Thank you notes from residencies?

[tridoc13]

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Hi, folks! Just got back from a month of interviewing and a week of vacation to find 7 notes of thanks from different residency programs and people whom I had interviewed with, along with several e.mails from residency directors and coordinators thanking me for coming to see them and asking me to rank them number 1. Is this pretty typical (or kosher with regard to the ranking requests)? I know that we're supposed to send thank you notes and took part of my vacation week to write mine but they're not even in the mail yet. I haven't had a chance to talk to any my friends at school since I've been away but just thought I'd see what your experiences have been. I was just surprised since I didn't know if this was a typical part of the whole process or not. Thanks, and Happy Holidays!

tridoc13

 

[southerndoc]

Hi, folks! Just got back from a month of interviewing and a week of vacation to find 7 notes of thanks from different residency programs and people whom I had interviewed with, along with several e.mails from residency directors and coordinators thanking me for coming to see them and asking me to rank them number 1. Is this pretty typical (or kosher with regards to the ranking requests)? I know that we're supposed to send thank you notes and took part of my vacation week to write mine but they're not even in the mail yet. I haven't had a chance to talk to any my friends at school since I've been away but just thought I'd see what your experiences have been. I was just surprised since I didn't know if this was a typical part of the whole process or not. Thanks, and Happy Holidays!

tridoc13

They can write thank you notes and request that you rank them highly, but they cannot ask you how you ranked them. They also cannot make any promises to you that you will match there.

This is why I'm so adamant about writing thank you letters to program directors AND your interviewers. The program is thanking you for interviewing. You can at least thank them for interviewing you out of probably five times more number of applicants.

(The program that doesn't thank you for interviewing shouldn't be ranked in my opinion. Every program director should thank you for interviewing since you are spending a lot of time and money traveling to their program.)

 

[robotsonic]

The program that doesn't thank you for interviewing shouldn't be ranked in my opinion. Every program director should thank you for interviewing since you are spending a lot of time and money traveling to their program.

Uh oh. I haven't received *any* thank you notes or emails from any of the programs at which I have interviewed. 🙁 I know I'm not the best applicant out there, but I didn't think I sucked that much. ****.

 

[southerndoc]

Uh oh. I haven't received *any* thank you notes or emails from any of the programs at which I have interviewed. 🙁 I know I'm not the best applicant out there, but I didn't think I sucked that much. ****.

Don't fret it. A lot of programs -- mainly clustered in certain specialties -- don't have the decency to send out thank you letters.

I received the majority of my thank you letters after the new year.

 

[GiJoe]

im doing EM and have been on about 12 interviews..... 1 thank you so far 🙁. on the other hand, i either emailed or sent a thank you letter through the mail to everyone

 

[Butch]

I would not take too much stock in the underlying value of a thank you letter from a program. Hopefully, they are merely writtent to thank you for your interest and spending time and money to interview for a residency position.

Do not believe assurances. If the program name is in your match envelope, then they wanted you and that is the best form of thanks.

 

[BKN]

Don't fret it. A lot of programs -- mainly clustered in certain specialties -- don't have the decency to send out thank you letters.

I received the majority of my thank you letters after the new year.

Interesting, I didn't think it was standard and from GIJoe's post, maybe it isn't in EM. In fact prior to joining SDN, I'd never heard of it at all. Live and Learn, Guess I'm going to have to buy a bunch of thank you cards with desert scenes on em.

B

 

[southerndoc]

Interesting, I didn't think it was standard and from GIJoe's post, maybe it isn't in EM. In fact prior to joining SDN, I'd never heard of it at all. Live and Learn, Guess I'm going to have to buy a bunch of thank you cards with desert scenes on em.

Out of the 10 programs with whom I interviewed, I received some sort of thank you letter or email from 7 of them and calls from residents/faculty in all but one program. Most calls were to see if I had any questions.

 

[Buck Strong]

Out of the 10 programs with whom I interviewed, I received some sort of thank you letter or email from 7 of them and calls from residents/faculty in all but one program. Most calls were to see if I had any questions.

wow, which specialty is this?

 

[southerndoc]

wow, which specialty is this?

EM

 

[orientedtoself]

I have done nine interviews in IM, and I've received thank yous from two programs, one of which is my home institution. I don't think it's the norm.

 

[cytoborg]

I wouldn't read too much into thank-yous or lack thereof either. One exception would be the scenario of receiving several personal emails immediately following the interview from multiple interviewers expressing strong enthusiasm for you. That might actually mean something. Otherwise, don't sweat it.

 

[Peeshee]

When you receive a thank you email from the program director, should you just respond to the email thanking him, or should you send an actual thank you letter in the mail, or both? I just didn't want to be redundant in what I say in the email and the thank you letter by mail......

 

[tridoc13]

When you receive a thank you email from the program director, should you just respond to the email thanking him, or should you send an actual thank you letter in the mail, or both? I just didn't want to be redundant in what I say in the email and the thank you letter by mail......

I did both. I thought it was important to respond right away to the email, and then I got the actual thank you note in the mail a couple of days later when I did all of my other notes. I tried to be original in both though! 😉

 

[TommyGunn04]

I have done nine interviews in IM, and I've received thank yous from two programs, one of which is my home institution. I don't think it's the norm.

I agree...I think it's quite variable depending on the interviewers you get and the typical practices of the program. I've completed 7 IM interviews now and have received a total of 5 notes/letters from programs, 2 of which were hand-written and 3 which were e-mails, meaning I have received nothing at all from 2 of these 7 programs. And one of the e-mails was really just a response to the thank-you message I had sent to my interviewer, so that probably doesn't really count either. In any case, these notes were always from the people who interviewed me, and only once was that the program director. I'm not sure they mean all that much, and I think it varies quite a bit from program to program, and specialty to specialty.