Obviously I know this depends on the strength of the applicant and where they are interviewing, but how many TYs in general should I aim for? I currently have 5 TY interviews scheduled, but mostly all of them are very competitive (based on cushiness and location). I'm still waiting on one more TY that hasn't sent out invites yet, so hopefully that will bring my number to 6. I will also interview at around 4-5 prelim med programs, but I REALLY don't want to match into prelim med. I've interviewed at 2 TY programs thus far and the other applicants seemed like they were all extremely competitive (based on informal conversation, obviously I don't know their numbers). My stats are 252 step 1, 268 step 2, AOA, and around 6 radiology pubs/presentations. I wish I would have applied to more TYs in retrospect, I'm more worried about my PGY-1 match than my rads match...
Safe # of TY Interviews to Match?
- Thread starter onyx667
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Does anyone have TY stats from 2011? The ones from 2009 seem a bit off. Just ~300 folks applying to TY programs that year? Only a handful of people ranking more than 5 programs? Would love to see the 2011 stats if someone has them! Thanksss.
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Charting Outcomes didn't publish the TY stats in their 2011 edition. But I do agree with you, the 2009 stats seemed odd. It must be because it's "contiguous" ranks. i.e. the number of spots as TY before ranking something else. It's not at all uncommon to make a rank list that looks like:
1. Cush TY in your area
2. Not so cush TY in your area
3. Reasonably cush prelim med in your area
4. Cush TY outside your area
and so on, but it will only look like 2 contiguous TY ranks for the outcomes data.
Also, that 300 (SPARTA!) number is based on those who ranked TY #1. So if you ranked TY programs, but ranked prelim med first, you also weren't counted and instead counted as a member of the prelim med group. I suspect all these glitches in their counting methods is what led to not including TY in their current data.
1. Cush TY in your area
2. Not so cush TY in your area
3. Reasonably cush prelim med in your area
4. Cush TY outside your area
and so on, but it will only look like 2 contiguous TY ranks for the outcomes data.
Also, that 300 (SPARTA!) number is based on those who ranked TY #1. So if you ranked TY programs, but ranked prelim med first, you also weren't counted and instead counted as a member of the prelim med group. I suspect all these glitches in their counting methods is what led to not including TY in their current data.
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There are definitely many prelim surgery programs that can be much better places to end up at than many prelim medicine places (sometimes even within the same hospital) so I'm not sure you want to lump them all equally, although on average a prelim surgery spot will be more brutal than prelim medicine. But sone of the prelim medicine places are pretty brutal to their one year rentals. As for how many TY you need to rank to be safe, there really isn't a magic number. You are competing with folks with equivalent stats to yourself and in this game of musical chairs, someone is not going to get a chair and is going to end up forced to do a prelim year -- with only five options, each taking only a small handful of people that could easily be you.It is always impressive how many folks going into uber competitive advanced specialties are out there each year scrambling for prelim spots, and focusing on too few TY places is likely a big cause. I would go higher than whatever the "conventional wisdom" is because any average means about half of all people don't fare as well.
