What do the residency programs know about you?

[emlopez2]

Hello. Im am an MSI at an Osteopathic school.
I was just curious as to how much info do the residency programs know about you prior to an interview?
Will they know all the residency programs that you have applied to and how they rank on your list?
What about applying to both allopathic and osteopathic residency, is it frowned upon?
One last question, when applying do you have to be set on one specific field or can you apply for different field at school?

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[Rain Elizabeth]

Programs don't know where else you applied and definitely not how they rank unless you tell them. I'm allopathic but I would think that would be the same. I'm not sure whether some residency programs "look down upon" applying to both osteopathic and allopathic, but I definitely know there were DO's at some of my interviews applying to both. Finally, you can apply to more than one field. I know people who have done this if they were not sure which they wanted or weren't sure what their chances were in one field. This can make it easier to do more rotations in those fields to figure out which you want but still get your application in on the early side. But it's tougher. It means two different personal statements each explaining why you "know" that field is right for you, and possibly interviewing and explaining how confident you are in your choice of field when you really aren't... Programs definitely want to know you're enthusiastic about their field. Do what you can to figure it out sooner, but it's definitely OK to apply to two if you need to. It gets a little trickier if you're applying to two fields at the same hospital, because then the programs might find out you applied to both and wonder what's going on...
Good luck, and don't worry too much. It all works out eventually!

 

[Bertelman]

1) They really don't know where else you are applying. In my experience, however, they do ask you during an interview. My response was to cite cities, not programs. Sometimes they may be trying to dig to see what their competition is, but I viewed it as a way to see where I threw my net. (I'm in the SW but interviewed in SE/NE schools only)

2) Students don't rank programs officially until after their interviews. Although you may have a good idea of how you will rank your programs before your first interview, you really should enter this process with an open mind. Go to each interview as though it could be your #1, and objectively assess the city/program as though you will be living there.

3) Don't know much about osteopathic issues.

4) Folks applying to more competitive specialties freqently have alternate plans. You can even apply to the same school in different programs, although there is a small chance the two porgrams might find this out. If you choose to do this, though, you need to be very careful about getting separate LORs and writing a different PS. Make sure you assign them to the appropriate programs when you are applying. This process is computerized, so mistakes can be made very easily.

 

[emlopez2]

Thanks for the info. Those were just the answers I was looking for. I guess I better get working on narrowing my interests and let fait work out the details.