an away rotation with some sort of connection to where you want to go. Maybe there is a faculty member who went where you would like to go or was faculty there. Also, you might want to talk to people about their away rotation experiences. On some aways it can be hard to reach out to faculty for letters.

 

[DrZeke]

Hey all,

I am an average ophtho applicant from a lesser known school from the South. I know there are strong regional biases in the match. So my question is...how to combat them.

Do you away rotation in random areas of the country work? What else can one do in order to not be pigeonholed in a particular region?

If you're competitive, like really that top echelon, I don't think there's much regional bias. If you're average or below, an away can help.

 

[medphysik2015]

My app is competitive, if not top-echelon. I am from Texas and I only received non-regional invites where my letter writers had connections which is not really a bad thing b/c Texas is a great place in my opinion. Tons better than many of the post-industrial rust belt states. Texas hubris aside, the process is essentially random.

 

[elementals]

For what it's worth, where you originally come from seems to play a role too -- and maybe even a bigger role than where your med school is, if it's in a different region. I'm from California, grew up there, went to school there, and then went out of state to a mid-tier Midwest med school. Overall app is competitive, but definitely not a superstar. I ended up with interview invites at 6 out of 9 west coast schools I applied to. My ratio elsewhere, including the midwest, was actually much lower.

 

[Newt23]

So I hope to set up aways in different regions in order to "show interest" in going outside of the south. My question is how late in the year will these rotations show up to schools? For instance, I can do one in Aug-Sept. Will programs see this rotation as they are evaluating me for an interview?

I don't want to do an away in a region that I am interested in only to realize that the programs don't even know that I did the away in their region. I hope that makes sense...any thoughts?

 

[ophthomed12]

So I hope to set up aways in different regions in order to "show interest" in going outside of the south. My question is how late in the year will these rotations show up to schools? For instance, I can do one in Aug-Sept. Will programs see this rotation as they are evaluating me for an interview?

I don't want to do an away in a region that I am interested in only to realize that the programs don't even know that I did the away in their region. I hope that makes sense...any thoughts?

No, this strategy doesn't really work. I tried it, a few others I know tried it, and it was a waste of time. It usually gives you better chances to interview/match at the program you rotated at but other programs don't pay attention to it. Why? Because about the only place you can put you rotated somewhere is typing it in somewhere on your application. It'll be one small line on your 5+ page application. Most programs probably will not even notice or care about it. And if a program in that same area notices it, then they'll wonder why you didn't choose them.

Here are the only ways to break regional bias:
1) Your school has connections to programs in other regions

2) Your letters of rec having connections to other programs in other area regions. Basically the same as #1

3) You have personal ties to that other region. You have family there or grew up there etc. If this is the case, you better contact the program very early on and tell them because it's difficult to convey this on a generic application being sent across the country. I tried this to one program, but it was very late in the game and they told me I should have told them earlier because now all interviews were already filled. I suppose if it was crazy important to me then I could pushed harder and maybe they would have squeezed me in anyway, but it wasn't crazy important to me lol.

4) Not nearly as effective as 1 and 2, but this is better than nothing. Contact programs after you applied to show extra interest. Being in contact with that program during the interview season is the way you get the fill-ins for last minute interview cancellations. Unfortunately, everyone is NOT the same at the interview stage and programs definitely prerank you before the interview. They will probably rank you at the bottom since you're a fill in, but depending on how things go that year for that program, you could end up matching there. The chances are definitely worse than the places who invite you to interview on their own, though. So don't cancel too many other interviews for last minute interviews at better programs or do so at your own risk. The whole matching process is a lot more subjective than most realize so good luck. I mean, how big of a difference is an average ophtho applicant compared to a top notch one? Not huge since the average applicant is at least in the top quartile of all med students already. If you need to be more competitive, do a research year at a well known program or if you're fortunate to already to go to a school with a great ophtho program then do tons of research during school. Research trumps all. I've heard Step 1s of 220s at top tier programs since they have tons of research.

 

[elementals]

I partially agree with ophthomed. As mentioned, I'm from a midwest med school, but originally from California. I rotated both on the west coast and the east in hopes of sending the signal that I was willing to go wherever. It was definitely brought up/looked favorably upon by the west coast schools, but it was just one more piece in the puzzle of "this is a west coaster looking to come back." The east coast, where I had absolutely no ties, didn't give me much love at all despite my best attempts.

 

[ophthomed12]

I partially agree with ophthomed. As mentioned, I'm from a midwest med school, but originally from California. I rotated both on the west coast and the east in hopes of sending the signal that I was willing to go wherever. It was definitely brought up/looked favorably upon by the west coast schools, but it was just one more piece in the puzzle of "this is a west coaster looking to come back." The east coast, where I had absolutely no ties, didn't give me much love at all despite my best attempts.

Good point. I added this to my post. This is basically another way of saying you need to have connections/ties to the other region . The overall message is if you have no connections/ties, then about the only thing you can do is trying to email other programs which is much lower yield so good luck with that. Doing a rotation in an area of which you have no ties is not worth the time and money since it doesn't really help much. Sending emails is free and wastes little time haha.

 

[Cornbread]

I'm a fourth year student attending a southern cal med school, and was looking to get back to the Southeast. I'm from Nashville. I found it frustrating that the SF match application did not give me too much room to communicate where I was from. To the best of my knowledge, there were only two regional indicators on my entire application:

1. I did an away rotation at UAB, and said so under the "specialty electives" section of the application.

2. My application showed that I did undergrad school in Tennessee

With ONLY these two indicators, I received the majority of my interview invites from the Southeast. Its still a mystery to me. Of course, I was more than happy with this turn of events. I applied to 65 schools all over the country, but I made sure to especially target the southeastern schools I was interested in.

So, I suppose my advice would be to do an away in a region that you want to end up in, making sure that the school you do an away at is a school you are HIGHLY interested in, AND that its a school that isn't completely out of your league.

Best of luck

 

[DrZeke]

I'm a fourth year student attending a southern cal med school, and was looking to get back to the Southeast. I'm from Nashville. I found it frustrating that the SF match application did not give me too much room to communicate where I was from. To the best of my knowledge, there were only two regional indicators on my entire application:

1. I did an away rotation at UAB, and said so under the "specialty electives" section of the application.

2. My application showed that I did undergrad school in Tennessee

With ONLY these two indicators, I received the majority of my interview invites from the Southeast. Its still a mystery to me. Of course, I was more than happy with this turn of events. I applied to 65 schools all over the country, but I made sure to especially target the southeastern schools I was interested in.

So, I suppose my advice would be to do an away in a region that you want to end up in, making sure that the school you do an away at is a school you are HIGHLY interested in, AND that its a school that isn't completely out of your league.

Best of luck

For what it's worth... My state of residence was Florida, but it's not where I was born or grew up. On every interview everyone was like "oh you're from Florida..." because of my permanent address. Also, I got love from Florida and a few southeast programs. I noticed some more competitive applicants than me whose permanent address was in the northeast got no interviews in Florida...

So, I think where you went to college, med school or obvious family ties/address definitely play in...