rejecting an away elective, a bad idea?

[DermPlease]

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So I applied to more schools than I needed for away electives, thinking that I would need a good cushion... Unfortunately (or fortunately), every program offered me a spot, a total of four. I only have time to do three aways. So here comes the difficult decision of rejecting one offer.

Does anybody know if this negatively impacts my shot at getting an interview/matching? Meaning if I don't take the offer from school A, will the school A not offer me an interview down the road?

Totally understand this will be an anecdotal kind of advice. But I would really appreciate any advice. Thank you!!!!!

 

[vicinihil]

You're in a good spot. Unless you've accepted their offer, the actual department rarely keeps track of people who are just accepted. The acceptance is usually on a first come first serve basis and done through the school's registrar or medical education office and not through the department itself.

Even when I went to my aways, they were not expecting an away rotator. So from that, I'm guessing they barely know you're coming even after you've accepted the rotation.

Bottom-line: If you haven't formally accepted it yet, in most situations, no one in the dept will know and therefore NOT negatively impact your chances of matching.

 

[JustSomePreMed]

I'm actually in a nearly identical situation to the OP.

I applied to a large handful of aways (for two different months). I got an acceptance to a large top program (~top 5) as my second away rotation (School A), and thought "awesome." There's another program (School B) that's a little smaller/newer that I might be more interested in for residency than School A. School A is highly research driven and a great program, so of course there's that to consider; however, it'll be late enough in the cycle that the rotation will not be for the purpose of obtaining a letter (and it really shouldn't be anyway), so at that point the purpose of the elective should mostly be about me trying to evaluate a potential program, and trying to get to know them so that I will hopefully receive an interview from them, yes? In that case, it seems like it would make more sense to go to School B, especially since I'm not necessarily a research workhorse and probably wouldn't get a ton of consideration for an interview there at School A (at least that's how I see it).

So, I had an accepted spot at School A, then I guess I forgot to withdraw other applications (and part of me maybe was hoping School B would finally offer me a spot), and sure enough School B offered me a spot for the same month as school A. So now I'm kind of torn . . .

 

[vicinihil]

Rejecting school A after accepting them will probably only hurt your application at school A. If you weren't planning on going there anyway, I don't see why it matters what school A thinks of you. They won't circulate hate-mail because, just to be honest, we aren't important enough for them to really care.

You should go to the school you REALLY want and not the school you think will look sexy on an application because it doesn't mean jack unless you get a LOR.

 

[DermPlease]

You're in a good spot. Unless you've accepted their offer, the actual department rarely keeps track of people who are just accepted. The acceptance is usually on a first come first serve basis and done through the school's registrar or medical education office and not through the department itself.

Even when I went to my aways, they were not expecting an away rotator. So from that, I'm guessing they barely know you're coming even after you've accepted the rotation.

Bottom-line: If you haven't formally accepted it yet, in most situations, no one in the dept will know and therefore NOT negatively impact your chances of matching.

That makes me feel a little better. I haven't yet accepted their offer yet, thank goodness.