*** 2020-2021 Medical Applicants and Their Parents

@srk2017 They are very needy. If interviewed, they expect notes of undying love every week and continue writing them if one makes waitlist.

Not too late with those numbers if there is no issue with applying out. Finish primary in the next week or two or at the latest before the end of the month.

Congrats! @3rdgirl to your D! You must be so relieved! Congrats! @AABAKER . It is good to have one in the bag and see if she can get in some top tiers. It doesnā€™t hurt to try, so that she has no regrets.

D is done with all her secondaries, except UCSF. She is still waiting for UCSF, which might not be coming at all. LOL.

How do schools read secondary essays? Do they read those painstaking, time-consuming essays at all? D elected to not complete COVID-19 optional essay for some schools, as she believed it didnā€™t affect her as materially as other applicants, and she might appear to be pitiful or lack of self-awareness if she did so.

Best of luck with all our applicants. Like I told my D ā€œit is OK that you donā€™t hear from the schools, that means you havenā€™t been rejected either!ā€.

@SincereLove

Yes, all those secondaries do get read.

First by 2 assigned readers (occasionally 3) who read all the secondary essays when doing the initial review of the application. If the initial readers put the application to the ā€œconsider for admissionā€ pile, then all the interviewers read the secondaries before the interview. (Often secondary responses will become fodder for interview questions.) And all of the voting members of the admissions committee will have read the secondaries before a final vote is made on the disposition of the application post-interview.

Rest assured your D did not write all those essays in vain.

@sincerelove I am of the opinion that essays get read at some point but I am not certain they contribute in a big way whether someone gets called for an interview unless they trigger a red flag during the read over. I canā€™t find the link but top medical schools have admitted students despite subpar essays and there is a link to such essays on the other website. The essays provide a lot of interview fodder.

I have heard that Penn as an example does a scorecard for all the relevant areas of the application (grades, MCAT, ECs, recs, overall application etc), assign an overall grade by the different reviewers of the app, invite them for an interview and add an additional grade. Baylor does the same and when my older daughter applied 5 years ago, the process used to be so skewed in their point system that some people met the admission threshold before they attended an interview and it was considered a formality. They have changed some of these processes recently but as I understand, it is to add some weight to applicants based on their socioeconomic conditions.

Just popping in to say good luck and God speed!!! Iā€™m SOOOOO GLAD to be on the other side. D1 started her Gen surgery residency 2 months ago, and D2 started Med school orientation yesterday! The stress of the past 6 years aged me A LOT, but Iā€™m so proud of them. @srk2017 lurking for you!!! #vandymoms

@moonpie - How long is the gen surgery residency? I keep hearing 4-6 and not certain if it is different based on where you go.

@texaspg 5 years for mine, then sheā€™s planning 2 years fellowship in pediatric surgery! Sheā€™s loving it so far. Itā€™s as hard as she expected, and the 4 days offa month are blissful ?

@texaspg, 7 years in gen surgery for mine. Not sure if fellowship after.

2 years OR, 2 years surgical research, 3 years OR. A very long time!

They seem to be locked in for a long time.

@moonpie - is the fellowship locked in this early or it is part of the future plan?
@CottonTales 2 years of research is surprising. I have seen many research based programs require 1. Is 2 years mandatory?

@moonpie @CottonTales wonder the difference in years, 5 vs 7. Is this because its 2 different medical schools or are there different paths within gen surgery?

@texaspg, 2 years are mandatory at her program. The only good thing, if you can call it that, is that she works from home since Covid hit, and will most likely till next summer when her 2 research years are over.

@texaspg

Residents apply to fellowship at the beginning of their final year of residency.

Many fellowships use NRMP matching and it works very much like the residency match process. Most Fellowship Match results are released in December.

https://www.nrmp.org/intro-fellowship-matches/

Other fellowships are part of the San Francisco Match
https://sfmatch.org/Specialty.aspx

Fellowships that donā€™t use the NRMP or SFMatch tend to be smaller sub-specialties with a limited number of training positions. (<30) Those fellowships have an internal match that is handled by the professional organization that accredits them.

