are we applying/interviewing at too many programs?

Noonan, you are obviously not listening because you go to a top ten med school, thus you will get interviews based on that with you board score. I beat your score and was AOA and all the other sh%% an applicant is supposed to have and got less invites. Stop living in a bubble and telling people not to apply to a big numbers because I assure you you are in the minority, we al don't go to a top ten school. Naive!

What's the incentive for an individual applicant to apply to less schools??? Save $400 in application fees?? Outside of that, I can't think of a single other incentive.

I personally was amazed by a school that I never would have put on my short list, Upitt. And once I got enough interviews to where I felt comfortable that I was going to match at a good program, I turned down the lesser ones that I didn't think would crack my top 6. All in all, even though the top of my list contains 6 of my top 10 programs that I originally applied to, the extra $400 was well spent in my mind for the simple reason of security knowing that I had the options.

Noonan raises some good points. For instance, there should be some research that goes on before you apply. I am amazed that people sometimes seem completely clueless about where they want to be and how to get there. It is a good idea to use as many resources as possible to formulate a reasonable list whether those resources are heresey from a website, advice from faculty, or opinions from residents and previous applicants. The key is to realize that it all may be BS and you might completely disagree about what everyone has to say regarding a program. I think noonan is right that you will probably get the most bang for your buck by applying smartly, and that the "shotgun" programs on your list will probably not be as high yield. However, I disagree that it is still not worth applying broadly. Sure, it is overkill for the super stellar applicant to apply to sixty programs. But if you are a below average to average applicant, those shotgun programs might add a couple of extra interviews which will give peace of mind if it bumps you up from say 7 interviews to 10 interviews. As jalby indicated, it is only money.
I also think it is true that you have earned the interviews that you are offered and you have the right to go on as many as you wish. As long as people cancel the interviews within a reasonable amount of time when they dont want to attend, there should be theoretically no harm to anyone else.
I think it may be a little strong to say that noonan is being naive since his key point was that solid applicants dont need to apply to greater than 40 programs and this is a reasonable statement. The difficulty lies in KNOWING whether you are a solid applicant and avoiding overconfidence. Madukranian, I am sorry that you did not pull in as many interviews as you would have liked. However, it may be a little naive in your own right to make the issue that noonan goes to a top ten med school, when I recall that you previously posted that there was another chink in your armor that may have had a negative impact on your application. Maybe that issue never actually showed up on your application and if so I would retract this statement. I also dont mean to add salt to your wounds, I am just trying to stress that going to a "top ten" medical school may not be the only distinguishing feature between your applications and to make it the key issue might be a little nearsighted. Either way I hope it works out for all of you in the match and it is still whithout a doubt, a crapshoot.

madukranian--no need for such animosity, i was only posting to start a discussion, you are certainly entitled to your opinion

however, i would argue that who writes your letters is more important then what medical school you go to, I think a good example is Rush--not nescesarrily a "top medical school" per se, but with big time well known ortho faculty--to my knowledge the applicants with letters from attendings at Rush with similar stats as mine--did better in terms of number and breadth of interview offers than I did

along the same lines, i would argue that if madukranian had done an away rotation at my home school, worked hard, got letters from the same people I did, and had better stats as he or she says, would have gotten the same number or more interviews than I did

i also think regionality is very important--if your letters are from attendings at Miami--i would submit that you will be much more successful at obtaining interviews in the Southeast as opposed to in California

jalby--you make a reasonable point--what's $400 for a little piece of mind? I would say why spend $400 when you didnt have to. You yourself admit that you got interviews at 6/10 of your top programs, extrapolating these numbers you probably would have been fine to apply to 20 or so carefully chosen programs, 30-40 may even be overkill for you. Also, consider the following scenario: there are on the order of 1,000 ortho applicants this year, i think it is reasonable to assume that there are 50-75 stellar applicants(maybe more) out there (240+, AOA, letters from well-known orthopods)--imagine if each one of them applied to 80+ programs. Given that many programs interview 75 or less people, the rest of us average applicants would really be in trouble.

Also--if everyone applies to 60-80 programs, then the likelihood of interviewing at programs you are really interested in diminishes considerably--by applying to so many programs we are making this process much more of a crap-shoot than it already is.

