Several kids in your class going to same competitive specialty

[jimmyd1]

---

Members don't see this ad.

I am a MS III at a southern MD state school. If you are going into a competitive specialty, like uro, ent, or ortho, how much does it matter the number of kids in your class also applying for the same specialty? Especially if you think you are probably the 4th or 5th best candidate of say 7 or 8. Ive looked at several of my schools prior matches and there seems to be a major region bias, so i am worried certain residency programs won't give out more than 3 interviews to candidates from the same school. I have good grades and good board scores. I understand top tier schools can match 10 ortho kids, but I'm not at a powerhouse school. Is this a reasonable concern?

 

[VincentAdultman]

I am a MS III at a southern MD state school. If you are going into a competitive specialty, like uro, ent, or ortho, how much does it matter the number of kids in your class also applying for the same specialty? Especially if you think you are probably the 4th or 5th best candidate of say 7 or 8. Ive looked at several of my schools prior matches and there seems to be a major region bias, so i am worried certain residency programs won't give out more than 3 interviews to candidates from the same school. I have good grades and good board scores. I understand top tier schools can match 10 ortho kids, but I'm not at a powerhouse school. Is this a reasonable concern?

My very much not top tier school matched 12 into ortho, so it probably doesn't matter much.

 

[Mad Jack]

I am a MS III at a southern MD state school. If you are going into a competitive specialty, like uro, ent, or ortho, how much does it matter the number of kids in your class also applying for the same specialty? Especially if you think you are probably the 4th or 5th best candidate of say 7 or 8. Ive looked at several of my schools prior matches and there seems to be a major region bias, so i am worried certain residency programs won't give out more than 3 interviews to candidates from the same school. I have good grades and good board scores. I understand top tier schools can match 10 ortho kids, but I'm not at a powerhouse school. Is this a reasonable concern?

Doesn't affect things.

 

[J ROD]

Stats are stats. Also, apply broad enough. I know several that were too confident.

 

[masaraksh]

Thats good to hear. I'm applying ortho and know the other applicants from our school. Its kinda stressful cuz like they're all AOA, hardworking, accomplished etc.

 

[Osteoth]

I've heard that on the interview trail its about the demographic pull from your school tool. Like they're probably not going to take two white guys from school X, but they might take a white guy and a transgender latina or something. I have no idea if what I just said is PC or not so someone verify...

 

[Lexdiamondz]

I've heard that on the interview trail its about the demographic pull from your school tool. Like they're probably not going to take two white guys from school X, but they might take a white guy and a transgender latina or something. I have no idea if what I just said is PC or not so someone verify...

You're not wrong.

There is some level of cannibalisation that happens when too many people from the same school apply in the same specialty in the same region. But it's usually not the end of the world unless you were a marginal candidate to begin with.

 

[guytakingboards]

Another thing to consider is that if everyone asks for LOR's from the same people, they 'can' end up being blah letters.

My program probably had 6-8 people from the same regional med school in our first 3 weeks of interviews, they all got the same chairman's letter which were for the most part generic and not super helpful to any applicant.

Let's be honest, for the most part letter writers have a form letter that they modify for each person.

 

[Donald Juan]

I don't think this makes a difference, you will be a good candidate or a marginal candidate rather or not there is 2 or 10 people applying to a specialty. Usually when a small school suddenly has one class having 12 people apply to derm, there will probably be some unmatched candidates because some of them are likely being unrealistic. Also, realize that while applicants A and B from your school might be heads and tails above you, they can each only take 1 spot at a program. Your chances are only truly hurt if the overall applicant pool is exceptionally higher than usual.

 

[ERDOC555]

It's ridiculous to think this doesn't/wouldn't make a difference, unless you're applying from a top school.

Put yourself in the program director's position. You have 5 spots, 500 applications, and 50 interviews to give out. Do you really think that a program is going to interview more than 1-2 kids from the same school? Interviews are a zero-sum game, for everyone 1 person you invite you can't invite someone else. No one is going to allocate a heavy % of their scarce interview invites to get a bunch of kids from a random midtier. There's just no gain or reason for them to do that.

I've seen this in action at my school the past few years. They'll have massive #s of applicants apply lets say Derm/Ortho/Plastics/ENT depending on the year, and the match % is horrific. Let's pretend its 10 applicants to ortho. Typically the top 2-3 (High 250s, great research, AOA, etc) applicants get 10 interviews, then all the regulars (250s, some research, +/- AOA) get split pretty terribly and get maybe 4-6 interviews, and the remaining poor applicants get almost no interviews except for home and aways. The top applicants almost always match and about half the good ones match, and the bottom of the pack almost never match. Match rates vary (I'm estimating) at my school between 33%-75% overall by year and specialty.

Also when I talk to upperclassmen, last cycle and this one, almost no one has gotten duplicate interviews that aren't in the same state or very close by. I knew two exceptional candidates that matched a competitive specialty and each one had 8-10 interviews and even then, the only overlap was the home program. Also almost all of the average candidates who apply match at a home or away.

So yes, if you have high numbers like 20 people applying ortho, 15 derm, 1o plastics, 6 vascular, etc it just won't be good overall (unless you're Harvard Medical School) as you're splitting the interviews between a bunch of homogeneous candidates.

 

[masaraksh]

It's ridiculous to think this doesn't/wouldn't make a difference, unless you're applying from a top school.

Put yourself in the program director's position. You have 5 spots, 500 applications, and 50 interviews to give out. Do you really think that a program is going to interview more than 1-2 kids from the same school? Interviews are a zero-sum game, for everyone 1 person you invite you can't invite someone else. No one is going to allocate a heavy % of their scarce interview invites to get a bunch of kids from a random midtier. There's just no gain or reason for them to do that.

