SOAP 2021

[TheLoneWolf]

I did a partial repost in the anesthesia forum.

I hope this isnt against the rules mods as these questions are more of a general nature.

Know of a few anesthesia applicants this year with excellent scores 240+ on both steps, research, good letters who only had 1-2 interviews this year. Sounds like most applicants applied broad and went to most if not all their interview invites. This seems to be a common theme of this ERAS cycle, not just in the competitive specialties. Thoughts on what the SOAP will be like this year for applicants? Heard of MD/PHDs, real high scoring MD seniors getting interviews at new or IMG heavy programs as that's all they got this year. Sounds like a lot of IV hoarding with a lot of the uncertainty and virtual interviews. This season seems to be really weird overall and my guess is a lot more positions will go to the SOAP but match rates in SOAP are terrible overall given the results of the last few years. I wonder if they may change how interviewing and applying in the upcoming season will change in light of this season or will it be a return to preCOVID as most physicians and program staff would be vaccinated by the next application year.

Few specific questions if anyone knows the answers:

1) Any advantage to withdrawing from ERAS entirely and reapplying next year vs going for broke in the SOAP?

2) Does withdrawing from the match this year provide a "clean slate" with no prior history for the coming cycle?

3) Is going unmatched reported in next years ERAS cycle?

4) Does being unmatched hurt chances of matching next year or is it mostly time from graduation that matters? Any difference in trying SOAP, going unmatched vs withdrawing entirely and applying next year in terms of matching on 2nd attempt?

5) With all the uncertainty, any ideas of what will happen in the SOAP this year?

Would love to hear from PDs, admin, residents involved in the interview process, and current applicants. Any input appreciated.

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[NotAProgDirector]

Although there's lots of talk about interview hoarding and concern that a small number of candidates are all interviewing for the same spots, which will ultimately lead to lots of spots in SOAP. But all of this is based upon anecdote. You know of a few anesthesia candidates who seem to be having trouble -- but we have no idea if that type of thing happens every year. There is the press release from the AAMC, but it's vague and they aren't an unbiased observer. The one data set we have seen is from Thalamus, and it suggests that this year is minimally different from last. We have also seen the SF match, and the IM subspecialty match both complete with essentially unchanged results from prior years. So it's possible that the match will be a mess and the number of spots in SOAP will be much bigger, but also very possible it won't be any different.

As to what will happen next year, we don't even know what happened this year.

To answer your questions:

1. I don't think there's any value to pulling out this year. An applicant who got minimal invites this year isn't magically going to get more next year, and is also very unlikely to start getting "higher quality" invites. Purposefully not ranking places to see if something better arrives in SOAP? That sounds like a terrible idea. You'd be competing with all other unmatched Anesthesia applicants, plus perhaps people whom fail to match in Ortho, GS, vascular, etc. But you do you, let us know how it goes if you try this.

2. If you're asking whether programs can tell whether you "tried and didn't match" vs "just didn't apply at all", we can't. The NRMP would simply report that you have no prior matches. But being one year further from graduation may be a problem. Some schools will let you extend another year -- if so you would need to decide how to use that year, to either try to improve your application for anesthesia or redirect to another field.

3. Same answer as #2, no.

4. No difference.

5. No idea. I expect it will be exactly the same. There's always some random variation, and I expect that people will blame small random variations on COVID. But we will see.

 

[TheLoneWolf]

Thanks for the excellent response. Much appreciated.

 

[gutonc]

And, as is typical, NAPD has spoken and anything else said in this thread will be gibberish in comparison.

 

[GoSpursGo]

Know of a few anesthesia applicants this year with excellent scores 240+ on both steps, research, good letters who only had 1-2 interviews this year.

As usual, I agree with everything NAPD said, but will simply add that these applicants may well have had some hidden red flag in their application that they weren't exactly eager to share.

 

[manny23]

So, anybody scrambling?

 

[adjo]

I am going through for 2022. I cannot write anything in that post. what should I do?