Second look at a residency

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Extralong

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I'm very interested in a certain program, and was wondering how to go about staying for a second day after the interview for a second look.

Do I request it at the end of the interview day, or email ahead of time? Do I talk to the PC and/or PD? Does the program/residents/attendings think your a jack-a** for bothering them? And what actually happens on the second look?

If anyone can give me advice, or if they have experiences to share, or if they have done this before and know what to do, that would be great.

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I'm very interested in a certain program, and was wondering how to go about staying for a second day after the interview for a second look.

Do I request it at the end of the interview day, or email ahead of time? Do I talk to the PC and/or PD? Does the program/residents/attendings think your a jack-a** for bothering them? And what actually happens on the second look?

If anyone can give me advice, or if they have experiences to share, or if they have done this before and know what to do, that would be great.

Request ahead of time so that the program director/program coordinator have time to prepare an itinerary.

Send your request to the PC who can forward it to the PD.

Sometimes residents get annoyed if they have to spend additional time with you (e.g., taking you out to lunch). (What else would you expect? Residents are busy people.)

Second look can be anything you want it to be. If you want to meet with specific research supervisors, or if you want to round with the inpatient team at hospital X, you can do whatever you want. Doesn't hurt to ask.
 
I'm very interested in a certain program, and was wondering how to go about staying for a second day after the interview for a second look.
What are you second looking for?

You need to be specific to ask for a second look. As atsai3 says, if you're looking to speak to some researchers in your field of interest or somesuch, you're fine. If you just ask to hang around and talk to more residents, it might raise the issue of why you couldn't get what you needed out of the interview day.
 
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I took one second look and it was during the new years holiday and the only purpose I had for it was to show my wife the city at the residency I wanted to be at. So once I knew I could work out the visit I just emailed the PD and told him that I was coming because of how much I loved the program and wanted to show the city off to my wife. I made mention that I knew it was a holiday and did not expect them to go out of their way to see me since it was a busy time of year but I did ask that they provide me a list of good restaurants. :laugh:

As the previous posters mentioned, second looks rarely are a make or break type of deal with a program ranking you as long as you shined on your interview day and showed follow-up interest. Only do the second look if you have a specific goal for it and try to work around their schedule to in arranging time with staff.
 
Don't waste your time with second looks. More importantly, don't waste your money with them.
 
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