I've seen this in action at my school the past few years. They'll have massive #s of applicants apply lets say Derm/Ortho/Plastics/ENT depending on the year, and the match % is horrific. Let's pretend its 10 applicants to ortho. Typically the top 2-3 (High 250s, great research, AOA, etc) applicants get 10 interviews, then all the regulars (250s, some research, +/- AOA) get split pretty terribly and get maybe 4-6 interviews, and the remaining poor applicants get almost no interviews except for home and aways. The top applicants almost always match and about half the good ones match, and the bottom of the pack almost never match. Match rates vary (I'm estimating) at my school between 33%-75% overall by year and specialty.

Also when I talk to upperclassmen, last cycle and this one, almost no one has gotten duplicate interviews that aren't in the same state or very close by. I knew two exceptional candidates that matched a competitive specialty and each one had 8-10 interviews and even then, the only overlap was the home program. Also almost all of the average candidates who apply match at a home or away.

So yes, if you have high numbers like 20 people applying ortho, 15 derm, 1o plastics, 6 vascular, etc it just won't be good overall (unless you're Harvard Medical School) as you're splitting the interviews between a bunch of homogeneous candidates.

Ya this makes a lot of sense. I'm applying ortho this year and there are a total of 3 of us in my class. However, even then, all of us are AOA and like have probably reasonably strong resumes which makes this stressful since I'm sure we're competing against one another in the PDs pile. I can't imaging what it would be like if it was 10 ppl in our class applying.


8-10 interviews for ortho is good?! That is not a lot :/

 

[ERDOC555]

Ya this makes a lot of sense. I'm applying ortho this year and there are a total of 3 of us in my class. However, even then, all of us are AOA and like have probably reasonably strong resumes which makes this stressful since I'm sure we're competing against one another in the PDs pile. I can't imaging what it would be like if it was 10 ppl in our class applying.


8-10 interviews for ortho is good?! That is not a lot :/

Sorry, I wasn't being super specific since I don't know each specialty inside and out,that was just an example and estimate, it looks like 12 interviews has a 90% match rate for ortho, for derm it's 9.

I can see why you're stressed, but 3 is not a bad number at all, especially since it seems like all three are objectively solid. If you think about it there are roughly 140ish med schools and 700 ortho spots, so if all schools were the same size, each school should theoretically match 5 students into ortho. So unless you have a super small class size, only 3 people applying is actually on the lower end.

 

[VincentAdultman]

Ya this makes a lot of sense. I'm applying ortho this year and there are a total of 3 of us in my class. However, even then, all of us are AOA and like have probably reasonably strong resumes which makes this stressful since I'm sure we're competing against one another in the PDs pile. I can't imaging what it would be like if it was 10 ppl in our class applying.


8-10 interviews for ortho is good?! That is not a lot :/

LOL in my class we had 18.

 

[Osteoth]

LOL in my class we had 18.

Woah.

 

[libertyyne]

I think this fear is overblown. There are a few major assumptions that are problematic.
1. PDs want geographically diverse students. Do they ? Why would they accept another student from the same school if they have PGY2-7 from a that school already ?
2. Would entail PD's take greater risk than is necessary, they know certain schools, they know the quality of their students and have relationships with the home program directors who are writing letters of rec-This is a reason why they have students from the same school as PGY2+.
3. Completely ignores the fact that there is massive variation in class sizes . 5 people out of a class of 50 is 10% of the class why is it suddenly problematic that 15 people out of a class of 300 are applying?

 

[ERDOC555]

Woah.

(Unconfirmed) rumor has it that 20+ people are applying ortho from UT Southwestern this year. If that's actually true it should be interesting to see how they do, especially since it's a pretty prestigious school.

It would be interesting to see if other Texas or regional medical schools have a less successful ortho match than prior years if this is true.

 

[VincentAdultman]

Woah.

Huge class to be fair.

 

[TypeADissection]

There had to be at least 10 kids from my class that matched ortho (3 were good friends of mine) and at least 2-3 matching into NS, ENT, Uro and derm. I don't think it really matters if you're a well-qualified applicant. Our school is pretty good about screening everyone in the middle of 3rd year so that people aren't wasting their time and money if a certain field is a long shot.

 

[Osteoth]

I think this fear is overblown. There are a few major assumptions that are problematic.
1. PDs want geographically diverse students. Do they ? Why would they accept another student from the same school if they have PGY2-7 from a that school already ?
2. Would entail PD's take greater risk than is necessary, they know certain schools, they know the quality of their students and have relationships with the home program directors who are writing letters of rec-This is a reason why they have students from the same school as PGY2+.
3. Completely ignores the fact that there is massive variation in class sizes . 5 people out of a class of 50 is 10% of the class why is it suddenly problematic that 15 people out of a class of 300 are applying?

I have to imagine though that unless its an uber program or the PD has a relationship with the PD somewhere else that they'd want to take the same kids over and over and show favoritism toward any program. Other programs could do the same their kids.

(Unconfirmed) rumor has it that 20+ people are applying ortho from UT Southwestern this year. If that's actually true it should be interesting to see how they do, especially since it's a pretty prestigious school.

It would be interesting to see if other Texas or regional medical schools have a less successful ortho match than prior years if this is true.

Yeah the south is very interesting to me in terms of programs because it seems like there are a couple good, nationally known schools (UTSW, Baylor) and then a bunch of more regional/state schools that seem to keep their own. Going to be interesting for sure.

Huge class to be fair.

I want to ask how big but I also realize that can be semi-identifying...

 

[VincentAdultman]

I want to ask how big but I also realize that can be semi-identifying...

250. I've mentioned my school here before.

 

[Osteoth]

250. I've mentioned my school here before.

Oh thats not as high as I'd expect.