Terrific description of the Match from a program director's point of view

[Elisabeth Kate]

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Found this during a search. It's from aProgramDirector (his/her handle).

Regarding your first question, a program does not know how the applicant has ranked it.

Regarding your second question, we only know where an applicant matches if we ranked her. In general, we do not know how an applicant has ranked us.

Here are a few illustrative examples:

1. Bob [generic name] comes to our program and professes his love. We like Bob. When it comes time to create our rank list, we rank Bob highly, at #18. There are a lot of applicants that we like better than Bob, but we like him a lot. In fact, given the average applicant competitiveness over the past years, we know that we generally dip down to #20-25, say, to fill our program completely. Therefore, we tell Bob "you have a pretty decent chance at matching here" because Bob will probably match at our program if he wants to come here. However, there is no absolute guarantee. (For example, there could be a freak spike in the desirability of our program, and that year we only have to go down to #10 to fill. Sucks to be Bob that year, but there's nothing we could do about it.) On Match Day, we find out that Bob matches to our program. Here is what we know and what we don't know:

• We know that Bob must have ranked us highly, at least high enough to match. We do not know whether Bob ranked us #1, #2, etc.
• Bob knows that we ranked him highly, at least high enough to match. If Bob becomes a PGY3 in our program and understands that, in a typical year, we usually dip down to #20 in our rank list to fully fill our program, then he knows that we probably ranked him within the top 20. But he does not know whether we ranked him #7 or whether we ranked him #16.

2. Carl [generic name] comes to our program and says 'I will be ranking you highly'. In several emails and phone calls he relays the impression that he will rank us #1. We like him too. A lot. When it comes time to create our rank list, we rank Carl as a top 10 candidate -- meaning that if he ranks us #1, then he is guaranteed to match here. On Match Day, we find that Carl has matched to MGH. Here is what we know and what we don't know:

• We know Carl did not rank us #1.
• We know that Carl ranked MGH ahead of us.
• We don't know where Carl ranked MGH (i.e., he could have ranked MGH #1, he could have ranked them #5).

3. Nancy [generic name] comes to our program for an interview. Her credentials were outstanding enough for us to offer her an interview. But when she comes on interview day, we realize that she is not a good fit for our program, for many, many reasons. In fact, we think she is such a poor fit that we would prefer to not rank her at all and have to scramble for another candidate rather than take her. However, the program director says, "I don't think we're going to have to scramble. But I'd be curious to see where she ends up. Let's put her in last on our rank list". During January and February, the program director receives several emails and phone calls from Nancy where she professes her love for our program and pledges her firstborn if she is able to match here. On Match Day, we find that Nancy has matched to Columbia. Here is what we know and what we don't know:

• We know that we ranked Nancy last on our list.
• We know that Columbia must have ranked Nancy fairly highly, at least enough for her to be able to match there. However, we do not know whether Columbia "ranked her to match". We really don't know anything else about how Columbia ranked her.
• We know that Nancy must have ranked Columbia highly, at least enough to match there. We don't know how Nancy ranked us -- we don't know whether she ranked us high or low. We don't even know whether she ranked us at all.

 

[IMPD]

Truf!

The last scenario is interesting. Ranking a candidate solely to find out where they match. Curiosity can get you in all sorts of pickles and in the event of a freak year, I would never do that.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

I don't really remember posting all of that. In any case, there's no need for the third scenario. PD's can look up where everyone matched after the match results are out.

 

[Elisabeth Kate]

I don't really remember posting all of that. In any case, there's no need for the third scenario. PD's can look up where everyone matched after the match results are out.

Oops, so sorry. You didn't post it. I was reading old posts about how the match works and I came across many of your posts, then found this one and thought it was from you as well. This post came from atsai3. Sorry, aPD.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/ind...plicant-has-ranked-them.790268/#post-10507072

But tagging on your post, even if you don't rank them, you can still find out where they matched?

 

[gutonc]

Oops, so sorry. You didn't post it. I was reading old posts about how the match works and I came across many of your posts, then found this one and thought it was from you as well. This post came from atsai3. Sorry, aPD.

And this is why we should link posts like this, not copy and paste.

 

[Elisabeth Kate]

And this is why we should link posts like this, not copy and paste.

It was a simple mistake and I apologized for it.

 

[maygrl110]

So does this mean if we interview at a place and truly think it's a good fit, plan to rank it 1st, that we shouldn't let the program know? Seems like a lot opportunity if you are sincere and not just saying it to your back up or number 10 rank.

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

So does this mean if we interview at a place and truly think it's a good fit, plan to rank it 1st, that we shouldn't let the program know? Seems like a lot opportunity if you are sincere and not just saying it to your back up or number 10 rank.

You can tell them. Just don't fool yourself into thinking it's going to do much good.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

It was a simple mistake and I apologized for it.

No problem.

But tagging on your post, even if you don't rank them, you can still find out where they matched?

Yes, sort of. I find out where everyone I ranked matched because I get that in a report. For anyone I didn't rank, I can look them up one at a time. It's no big deal for anyone, as mentioned in the initial thread you've posted, I don't lose any sleep over this. People promise me they are ranking me #1 then match elsewhere (when ranked high enough to match with me), and in the end I could care less. There are two options: 1) they changed their mind, which is fine with me; 2) they lied, at which point I'm happy they are elsewhere. I didn't change their position on our rank list because they told me they were ranking us #1, so it really doesn't matter at all.

So does this mean if we interview at a place and truly think it's a good fit, plan to rank it 1st, that we shouldn't let the program know? Seems like a lot opportunity if you are sincere and not just saying it to your back up or number 10 rank.

Not sure why you'd conclude this from the thread. In general, telling your #1 place is totally fine. There's some chance they won't really care, and some chance that they will. It can't really hurt you. Telling multiple places that you're ranking them #1 in a bid to "play the game" is simply slimy, probably won't help anyway, and could (but rarely) will come back to bite you.

 

[Ronin786]

Is there a benefit in having a known physician or your dean's office calling your number 1 and telling them they're #1? Is it generally assumed that they're more likely to tell the truth?

 

[mvenus929]

But tagging on your post, even if you don't rank them, you can still find out where they matched?

Most schools make their match lists public. If you know what school someone went to, finding out where they matched isn't a difficult task.

 

[Elisabeth Kate]

Most schools make their match lists public. If you know what school someone went to, finding out where they matched isn't a difficult task.

Not many schools post the students' name though. That I know of anyway.

 

[twright]

Is there a benefit in having a known physician or your dean's office calling your number 1 and telling them they're #1? Is it generally assumed that they're more likely to tell the truth?

Not really. Stuff like this only really tends to help if there is a personal connection between the caller and the one being called. For example, Bob from Boondock Medical School calls Mary who sits on our selection committee. At the next committee meeting Mary says, "oh yeah Bob called me about this one. When Bob says she was outstanding top 5 pct, that really means something. Because when I trained with him he was the biggest hardass out of my entire class of seniors, and he still is a hardass today".

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

Is there a benefit in having a known physician or your dean's office calling your number 1 and telling them they're #1? Is it generally assumed that they're more likely to tell the truth?

The PD at my med school would make these calls on people's behalf.

He always told us in his opinion they mattered perhaps a little, but not much. He said if there were two applicants he was having trouble deciding between, and he got a call about one of them but not the other, it might end up being a "tiebreaker" and move someone one spot up the rank list. But it's not going to take an otherwise marginal candidate and move them to the top of the list.