To those who failed to match Cornell...

[powermd]

This email was sent by the PD at Cornell mistakenly to the wrong distribution list.
As one of the applicants who was not ranked, I take just a little bit of offense that being unranked means they thought I had the potential for "future problems". Based on the ranking letters I received, apparantely none of the other top programs in Boston or NYC thought I was so potentially problematic. I hate the term "sour grapes" becase people seem to use it only to antagonize each other, but it seems Cornell is a little embarassed about their outcome in the match.

Date:
Fri, 26 Mar 2004 10:41:20
From:
"[name deleted]" <[email deleted]>__Add to Address Book

Subject:
The Match

To: [email protected]

I apologize for taking so long to get this information to you.

As you are aware, the Match is done - I have good news and bad news.
The bad
news is that we "scrambled" to fill some positions. I think we are in
good
company in that the majority of the people we lost went to the Boston
programs, Hopkins, UCSF and UCLA. That means we are aiming for the
right
people. However, we also lost some people to www.scutwork.com and some
of
these issues will be addressed over the coming months. The good news
is that:
(1) we only have people coming that we want - we did not rank anyone
with the potential for future problems, (2) we got a number of our top choices and
amazing residents are coming our way, (3) we have representation from schools
that we have never had before (Harvard, Dartmouth, UCSF, etc.) which potentially means a foot in the door for future applicants, and (4) we got some very qualified people outside of the match.

I have included the list for you and a short bio. Thanks again for your time
and hard work on behalf of the Department.

4-Year Categorical Program (Will Start in July, 2004 as interns)

[names deleted]


3-Year Residency (Will Start residency in July, 2005)

[names deleted]

---

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[BassDominator]

I'm just curious who this email was intended for and how you got a hold of it?

 

[huktonfonix]

That was kind of interesting. I actually cancelled my interview with Cornell and didn't rank them, but still got the same email. That was a strange error.

 

[somedude]

Hi. As a resident at Cornell I'd like to give you my 2 cents on this issue. The e-mail that was sent was intended for those who ended up at Cornell. There is no reason why anyone should be offended here. The words "potential...problems" could be interpreted many different ways... (anything from interactions to work style....basically anything that could effect the group dynamic already present at a place) This refers to the "best fit" theory: applicants and programs look for people/places where they will fit in the most. In fact if you had an interview at Cornell then they obviously thought you were a good "potential candidate"... may be you just had a bad interview day...who knows. the fact that you ended up at a great program (powermd=>Columbia) means that you are certainly qualified to succeed in residency.... Cornell probably though you just would not be a good fit......

Now, as far as the e-mail.... ever since match day, the program director has been very excited about the incoming residents. The guy is extremely genuine and cares a ton...He is looking forward to a solid group of people that we truly wanted. This letter was probably intended to calm everyone down about the scramble..... things happen and it doesn't mean anything... the residents here understand that... in fact the overall opinion is that it is better to have a small, but solid group of residents who will fit in the environment rather than fill all the spots..... just ask NYU.... they haven't filled in a few years and have no problems only ranking the people they truly want....the fact that Cornell "lost" people to other top programs proves that the match can be a cruel process... everyone tries to find the best places/residents...sometimes things don't work out perfectly.... the bottom line is: the faculty and residents are very excited about the incoming interns and the folks we will meet as CA-1's... the program director wanted to start things off on a good note .... t-shirts, hats, and a congratulatory e-mail w/ info on everyone.... Unfortunately it went to the wrong distribution list........ no need to be angry/upset... it's an honest mistake and was not intended to offend anyone

 

[doc_strange2001]

Thanks for posting powermd. That reconfirms my belief that the match process is a crock

The match process favors the applicant??? I know quiet a few people that got burned this year by the match process. And thier stories are nothing new, the same ole games are being played.


For those who have yet to go through it..dont fool yourself.. the match process totally works for the program. They will examine you under a microscope and nit pick you apart all while smiling in your face. And what do you get to know about them?? For the most part what they want you to know. When its all said and done it doesnt matter how high you rank a program it matters how high that program ranked you. In what way does this system favor the applicant??

PS.. If the PD ment that he wanted people who were the "best fit" , thats respectable, why didnt he just say that in the email. To me, people with the "potential for future problems" comes across totally different.

 

[ryanbeckworth]

A lot of people thought the match was a load of ****. I don't know if I believe this part of the theory, but there is a curious 3-day delay in which the programs know where you're going, but it's not disclosed. Now this could be fantasy a-la Oliver Stone, but people have wondered if there are some trades being made between programs during this time.

