Unfilled Positions at Well-Regarded Program

[henge]

U Chicago IM had 3 unfilled positions in 2015. I noticed that this happened at Duke several years ago, and the failure to fill positions was attributed on SDN posts to Duke "refus[ing] to play the game and rank most of the people they interviewed" or that it was a "fluke" and "when IM programs are only interviewing 200-300 people for 50 or so spots it's bound to happen to even a big name program every once in a while, just by chance."

How concerned, if any, should a potential applicant be about unfilled slots at a program?

Is the most likely explanation simply an administrative foul-up, that the program overestimated its appeal and didn't rank enough candidates?

Is failure to fill an indication that the program might be malignant, as perhaps interviewees did not like their interview experience and refused to rank the program highly?

Is there any reason a program would intentionally not fill its positions in the match, perhaps because it felt it could get better candidates thru SOAP or it just didn't need all of those residents?

I'd note that U Chicago has not over the years filled all of its positions in several specialties. http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Main-Match-Program-Results-2011-2015.pdf

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[henge]

(Deleted user)

Emory was unfilled this year which was quite surprising for me. Being unfilled in no way reflects a program's quality or possible malignancy. For example, many community hospitals routinely fill all of their spots. If anything, going unfilled represents improper resource allocation when determining who to interview (e.g. predominantly interviewing those who historically would not rank your program highly, etc.). And as you mentioned, there are bound to be variations every year and problems occur when programs overestimate their desirability and rank among interviewees. Residencies may choose to not rank applicants who are poor fits for their program (e.g. when the applicant looks much more impressive on paper than in person), but I can't imagine any program would intentionally go unfilled -- they want and need all of their residents. On average, SOAP applicants (people who didn't match at any program on their rank list) are less competitive than people who were cherry-picked for interviews. And going unfilled is a lot of stress and work for the program and is a downer on morale. From the applicant side of things though, if you've done your due diligence to uncover any possible 'red flags', I don't see a reason to be particularly concerned if the program still is the best fit for you. Since you brought up UChicago: I think that UofC is a fantastic IM program, but may suffer from all of their rotations now being based in one location (UCMC), some big name faculty being recruited to other programs, and its location in the Midwest . These factors may turn away some applicants, but be a huge draw to others. Despite these possible downsides, I still happily ranked UofC above some more 'prestigious' peer institutions. Residents there seemed very friendly and happy with their program. So do trust your gut and do what's best for you!

Thanks. DO you know if UC filled in 2016?

 

[henge]

(Deleted user)

UC filled for IM this year

Thanks.

 

[Raryn]

If a program has a couple unfilled spots one year... no big deal. They screwed up their rank list and more of the people they wanted decided to rank other places. It happens to the best programs every once in a while, they make do.

If a program has unfilled spots every year, that's probably an indicator of either A) a crappy program or B) an administration that can't get their $!@# together and rank a decent number of people (leading to a crappy program).

 

[henge]

Makes sense, thanks.

 

[buonassezia]

Whoa. Per the Main Match Program Results 2016 from the NRMP, Emory matched 41/47 slots this year, and Hopkins-Bayview matched 6/13 for categorical IM. Bummer.

 

[Animalcules]

Whoa. Per the Main Match Program Results 2016 from the NRMP, Emory matched 41/47 slots this year, and Hopkins-Bayview matched 6/13 for categorical IM. Bummer.

where did you find these already? only seeing the link to the 2016 program match stats on nrmp. could you post the link?


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[HelpPleaseMD]

6/13 wow

 

[megatomotagem]

Go to my reports tab in nrmp and open match outcome of all programs by state pdf.

 

[buonassezia]

You can download it as megatomotagem said after logging in to the NRMP website with your login info. I couldn't find it publicly available on their main website amongst the other data.

 

[IMreshopeful]

Whoa. Per the Main Match Program Results 2016 from the NRMP, Emory matched 41/47 slots this year, and Hopkins-Bayview matched 6/13 for categorical IM. Bummer.

Bayview only filled half their spots?? That's incredibly weird as they're a fairly competitive and quite well regarded residency! Maybe they simply didn't rank enough applicants.