If we keep advocating applying to 60 or 80+ programs and everyone does it, then there will be several applicants out there with 2-3x more interviews then they can even attend, and there will be a ton more applicants who didnt make it to ten interviews. However, if all of us applied to 30-40 programs that included programs we were interested in and programs we had a realistic shot at interviewing at, the large majority of us would get interviews at places we are really interested in.

ill restate my argument a different way: i am a middle of the road applicant, 90-95% of the programs out there are going to train you well, given that, I applied to programs based off of location and where I thought I had a realistic shot at interviewing and matching--this resulted in me applying to several programs that were wide breadth in stature (well known and lesser known) within my region, and programs that had interviewed kids from my medical school or even better--matched applicants from my medical school (i.e. people who had letters from the same people as I did) in the recent past (last five years)

in other words, if you are a solid applicant (230+ board score, top half of your class, letters from well-known orthopods at academic centers) and do your homework: if you apply to schools within the region of those who wrote your letters (midwest, southeast, etc.), and apply to programs that are known to give interviews to applicants similar to you (similar stats and letters from the same people, or better yet, programs who have accepted people from your home school into their residency program), I think you would be fine to apply to 40 or so carefully chosen programs

although there is variability, this process is not "a crapshoot" in my opinion

also--if you search these forums you will absolutely find stories of stellar applicants on paper (250, AOA) who interviewed at super competitive programs (Harvard, HSS, UCSF, etc.) and didnt match--keep in mind that these programs often only go 10-12 deep on their rank-list, so if you only interview at programs of this stature--you are taking a big risk, there are also stories of less competitive applicants (board score

< 220) who only interview at 5 programs--but do an away at a lesser known place and bust their ass, and match there, to all of those future applicants make sure you apply to and INTERVIEW AT a of programs (competitive and less competitive ones)--the sheer number of programs you apply to/interview at is less important, then which programs you choose to apply to/interview at

this is the last time I will post regarding this subject, I want to know what others think

I actually think I am in the minority in that I got 6 out of 10 of my favorite schools (basically the Cali schools and Miami) My classmates applied to 40 schools each, and a lot of them are ranking their "shotgun" schools in their top three, and they are strong applicants. I just don't think it harms individual aplicants to apply quite broadly. It might hurt other applicants who want the shotgun schools more, but I don't think so.

Lets say a school does 75 interviews for for 7 slots. You will notice when you go on the interviews that there is a lot of regionalism on who gets the interviews. SO I would be willing to bet about 60 of the 75 spots go to people who would have done the research and applied to the school anyways mostly based on location. And how many of those 15 shot gun people probably end up at the school?? Probably one.

I'm not saying the shotgun approach is high yield, but I don't think it affects other applicants to much and you can end up at one of the shotgun schools.

Noonan,
I agree with you in that shotgun apps are not the best strategy. And that the programs sometimes doubt the sincerity of our applications based on this system. However, the fundamental flaw in your logic is that you seem to think that because you research a school and want to go there that they will give you an interview.

I will admit that some of the places I wanted to interview rejected me. However, some of my shotgun apps turned out to be good places that I might not have otherwise seen.

So to make a long winded story short....I have done a lot of research on Ferrari's and I would love to have one.....but unfortunately we all dont get what we want.....

You're right noonan, sorry about the hostility. The wait has been reaming out my soul. And I will concede that the shotgun approach is low yeild because once you apply out of region the invites get way less and they always without question ask, "so why are you gona come to Miami, when you went to highschool, undergad and med school in the midwest." Tuff question but will invariably come up and, "I like the beach" aint gona cut it, but there is another real point to consider. Yes, it is low yeild but most programs have a feel and are full of the same orthopedic robots (ie the same 20 guys from the same 3 surrounding states who love the local big 12 team, hunting, have 2 kids and have nailed 345.36 femurs and 213.4 tibias by the end of their 1 st year) and there is nothing wrong with that, but pretty much every place has that one resident wearing cowboy boots and a bolo tie in Manhattan with a belt buckle big enough for 6 belts or that guy in Nebraska who wears bow ties has tasseled shoes and drinks 'Chateanuf de Pape' at the interview dinner. It gives color to your program and I think every program wants a little variety that is why some program director in Miami decided to give the guy from Seattle a break, it's not like there is a shortage of good people to interview. Those extra 3 or 4 you get from the shotgun formation may seem like long shots but when you consider the context maybe not. Plus a few extra interiews can keep you from tipping the bottle back a little and peace of mind is like platinum this time of year. However, I will also say that getting 10 interviews if they are all in one region is not the same as getting 10 interviews if half are in New York and a third in the midwest and a fourth are in California. Not the same guys in the interview applicant pool and your chances go down.