You're probably going to be safe...but I had a loyola interview in chicago on Jan 3rd. The first week of Jan (starting Monday) was the busiest week of interviews for most people so Jan 5th may be cutting it close. But the week of 12/26 should be just fine...

you will probably be fine with those dates, although the 5th is probably the busy Monday. I know at least one or two programs had the 6th as their only date this year. Good luck.

I had no interviews between Dec 21 and Jan 3, but you may be taking chances thereafter.

I had Jan 26 and Jan 4th. Some programs have multiple options and I found these dates were nice to wedge in there to give me more freedom on big Dec and Jan dates. So depends on how bad you want the holiday. You probably won't miss out on much but having those dates as options could definitely make your life easier.

ok, so if i am understanding everything, the week between christmas and new year's is fine, but the first monday thereafter is fair game.

i am returning on that first monday.
do schools offer more than one day to interview? I would hate to miss an interview by arriving monday afternoon.

thanks for all your replies

many programs only offer interviews on one or two dates... and you may not always get your first choice of dates. There are places that only give you one day... take it or leave it.

My opinion... ask dad if you can go away with him between feb and june. All i am saying is that if you have say 8 or 9 interviews and you have to choose b/t going away or getting one more interview in... you may end up canceling on your family last minute.

Next winter is your shot... i am sure you have worked hard... you will have plenty of time during 4th year and the rest of your life to go away... but you must decide what is best for you.

just my two cents...

Hind sight is 20/20.

If I were you I'd take the vacation, especially if you're a "stronger" candidate. Personally, I would've only missed one interview (loyola). In the grand scheme of things that wouldn't have made much of a difference. When's the next time that you're gonna have time to go on a cruise with the fam.

i probably went on more interviews than 90% of the people my year (with the credit card bill to prove it!) and i wouldn't have missed any of my interviews by taking the vacation you are talking about.

alright, i've come up with a pretty good algorithm to predict usefulness and chaffing-ness of posts. If the username includes "bone", there's a 75% chance the post will be useless or aggrevating. If the username includes "ortho", the probability of these occurences drops to 25%. Though with neither "bone" nor "ortho" in the name, the probability is still 10.23%.

For the newcomers: notice how bone_jock expertly, albeit subtly, refers to himself as a stronger candidate; while boneblaster aptly states he had more interviews than 90% of his peers. Well done, boys.

And I mean that in the best possible way, boneblaster and bone_jock.

the reason that i went on 90% more interviews than my peers is because i applied to about 5X the amount of programs than the average joe did. now, bonejock...he's just a stud.

dude,

In all of my dozens of posts on this site, I have never referred to myself as a "stronger" applicant. In fact with 228 on step I and two clinical honors, I was an average applicant at best. As for the usefulness of my advice. . . . . .I'm not forcing anyone to do anything. This is a forum and I'm just offering my 2 cents. The purpose of this is to read through all the garbage (including my posts), find something that's relavent to you and tailor an approach that's gonna work for you. All I can say is that I'm an ORTHO intern at CWRU. I hate to be a dick, but it looks like I did something right