Interview Stats 2011, How many apps? How many invites? etc

Is anyone else getting a lot of rejections? This forum is scaring me...everyone has so many.

I'm guessing the people with a lot of offers are eager to post how many they have. Those with few are less excited about sharing. For the record, I've got 4 so far, and about 1/3 of the programs I've replied to have sent out their invites. If my current ratio holds up I'll be pretty satisfied.

Also, consider that we haven't really heard from the Northeast or California in large numbers yet - if your home is one of those regions I think you might have some invites yet to come.

Thanks! Good to know that other people are in the same boat.

Total Apps: 59
Programs applied who have offered interviews: >25
Rejections: 10ish
Interviews: 1
Waitlisted: 1
USMLE: Step I 240s, Step II 260s
Grades: Preclinical - mostly honors Clinical - all honors
AOA: Yes, senior
Publications: 1 Ortho non-first author, 1 Ortho first author pending publication
Letters: 3 Ortho, 1 surgery, good but no big names

Feeling very dejected. Thought I was a pretty strong applicant. Any smaller schools still accepting apps in ERAS?
Any advice?

Total Apps]

I can't say if i know of any programs still accepting. I could totally see the feeling dejected, however, it does sound like you're a strong candidate. One of the ortho interns where I'm at now told me that there are typically multiple waves of interviews that go out.

The other options is to ask if some of your letter writers will call programs on your behalf - i.e. the programs they trained/fellowshiped at.

Also, as has been discussed earlier on this forum there seems to be no rhyme or reason for why interviews are given out at certain places. Which is why it's important to realize that there is a dramatic selection bias on this forum (and yes, i just used selection bias). You're not getting everyone that is applying to post. There have been like 8000 views with like 20 people posting. Like someone said on the rejection forum -- its a way of indirectly boasting. So people who post are more likely to reply if they have something impressive.

Keep your head up man.

Just my 2 cents. Plus, there are a lot of programs left that are still to offer their first interviews

1

Chins up fellas. Chances are that up to this point that some applicants have multiple offers for the same day. As has been discussed on other threads there are certain dates that are more popular than others. People will be starting to cancel interviews with different programs for various reasons and some spots will start to free up and more invites will begin to roll out. Its all part of this game that is the match process. Remember that its a dynamic process and things change daily. Hang in there. Don't get overly upset and hard on yourselves. The purpose of these threads are to support each other in this hellish process. Best of wishes to all. See you on the interview trail.

B4B

Total Apps: 40ish
Programs applied who have offered interviews: 25
Rejections: 4
Interviews: 7
Waitlisted: 2
USMLE: Step I 250, Step II not taken yet
Grades: Preclinical - no honors. Clinical - honors.
AOA: Senior
Research/Pubs: None
Letters: 3 (two from aways, 1 home chairman).

So how many of your multiple offers have you cancelled in order to allow others to use those slots?

I have canceled with programs as better offers(IMO) have come in that overlap days with programs I have already scheduled. I'm in this to secure myself the best (again IMO) residency position possible not to screw others out of invites; if that is what you are implying. Thanks. Good luck to you.

B4B

Hopefully everyone else will do the same.

Each year there seems to be some mention of this whole concept of last minute interview cancellation to screw other people... Maybe I'm just not smart/nefarious enough to understand the purpose of such a move... but what would be the point? I would think that you would want other applicants to interview at more places where you yourself have no intention of interviewing... thereby increasing the chances that they will match there, and not where you want to be. Granted, I haven't given this a whole lot of thought, but what am I missing?

That said, if anyone wants to cancel their UVa, Iowa, or CMC interview and drop my name in the same email, that would be kickass
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At least one program I'm interviewing at has let students know in writing that cancellations must be done within 3 weeks, or they will notify the student's medical school dean.

I have canceled with programs as better offers(IMO) have come in that overlap days with programs I have already scheduled. I'm in this to secure myself the best (again IMO) residency position possible not to screw others out of invites; if that is what you are implying. Thanks. Good luck to you.

B4B[/quote]

That's good to hear, just an inquisitive thought.

I wonder what people deem as an adequate number of interviews. (By no means is the following meant to single out Bone4Brains.) I worked with a resident who limited himself to 10. His reasoning was that if you had to go down that far on your rank list you probably weren't getting in anywhere. At first I thought this was quite the ballsy move and wouldn't have considered it myself, but the more I think about it the more I agree with him. We all look at "charting the outcomes" and see the great correlation with possibility of matching if one has 10+ interviews, but as a friend pointed out, the correlation isn't that the 10+ interviews grant you some greater advantage, but those who are given that many offers are generally good applicants.

