Last year, I gave my two cents on how medical students can help themselves/hurt themselves during their orthopedic surgery rotations called "advice for medical students". It was very well received. As a chief resident this year, I thought I would give you guys some insight into the selection process after sitting in on the rank meeting at our program this year.
The MOST important part of the application (hands down) is your performance during the away rotation. There is no question that rotators have a huge advantage in the process over those who have not rotated. There are several reasons for this. First, programs want people who are known quantities. Clearly, you get a much better sense of an applicant over the course of a month rotation than reviewing a paper application/30 min interview. By that same token, if you did a rotation and rubbed people the wrong way, rest assured you will have no chance of matching there. Therefore, don't pick your away rotations without giving it some serious thought. Do your homework early and really try to do rotations at the programs that you think will be at the top of your list, because those are the places you will have the best chance of matching.
Second, the reason the away rotation is so important is that it shows the program that you have an interest in being there. For good or bad, ortho programs all have a big ego and want to know that they are wanted. They don't want to go very far on their rank list. The away rotation shows them you are interested. Along those same lines, even if you didn't rotate at a program, showing interest is EXTREMELY important. I kid you not, after reviewing each medical student, someone would inevitably ask, "How interested are they in coming here". So, if a program is your number one choice, I would highly recommend letting them know.
A common theme in the selection process is that a lot of things can hurt you a lot more than they can help you. For instance, the interview probably didn't move anyone way up on the list due to their great personality, but it definitely moved a lot of people down because of their weird or boring personality. This is not the time to be eccentric, to wear something different, be cocky, ask strange questions, etc. Furthermore, the interview can be important in demonstrating interest in the program. I suggest always having some questions prepared to ask the interviewer, and make it specific to that program. It always rubbed me the wrong way when I asked if they had any questions about the program and they just sat there. The end of the interview is also a great time to state one or two reasons why you want to go there and why you want to live in that area.
The personal statement won't help you much, but along with the interview can hurt you if you rub someone the wrong way. This is not the time to try something novel or go off the beaten path. Someone will think it is weird and it will only hurt you.
AOA and board scores are important, but it seemed like they were more integral in terms of getting an interview than in terms of making a big difference in your rank order.
Letters of recommendation were moderately important. If you are worried about getting a mediocre letter from a big name vs a great letter from a lesser known attending, I would definitely go with the latter. It means a lot more when the letter writer knows you well.
THe Dean's letter and your clinical scores were also important parts of the process. It is mandatory to obtain honors in Orthopedics. Furthermore, we looked closely at clinical grades in internal medicine and general surgery more than the other rotations. But that doesn't mean that you should slack on your other rotations. We had someone who was a very good candidate but had a rather negative comment on their Psych rotation, and it hurt them a lot.
Finally, if you want to match at an academic program, I would suggest having some research under your belt. It didn't look good when the research section on the ERAS was left blank. Any research is better than no research, and ortho research is better than non-ortho research. For some of our faculty, research was one of the most important pieces of the application when they made their decisions.
All in all, the process is extremely random and the people that get ranked highly are not necessarily better than applicants that get ranked lower. Each program has a certain personality and they try to take applicants that they think will fit in well, not necessarily those that have the best numbers. That is why the away rotation is so important (get the idea!).
Well, I hope that was helpful. If you want my advice on how to do well on the away rotation, look at my first post, labeled "advice for medical students".
The MOST important part of the application (hands down) is your performance during the away rotation. There is no question that rotators have a huge advantage in the process over those who have not rotated. There are several reasons for this. First, programs want people who are known quantities. Clearly, you get a much better sense of an applicant over the course of a month rotation than reviewing a paper application/30 min interview. By that same token, if you did a rotation and rubbed people the wrong way, rest assured you will have no chance of matching there. Therefore, don't pick your away rotations without giving it some serious thought. Do your homework early and really try to do rotations at the programs that you think will be at the top of your list, because those are the places you will have the best chance of matching.
Second, the reason the away rotation is so important is that it shows the program that you have an interest in being there. For good or bad, ortho programs all have a big ego and want to know that they are wanted. They don't want to go very far on their rank list. The away rotation shows them you are interested. Along those same lines, even if you didn't rotate at a program, showing interest is EXTREMELY important. I kid you not, after reviewing each medical student, someone would inevitably ask, "How interested are they in coming here". So, if a program is your number one choice, I would highly recommend letting them know.
A common theme in the selection process is that a lot of things can hurt you a lot more than they can help you. For instance, the interview probably didn't move anyone way up on the list due to their great personality, but it definitely moved a lot of people down because of their weird or boring personality. This is not the time to be eccentric, to wear something different, be cocky, ask strange questions, etc. Furthermore, the interview can be important in demonstrating interest in the program. I suggest always having some questions prepared to ask the interviewer, and make it specific to that program. It always rubbed me the wrong way when I asked if they had any questions about the program and they just sat there. The end of the interview is also a great time to state one or two reasons why you want to go there and why you want to live in that area.
The personal statement won't help you much, but along with the interview can hurt you if you rub someone the wrong way. This is not the time to try something novel or go off the beaten path. Someone will think it is weird and it will only hurt you.
AOA and board scores are important, but it seemed like they were more integral in terms of getting an interview than in terms of making a big difference in your rank order.
Letters of recommendation were moderately important. If you are worried about getting a mediocre letter from a big name vs a great letter from a lesser known attending, I would definitely go with the latter. It means a lot more when the letter writer knows you well.
THe Dean's letter and your clinical scores were also important parts of the process. It is mandatory to obtain honors in Orthopedics. Furthermore, we looked closely at clinical grades in internal medicine and general surgery more than the other rotations. But that doesn't mean that you should slack on your other rotations. We had someone who was a very good candidate but had a rather negative comment on their Psych rotation, and it hurt them a lot.
Finally, if you want to match at an academic program, I would suggest having some research under your belt. It didn't look good when the research section on the ERAS was left blank. Any research is better than no research, and ortho research is better than non-ortho research. For some of our faculty, research was one of the most important pieces of the application when they made their decisions.
All in all, the process is extremely random and the people that get ranked highly are not necessarily better than applicants that get ranked lower. Each program has a certain personality and they try to take applicants that they think will fit in well, not necessarily those that have the best numbers. That is why the away rotation is so important (get the idea!).
Well, I hope that was helpful. If you want my advice on how to do well on the away rotation, look at my first post, labeled "advice for medical students".