 

[futureradres12345]

(Deleted user)

Emory was unfilled this year which was quite surprising for me. Being unfilled in no way reflects a program's quality or possible malignancy. For example, many community hospitals routinely fill all of their spots. If anything, going unfilled represents improper resource allocation when determining who to interview (e.g. predominantly interviewing those who historically would not rank your program highly, etc.). And as you mentioned, there are bound to be variations every year and problems occur when programs overestimate their desirability and rank among interviewees. Residencies may choose to not rank applicants who are poor fits for their program (e.g. when the applicant looks much more impressive on paper than in person), but I can't imagine any program would intentionally go unfilled -- they want and need all of their residents. On average, SOAP applicants (people who didn't match at any program on their rank list) are less competitive than people who were cherry-picked for interviews. And going unfilled is a lot of stress and work for the program and is a downer on morale. From the applicant side of things though, if you've done your due diligence to uncover any possible 'red flags', I don't see a reason to be particularly concerned if the program still is the best fit for you. Since you brought up UChicago: I think that UofC is a fantastic IM program, but may suffer from all of their rotations now being based in one location (UCMC), some big name faculty being recruited to other programs, and its location in the Midwest . These factors may turn away some applicants, but be a huge draw to others. Despite these possible downsides, I still happily ranked UofC above some more 'prestigious' peer institutions. Residents there seemed very friendly and happy with their program. So do trust your gut and do what's best for you!

Only a med student perspective here, but I found Emory to be an extremely malignant place, particularly for internal medicine, OB/GYN, Gen Surg, and the majority of the surgical subspecialties. I didn't realize that the way residents and med students are treated here is not normal until I graduated and started working at a different program. There are a lot of incredibly malignant attendings at this program and everyone tends to be very stressed and overworked so they take out their aggression on the people immediately below them in seniority.

 

[Lccjblu]

I wonder if these things might start to happen more often now that everyone is applying to way too many programs... even people with insane stats on sdn are applying to like 20-30 programs.

 

[Señor S]

I wouldn't take it as any sort of comment on U of C's IM program, however from an applicant perspective it does raise some interesting questions, namely how deep do programs typically go on their rank lists and how much variance is there year to year? I always assumed that places would interview/rank something like 2x the number of applicants they needed to be fairly sure of filling but is it more like 1.25x?

 

[Raryn]

I wouldn't take it as any sort of comment on U of C's IM program, however from an applicant perspective it does raise some interesting questions, namely how deep do programs typically go on their rank lists and how much variance is there year to year? I always assumed that places would interview/rank something like 2x the number of applicants they needed to be fairly sure of filling but is it more like 1.25x?

http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Main-Match-Results-and-Data-2016.pdf table 17 has the average IM program needing to go 6.7 spots down their rank list for every spot they have in the match. The typical program interviews something like 10:1. Individual programs vary widely though.

 

[doctorbeastmode]

Agree wholeheartedly with the above - not filling for top programs like Duke and UChicago and Hopkins-Bayview is much more about administrative foolishness and hubris than it is about quality. It's obviously embarrassing, but either of those programs could have easily filled if they had ranked enough applicants.

Don't let it affect you - all of those programs are great and there's no reason to let that hold you back if you like the people when you visit on your interview.


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[NotAProgDirector]

It's not necessarily hubris or foolishness. It could simply be efficiency. Of course any of those programs could fill by interviewing and ranking more applicants. But there's a cost to that -- time, funds for food, etc. At some point, programs might cap their number of interviews at a level that will usually fill, and occasionally not -- knowing that you can still get good people in SOAP. If you're a top program in SOAP, you get your pick of the applicants, some of whom are quite good. I've gotten some of my best residents from SOAP/Scramble. And SOAP actually makes it less terrifying and more manageable.

 

[doctorbeastmode]

Totally agree that some programs cap the number of interviews knowing they may have to scramble - it definitely makes sense at some point. I don't know Hopkins or UChicago but I knew people at Duke they definitely did not want that to happen / will never let it happen again. It doesn't make sense for a top program to get that much bad press.


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[Raryn]

It's not necessarily hubris or foolishness. It could simply be efficiency. Of course any of those programs could fill by interviewing and ranking more applicants. But there's a cost to that -- time, funds for food, etc. At some point, programs might cap their number of interviews at a level that will usually fill, and occasionally not -- knowing that you can still get good people in SOAP. If you're a top program in SOAP, you get your pick of the applicants, some of whom are quite good. I've gotten some of my best residents from SOAP/Scramble. And SOAP actually makes it less terrifying and more manageable.

It's bad press for your program though, may make some applicants think a bit less of you next year.

Now, given the caliber of program that I believe you run, it probably wouldn't matter, but a lot of programs are middle of the road and the programs want to appear as good as they can.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

It's bad press for your program though, may make some applicants think a bit less of you next year.

Now, given the caliber of program that I believe you run, it probably wouldn't matter, but a lot of programs are middle of the road and the programs want to appear as good as they can.

...and, trust me, you feel like a complete failure when your program ends up in SOAP/Scramble, unless that was your plan all along (some prelim GS programs just decide to fill in SOAP, for example). I agree that once a program falls into SOAP, they are likely to respond the next year by increasing interviews to not have it happen again.