One piece of information I would like to see made available is a breakdown of how far down people go on their rank lists. How many people match to numbers 10, 11, 12...? What good does it do me to interview at a place where I really don't have much intention of ranking anywhere but last? Sure, there's the off chance I'll really like it, but chances are that I won't. I think this is probably especially true if one is balking due to geographical preferences, whatever thay may be. Now I'm mostly just "thinking outloud" because I'm starting to get a little fed up waiting for my remaining programs(most of which are the ones I'd really love to have a chance at) and need to release some nervous energy. What are your thoughts?

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Rule of thumb (rough): For each interview, consider an 11% chance you'll match. Statistically speaking, the NRMP has shown that over 50% of those w 5 interviews match, and inevitably those w 9+ interviews match.

Beyond 10, it is said you are simply wasting your time and money flying out to places you probably won't reach on your rank list, and their time as well (unless of course you make horrible impressions in person, in which case statistically all bets are off).

Yeah but I could have interviewed at 10 places and there are still 5 places left that I'm scheduled to interview at all which are solid and may be the top 5 on my final rank-list. With that said you shouldn't stop at 10 interviews [barring the statistics reasoning] if you think that your other upcoming interviews may be places you would rank high.

Interesting thoughts. I especially like the concept that your # of interviews are more so an indicator of how competitive an applicant you are rather than your chances of matching. From looking at the charting outcomes chart:


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I completely agree with that resident's approach... and some would argue that you'd actually be better off just going to ~10 interviews and being able to attend the social etc, rather than packing so many interviews back-to-back that you get tired, fall off your game, can't attend socials, etc.

However, the problem is the way that all of these invites are slowly leaked out over an extended period of time. I mean, as I sit here with my X number of interviews, I have no way to know if it's safe to cancel any of my interviews. Even the ones that I would expect to be near the bottom of my rank list. Am I going to get more interviews? If so, are they going to be offered to me in time to cancel those "less desirable" interviews? Will I even be able to work them into my Dec/Jan clerkship schedule?

Again, I've thought about this, myself, and completely agree. I would think that this information could be collected anonymously and published with all of the other extraneous NRMP data.

I feel the same way. I've browsed these forums for a while, but never thought that I would be particularly compelled to post... nervous energy definitely getting to me. Although, most of the programs that I'm hoping to hear from are ones that have already sent out offers ... a guy can dream, right? Good luck

Strong work fellas. These topics are much more constructive than ragging on each other about this our that. Cheers to 13 contiguous ranks.....

B4B

Sims, I completely agree with your thoughts in that situation. If you've already gone on 10, but have five more that you're really looking forward to then definitely go to all of those. You can't sell yourself short on your dream spots.

Obviously you'd like to give a program as much notice of a cancellation as you can, but how short of notice is too short? Say you just get an interview for a top choice and would like to cancel a different interview in turn. How short of notice is too short to where you now consider not cancelling the interview just to avoid being considered a jerk? I'm not sure I'm getting my thought across very well. (Of course if they're on the same day you'll cancel no matter what, but say they're a day or two apart so it'd be inconvenient to go to both but you could do it, or you just don't want to have to do both.) I would think a program should always give people the option of coming for a vacated interview spot, even if it's two days away.

Doubledown, I wouldn't consider cancelling just because I think I'll get those better interviews, that's just a little too risky for me. So that brings me back to the above question. When would you be too embarrassed to cancel an interview if you could make both the newer, more desirable interview and the older, less desirable interview?

Certainly, in that circumstance, I think we'd all go on those other 5 interviews. However, in the ideal situation, you/I would know about those 5 interviews early enough in the process that we could compare those 5 programs with the other 10 prior to attending most/any of our interviews.

Like Jeeper95 essentially stated, those individuals with ~15 interviews are going to have some that they could do without, and would probably happily decline if they knew that there were additional, "more desirable" offers in their future.

However, with the current system, those more competitive applicants are likely to have completed 2 or 3 of those "less desirable" interviews (if not more) before the majority of their interviews start coming in. Think there might be other applicants out there that would kill for those 2 or 3 interviews?

You could argue that such competitive applicants should know ahead of time which programs they should/shouldn't apply to and which interviews they should/shouldn't attend, but I think it's unrealistic to expect even the best applicant to avoid programs/interviews when he/she doesn't know what the future holds... especially in this crazy process.

I think a cancelling at least a week beforehand is sufficient. The program wouldn't be too happy with you either way. But let's say you initially schedule with a program on date X, then ask to switch to date Y, AND THEN cancel, then they will probably want to slap you silly.

I would try to make as many interviews as possible, even if I can't attend the social when the interviews are back-to-back.