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Waiting for Match Day
Started by iheartbacon
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I am going to try to get back into my dissertation to distract myself (and try to finish before internship starts, whenever that may be). I want to try to be more present for my kids and spend more time with them since it will be a huge adjustment on all of us for me to be gone 50+ hours per week, as well as watching some funny TV shows or movies because laughter is the best medicine, right? I also scheduled a massage prior to contact time on Match Day to either decompress after all of the work involved for Phase I or to decompress before digging in to Phase II. Also getting some of my favorite cupcakes for Match Day to either celebrate or use as comfort food/Phase II fuel. 😂
It's a very stressful time so good luck everyone.
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I felt fortunate to interview some outstanding candidates this cycle so best of luck to all in finding a great landing spot!
Work wise - definitely going to buckle down and create a realistic timeline and to do list for my dissertation since I want to finish before July. Personal life -- get my house more in order, get back on track with my fitness routine, and spend A LOT more time with my spouse on the weekends given the chances I could be out of state if I match (fingers crossed of course) 🙂
Maybe we should start a dissertation accountability group 😂 I actually emailed my chair this weekend to ask when I need to have everything approved and sent to my committee for defense so I also can create a schedule. We can do this!
Seriously though! 🤣 my supervisor has been wonderful in being flexible -- he was like lets just get through match day and then we'll hit the books hard but I'm going to try to find the focus to get a head start, haha!
Me too - I had planned to hit it hard this morning, but accomplished much less than I had hoped. Even so, it was still better to have something to distract myself a little. I hope it will be easier to focus after Match Day but even if I match I am sure I will be distracted with the anticipation of and planning for internship!
Positive affirmations... we can do this, let's just get it done 😆
Don't sleep in lol. I woke up to about 19 calls. People texting me where the matched and I was despondent over not matching.
I think it will be impossible for me to sleep in...I more so expect to be wide awake by like 4:30 am 🤣
Do as much as you can to distract yourself over the next week and a half. While not healthy, I ended up binge watching TV last year in preperation for match day.
On a side note to everyone, please work on your disertation. One of my fellow interns in my cohort has not finished her disertation let alone schedule it for defending. She has gotten a couple of postdoc interviews but having seen the criteria for postdoc selection at our current site, her chances of being selected would be significantly hindered assuming she was interviewing here.
Hold up, you're going to be able to sleep?!? I am hopeful, but also doubtful that I will 🤣🤣🤣
Great advice! Thank you! And yikes... that is definitely not a situation I want to be in.
I saw on the other thread that you applied to trauma focused internship sites. Did you do the same for postdoc? Wishing you luck as you are probably going through a similar wait to hear back with postdoc offers!
Your expectations will largely define how the day goes. Part if this will be your program's environment as well. My program had a 100% match rate for years, so our expectation was that everyone would match. Where you match was a different story. But, in general, it was just another day, I don't recall anyone taking the day off or anything. I do remember faculty just cautioning us to "read the room" in case one of our cohort didn't match and be mindful. But, we all had plenty of work to do on dissertations and the like, so there wasn't a lot of empty time to wait.
100% match rates almost increase the pressure! My program also had a 100% match rate for years and no one wanted to be the person that screwed that up. When I was applying, I received poor guidance from my program and didn't realize that I would not be competitive at counseling centers without counseling center experience. I applied mostly to counseling centers and so I ended up with only two interviews. I was sweating bullets about being the person who ruined our 100% statistic. Fortunately, it all worked out and I matched. But damn, I am glad that is now a distant memory!
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Yikes, sorry to her about the stress there. All in all I think we generally got good feedback and guidance along the way. We had a larger than usual cohort applying in my year due to some people putting it off for a year for unrelated issues and we actually did have one person not match.
trust me...Zzzquil may be needed for any sleep to happen hahaha
Postdoc match is completely different than Internship match and in some ways I wish the match was the same as Internship as it would be less stressful. I understand why the differences exist and I agree that it is a better process after the internship but it feels more stressful.
I struggled on what I wanted to apply for in postdoc (and even if I wanted to do a postdoc) but the majority of my sites ended up being trauma focused or trauma and something else. I have two more interviews this week and then I start my waiting game.
Agree! Post doc Match is so stressful. The process of offer sites and match sites all at once. Turned in rankings but have a interview Friday with a non match site. So if I dont match it’s an option. But if you match it was the stress of an interview for nothing. Ahh.
That was my plan but Nuro post doc at a VA APPCN limited me more than my comfort zone would allow. So I branched into some non-APPCN.
Adult focused? Last I checked there were almost 100 APPCN adult sites, most non-VAs. Also, purely curious, how do you feel like a VA postdoc in neuro would limit you?
That might have come off wrong. I’m looking for a VA post doc so that cut down the pool of sites.
Ah ok. No worries. Should be about 20 of those in there, a handful of those I'd consider the flagships, but I can understand wanting to apply to some out of the match. But, then you have to deal with non-match shenanigans. The stuff some of those sites have tried to pull with my interns over the years turned me off from most non-match sites.
I’m curious what kind of stuff those sites pull if you’re willing to share.
One site called one of our interns during INS with an offer and made the intern choose to accept or pass on the offer before getting off the phone.
Major red flag... 🙁
TBH as a neuro-focused person who will hopefully match in phase 1, I *really* don't want to go through the match for post-doc. I am ready to "wheel-and-deal" a little bit (or actually leverage my network for the first time). It also seems my top 5 sites that I ranked have a pretty good retention rate of post-docs who were their interns.
Also the amount of stress that the internship has put on me and my partner (who is at a pivotal moment in her career) is less than ideal... I cannot justify it again.
Out curiosity, which VAs are you referring to as flagships? Houston and the PRC VAs?
Definitely a red flag, the intern turned it down immediately.
As for the match, the uncertainty is definitely rough with family. I was unattached at the time, so was willing to move anywhere base don training opportunities. Turned out pretty well as I met my spouse in my postdoc city 🙂
Those with a history of very strong clinical training and research involvement, particularly in neuropsych. For the APPCN members, I'd include Houston, Memphis, Minneapolis, Tampa. Places with strong training, great boarded supervisors, good research.
As a caveat of the programs above, there are more VAs with very solid training, these are just the ones that I have firsthand experience with or have friends/colleagues at and can vouch for.
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I actually enjoyed my experience with the postdoc match; it made things less stressful knowing there was a structured process and a uniform date by which everything would be decided. There's also a bit more leeway in being able to discuss rankings, at least with your top match-participating site, if you receive an offer from a program not in the match.
All that being said, yeah, the uncertainty can be rough. Like WisNeuro, I didn't have a family at the time, so I was fine with moving anywhere. It would've definitely been more stressful if I'd had a partner tied to a particular state/area.
And for all folks participation in the APPIC match, best of luck; only one week to go!
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deleted106747
Hang in there! It's been over 10 years for me and I still remember the stress of the last few weeks. If you have time from grad school stuff, reading books that had little depth but high engagement was helpful for me. Also, post-doc is a different beast. I've said it before on here, but the dynamic is really different, friendlier, less cutthroat.
What!?! Speak for yourself. My fellow Fellow and I had to knife fight in the Octagon when it came time for our yearly reviews.
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deleted106747
lol well MOST fellowship stuff is less cutthroat but there are some exceptions of course.
