Zero interview invites?

[halmoni]

At what point should I be worried about having zero interview invites for my specialty? I got a couple of prelim invites, but have otherwise had complete silence. I'm kind of worried that my application has some red flag that I'm unaware of. For reference, I'm a mid-tier USMD student applying into radiology with above average step scores for both step 1 and 2 (applied to 80 programs), but I'm seeing even people with lower scores have 3-5 interviews so far.

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[Ole_Toe]

What are your options?

 

[M&L]

well, to be honest, anything could be possible. There is no way for us to know. Did you use same letters for prelim and main? Did you write separate essays, or its the same essay?

 

[halmoni]

well, to be honest, anything could be possible. There is no way for us to know. Did you use same letters for prelim and main? Did you write separate essays, or its the same essay?

Yup, I used all of the same documents. 2 radiology letters, 1 medicine, and 1 psych. I used my radiology personal statement for both rads and prelims.

 

[halmoni]

What are your options?

So far I only have some transitional year interviews from regions that I have strong ties to.

 

[M&L]

Well then there are no obvious red flags, or you wouldn’t get invites from prelims . I’d say just wait

 

[DrStephenStrange]

Radiology was brutal last year even for competitive applicants. I'd say just wait. There's nothing else you can do except maybe sending some LOI but it's probably too early for those.

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

As others mentioned, radiology is on the uptrend in terms of competitiveness. Probably used to be more like anesthesiology. Now probably more like general surgery or maybe even more difficult.

Do you have any research? Class rank etc.? Above average for radiology or above average in general?

 

[halmoni]

As others mentioned, radiology is on the uptrend in terms of competitiveness. Probably used to be more like anesthesiology. Now probably more like general surgery or maybe even more difficult.

Do you have any research? Class rank etc.? Above average for radiology or above average in general?

I have a few papers from prior to med school, 1 med school paper in an unrelated specialty, 2 non-rads abstracts, 2 published/accepted radiology abstracts, currently working on another radiology QI project.

Class rank is right around the middle. Good MSPE comments.

Step scores are upper 250s/upper 260s. Did well during my preclinical years, never failed or repeated a class/test.

My personal statement was pretty unremarkable. I kept my activity descriptions concise. Overall I thought my app was pretty average in terms of competitiveness, but now I’m worried that I either made a mistake, a letter writer accidentally wrote something that killed my app, or I severely underestimated the competitiveness of radiology.

 

[GoSpursGo]

It's probably just early and you're likely to see an uptick in the next week or two. Of course it's impossible to know, but there isn't anything you could do about it right now anyways.

 

[esob]

Based on data from last year, only ~ 13% of invites for DR were sent before mid-October. The bulk of invitations were sent between October 15 and November 15. So, based on historical data, I wouldn't stress too much at this point, given that you know your application is solid.

 

[OchemOficionado]

My school told us to wait until 11/1 to freak out.