I spent:
1. 0 dollars for fancy clothes. Was planning on retailoring my med school IV clothes for in person IVs, but on the camera, it does not matter.
2. 200 bucks for lighting. SO is an amateur photographer so it was dual purpose. Definitely didn't need, but it made lighting a cinch.
3. 10 dollars for webcam, though good ones like the logitech 920 (iirc?), go for like 50 bucks. I used my phone and bought an app called droidcam. It was okay. I went with this because webcams that used to be 50 bucks at that point during covid were going for 200.
4. 50 bucks for a blue snowball microphone.
5. 200 bucks apple watch to monitor for emails. I had my pick of the scheduling slots, typically, with this and my SO helping monitor my email. I would recheck later in the day and all the slots would be booked out. It's not even always that they send out more IIs than slots. Even if they only send out the perfect amount, scheduling remains tight. If you're fitting 15 IVs within 1-2 months, you want to get to those IIs fast to secure optimal dates. As a couple-matcher, you'll be going on more IVs than other people.
I'd go with the same set up if i did it all over again.
6. $$ for 60 apps: 1.3k. I initially went with 30, but then a friend scared me into pumping that up to 60 the day of. I highly suggest over-applying. I had decent scores for neuro, 239, and an overall okay app. I got about 20 interview invites. 2 in my top 3 were from the panic add. Surprisingly, they were better places than the places I thought I was a shoo-in for, but got snubbed by. I do **not** regret spending those extra few hundred.
Bryan Carmody has a great piece on how pernicious this cycle of overapplications is, and I agree. But you're playing the game on a handicap if you don't over-apply as an applicant.
Other considerations this year:
Some places might switch back to in-person. Especially so since the NRMP survey showed that a decent majority of applicants indicated that they wanted in-person again. So plan to budget 3-4k if you need to fly everywhere.
If you're applying broadly and expect to be flying a lot, remember to schedule rotations with relaxed attendings. Ask upperclassmen what those rotations are.