Regardless, the programs have the upper-hand. Unless dissatsified residents give you the heads up, you're on your own on interview day. Meanwhile, those rats have all your letters, grades, and the like to judge you with. Not to mention the fact that they sit and write their grades down as you speak with them. Talk about ****ing rude people.

 

[powermd]

The reason I take some offense to what was said here is that I felt my interviews, particularly with the PD, went well! My last interview was with Wilson, and was a little blah, but other than that I felt it was a successful trip. It's one thing not to match because there are many other more favored applicants, it's another to not even be ranked!

Having said all this I want to make clear I am VERY happy with my match at Columbia, and in retrospect probably should have ranked it higher than Cornell given how well thier program suits my career goals. I ranked Cornell higher based mainly on the warm and friendly environment (and location) coupled with it's status as a top NYC program. Overall I am convinced Columbia is the best program in NYC for case mix and academics. On my interview day, however, a few of the residents came off as arrogant and downright obnoxious. That put me off when it came time to do the ROL.

 

[apma77]

every year some "upper tier" program has to scramble because of their thinking that everyone wants to come to their program and they get cocky bout their match list..in 2003 this happened to WASH U

Sending that letter to anyone is offensive..whether by mistake ot not

who cares if they lost people to UCSF or HARvard
the point is they didnt match because of their cockiness

next yr they will be ranking everyone so they dont have to face this embarassment..thats for sure!

 

[UTSouthwestern]

It suprises me that they didn't fill. Some programs like mine will specifically hold 2-3 spots out of the match but still fill the rest even by listing only 50-100 candidates.

 

[dukeybootie]

Got the same email. Almost the same thoughts about Cornell as powermd--thought the interview day went very well, plus I also did a second look there and was warmly received. Didn't second-look at Columbia afterwards. Ranked them #2 and #3 (the housing tipped the scale towards Cornell; the second look was to see if the unfavorable scutwork reviews were true on a regular, typical day). Which means I wasn't ranked by Cornell, and very confused as to why (like some others I'm sure). And then this gem of an email gets sent.

Cockiness? Conspiracy? Something else altogether? Whatever the case, I'm very excited about my match outcome. And ditto others' comments on that email--inappropriate, unprofessional, and reeking of "chip-on-shoulder" attitude. One would hope that only applies to the email.

 

[recall]

There is much to the match process that we do not know about as applicants, though I still think the current system is much improved over the old way of doing things. It certainly would be realistic to expect that PD's talk to each other, and that they know if they don't rank you, that you will probably end up at another quality institution. Programs probably also have a good sense of how far down their rank lists they usually need to go to fill their positions. So why do aberrations happen like Wash U last year and Cornell this year? Is it because programs were cocky and ranked too few people? Possible. But it is also possible that applicants also told those programs that they would be ranked first, and programs use this information to judge how deep to rank? It certainly is possible. I heard that Wash U was misled last year by a number of applicants who said they would rank Wash U first, but ended up somewhere else. Do applicants tell more than one program they will be ranked first? Possible. Was Cornell similarly misled? Again, the answer is possible. I do know that Cornell gets a lot of "I will rank you #1" letters every year. So PowerMD, programs are to blame, but your fellow applicants are also part of the problem.

Since many of us seem to have the benefit of seeing this Cornell letter, it is possible by scanning the list of incoming people to speculate that two of the four unmatched positions were filled by people who did not go through the match at all. Who knows -- maybe the thinking was, it is ok if two positions don't match because there are people waiting in the wings outside of match.

Several other things I have learned this year: Programs do know where people on their rank lists ended up, so chances are good that if you misled a program, they know about it. I was warned by a mentor that rank list discussions are an interesting process, extremely subjective and political, that there is never any guarantee for any applicant. I have certainly seen it at my home institution, seeing classmates ending up elsewhere even though we thought they were shoe-ins to stay at the home institution.

There is a lot of uncertainty to this process for all parties involved, and programs probably have effective ways to reduce the unknown. But as applicants, we also have tools at our disposal: conversations with other applicants while interviewing and the various online forums. But as with all things, take it with a grain of salt. I concur with DukeyBootie that scutwork needs to be verified with additional info. For example, based on ScutWork's eval rating, Mt. Sinai scores well, but the three postings came only from medical students rotating there, and two are 2002 or older. Helpful, but hardly reliable.

Caveat: this posting may contain speculation based on personal knowledge that is not intended to be fact.

 

[gaseous]

The whole match thing is a game. You just have to play it. I sent letters to at least my top 6 programs on my list that "this is the place I want to do my residency training.'" Knowing good and well that I had no intention of ranking them first. Similarly I received gushing correspondence from programs telling me how much they wanted me to come to there program. I rolled my eyes. They just wanted me to rank them high just as much as I wanted the programs to rank me high.

I thought it would be foolish to tell a program that I visited that I thought your program was "OK" when I wrote them my thank you letter. You might as well say, "I thought your program was alright, and I guess if I had to go there I would."

Just the same, I have hand written correspondence from my #1 choice that they couldn't wait to see me in the summer of '05. I got into my #2. That's Ok, though because we were both playing the game.

To those of you who didn't get ranked at Cornell, don't sweat it. They get what they deserve. Now they have to keep "trying" to explain there situation for an entire year. It is an embarrassing situation and they know it. I would be pissed if I was a Cornell resident. Next year they will have to explain their match problems over and over all interview season long. I'm sure the Wash U and Virginia residents know how that feels. (both quality programs who had a reality check when it came to match time)

 

[ryanbeckworth]

"rank list discussions are an interesting process, extremely subjective and political, that there is never any guarantee for any applicant. I have certainly seen it at my home institution, seeing classmates ending up elsewhere even though we thought they were shoe-ins to stay at the home institution.

Indeed, the process is murky and brings out the worst--and the "real person"--in a lot of PDs. There were many people at my school and others I've known about from friends where PDs have said so and so was going to be ranked highly enough to go, but match day revealed something else to be the case.

PDs are often like used car salespeople. They know more about what they're getting from the applicant as a resident than you do from the program as one. The only time you can pull even is when it comes to telling them what they want to hear. The system is skewed, plain and simple.

 

[Jingojango]

PDs are often like used car salespeople

During the interview trail, I was asked more than a couple of times:

"So what can I do to get you to come to our program?"

 

[Krafty]

Please pardon my forthcoming, but this Cornell mess is a political blunder of the first degree. They probably went to the ?Condoleeza Rice school of Politics? (not trying to stir a political debate here). But let?s take a look at some facts and Cornell PD?s as well as somedude?s damage control strategies.

1) The letter was most likely not meant for the people that were rejected, but as a reassurance to people that have been accepted to a program that didn?t fill.
2) Cornell dept is obviously aware of the negative Scutwork.com publicity, and are out to spin the record straight.

Cornell has a very strong reputation (especially around NYC area med schools) to be incredibly infatuated with the Ivy League names. They attempt to only interview and accept people from those institutions, because otherwise the upper east side narcissistic LOLs in NAD** simply would have to go to Columbia for their care.
I feel sorry for their arrogance and lack of planning. I hope they realize that they are not considered a top 10 program in anesthesia (top 20 would probably be their dream by now) among incoming applicants. Despite some perceived congeniality during the interviews they have shown their true colors?gambled and lost.

Word to the incoming anesthesia applicants.
If there is one place in the country that will judge your abilities PURELY based on your undergraduate medical institution ? that place would be Cornell Anesthesia department. If you are interested in being seen according to the strength of your character and professional merit, do not apply for the cheap 3-4 year apartment on the upper east side of NYC.

Glad the word is out. This Old Boy's Club elitism is a sad remnant of an out of date, counterproductive medical education system.

---
** House of God by Samuel Shem (glossary) - Lovely Old Lady in No Apparent Distress.

 

[dukeybootie]

Enjoyed the post, Krafty. I need to read that book before intern year starts!

I do wonder, though. If the Ivy League infatuation theory is correct (and I don't doubt it), why even bother interviewing candidates who don't fit the mold? Would save both parties some time, effort, and $ to do away with the formalities. Unless of course they need to preserve some image of fairness in the application process, like including some minority contestant in a reality show contest that he/she was never meant to win. As my college (African-American) roommate used to say, "look, it's the token black guy." No offense.

 

[Goober]

If you look at the current Cornell Anesthesia residents on their website there are exactly ZERO residents from ivy league schools other than Cornell in the CA1 year. Almost all of them are from lower to mid tier schools. In the upper years there are not that many either and there are quite a few IMGs. So I highly doubt that they are conspiring to keep anybody non-ivy out.

http://www.nycornell.org/anesthesiology/residency/residents.html

BTW every PD I have ever met always wants students from top 20 programs, because it makes their residency look good.

 

[powermd]

Originally posted by Goober
If you look at the current Cornell Anesthesia residents on their website there are exactly ZERO residents from ivy league schools other than Cornell in the CA1 year. Almost all of them are from lower to mid tier schools. In the upper years there are not that many either and there are quite a few IMGs. So I highly doubt that they are conspiring to keep anybody non-ivy out.

The PD specifically lists:

(3) we have representation from schools
that we have never had before (Harvard, Dartmouth, UCSF, etc.) which potentially means a foot in the door for future applicants,

The PD is referring to the incoming group here.
Foot in the door for future applicants? Sounds to me like he is specifically interested in increasing the numbers of ivy/etc grads in the program. Not ranking enough to fill the program probably had something to do with keeping non-ivys out, since they could have easily just ranked the non-ivy grads below the ivy grads. Instead they didn't rank enough, presumably non-ivys, and the program didn't fill. Like many have said, they got arrogant, took a major gamble, and lost.

 

[ecf1975do]

agree with apma77's post.. i interviewed at wash u in jan.
of course a big topic of discussion was how wash u had only half their spots unfilled in last yrs match. some of the residents put the "blame" on websites like SDN and scut work, and location
but the real reason was the PD ranked top heavy and wanted the best of the best. they sent out a questionarre to everyone who interviewed afterwards on what they thought of the program and where they ranked them.. of course they werent going to let this mistake happen again.. sure enough all of their spots were filled..

 

[beezar]

How difficult is it to just rank almost everyone you interview (except of course the really bad ones... the obviously bad ones)? Why leave some of your program spots up to the scramble? Makes no sense. Stupid I say.

I wonder if it costs them more money to rank more applicants as it does us to rank more programs...

 

[gaslady]

There are programs that don't rank everyone they interview. My home program used to because they would get a lot of applications from IMGs that they didn't feel were qualified. For instance, the PD told me they would have applicants with poor language/communication skills and had taken less qualified residents who had subsequently had difficulty passing the boards. They stopped doing this and made a calculated decision that has worked out for them. They would rank everyone that was good enough and they were willing to take and then stop, regardless of the fact that they knew it would mean they wouldn't fill. Then they would fill the remaining spots with people outside of the match transferring from other specialties who were generally better than the applicants that they didn't rank. As a result their match statistics looked poor but their recent classes were fine and full of good residents.
With that said, this doesn't sound like what happened at Cornell, but it does happen at less well known or prestigious places.

And about U VA, as someone mentioned it earlier.... I don't know if they were cocky and didn't rank enough applicants last year but I do know that they made major errors in the recruiting process in terms of how they showcased themselves that gave applicants an unfavorable view of the program. They seemed totally unaware of it. I felt like it was probably a good training experience but my interview day had so many uncertainties that I ranked it much lower than I thought I was going to. They didn't sell me on wanting to go there. My view is based on my interview experience there and what I heard on the interview trial from other applicants who felt the same way in 2002-2003 match.

 

[BassDominator]

I didn't get interviewed by Cornell. I'm an undergrad/grad alumn, so there are some sour grapes here.... so you can take whatever I have to say with a grain of salt.

I have to say that it was really in bad form to send out that email, no matter who it was intended for. I really just think they were being too picky this year.... maybe even a bit snobby.

If they weren't in NYC and had the Cornell name.... [finish this however you like]

 

[MDEntropy]

Would anyone care to post the infamous Cornell email WITH the names/bios included? I would like to read a bit about their class of 2008.

Thanks!

 

[Himanshusingh]

I think posting the names would also be in bad form as it would invade the privacy of those who are going there (myself included)

 

[MDEntropy]

Won't this biographical information be posted on the website in just a few months anyway? Is revealing this type of information really an invasion of privacy? What about the posting of name and match results on the web like many schools such as UVA do, is that an invasion of privacy? Himanshu, did you ask your PD not to include your info in his mass email? Have you asked him not to put your name etc. on the website? In other words, does it really matter if others know your interests and pedigree or was the invasion of privacy comment more of just a knee jerk response? If Cornell didn't have the website set up as they do, your comment would be more easily understood by me, but I believe you expect to have all of this information broadcasted in a matter of months - do you not? In which case, this biographical information is commonly shared by your institution with an audience that extends far beyond its members and this is generally accepted.

 

[BeefyRedEye]

I cant believe this question is even being asked. Have you ever heard of privacy? Why dont you volunteer your biography on a public forum? The website only lists our names and our medical schools, and is by no means a biography.