Fellowships that donā€™t use NRMP/SF Fellowship Match still use ERAS to handle all applications.

The NRMP all-in policy applies to fellowships positions as well as residency positions. A program canā€™t be ā€œinā€ for residency matching and ā€œoutā€ for fellowship matching.

@PPofEngrDr, I didnā€™t know why, so I had to ask my daughter. She said it is a common feature of highly ranked academic programs to require the 2 years of research. Maybe @WayOutWestMom has a better explanation.

@CottonTales Dā€™s is at a very highly ranked academic programā€“one that is oriented towards producing academic physicians. Academic physicians are expected to have various research project they work on throughout their careers. Publishing is part of their job descriptions. D1ā€“who graduated from a very highly ranked academic program, (not the same one as CottonTaleā€™s D, but one mentioned in the same breathā€¦) was required to have at least journal publication from her research as a condition for residency graduation.

Graduates of highly ranked academic residencies tend to have different career trajectories than graduates from other residency programs.

Are academic physicians those who teach at med schools or those who research (or both)? I know med school lad wants to teach later on and is aiming that way with his residency apps. I donā€™t know the terminology.

Again for my info, are certain places better than others? I know I recognize all of those heā€™s considering as ā€œnameā€ places, but is one name as good as another or is it more like the current Supreme Court where there are specific feeders?

Iā€™m still only a cheerleader, but I donā€™t know that I want to bug/nag him with those newbie questions. Heā€™s 99% sure heā€™s going neurology (not neurosurgery last I heard). He ā€œlikesā€ dealing with strokes and other neurological problems. Itā€™s partially due to his brotherā€™s epilepsy and my brain tumor he says. His rotations confirmed in his mind that itā€™s his first love, but heā€™s been leaning that way since he chose Brain and Cognitive Science as an undergrad major. He also loved every ā€œbrain and how it worksā€ show we could find on TV in his youth, so not a surprise to any of us at all.

Actually defining exactly what is ā€œacademic medicineā€ is difficult.

Traditionally it has been defined as those physicians who engage in 3 areas of scholarly endeavors:

  1. training the next generation of physicians
  2. discovering the causes and treatments of illnesses
  3. advancing patient care while at the same time providing care to oneā€™s own patients

Although most people think of academic medicine and immediately think med school professors, a physician doesnā€™t necessarily need to work at an med school hospital to be an academic physician. In fact, a majority of residencies are hosted by community hospitals (hospitals that donā€™t have an associated med school). Most community hospitals that host residencies have on-going research programs. (I believe they are required to have research programs to have their residencies accredited by the ACGME.) They will have other activities that satisfy #2 and #3. (CME, M&M committee, journal clubs, etc.)

So it depends exactly how you define ā€œacademicā€. I guess you could say there are different levels of ā€œacademicā€ with some sites being more intensely involved in academic activities than others.

Yes, certain programs have better reputations within a particular specialty than others. ā€œBrand nameā€ programs may or may not be the top reputed residency in a particular specialty. There are some surprisingly strong programs that arenā€™t brand names. Some arenā€™t even based at academic hospitals. And there are some fairly weak residencies programs at some ā€œbrand nameā€ academic hospitals.

@WayOutWestMom Thanks for the explanation. Heā€™s eager to eventually teach at a med school (or so he says now).

Yes, some places his advisor had him cut from his list because they werenā€™t strong enough for what he wanted (in the advisorā€™s opinion of course) and a couple of others he was told to look at because they were. I still donā€™t have his final list, so Iā€™m not sure if any of those are on it or not. He had quite a few and was told to pare it down to 15. Last I heard he said he might do 20 anyway - just because.

Time will tell what happens. Being on the sidelines as a cheerleader is still stressful - just as it was back in med school application days.

Thanks again.

@Creekland my DD didnā€™t share her residency application choices until after her applications were submitted. She handled it very well. Your son will too.

Just realized Iā€™ve been posting on the wrong thread for what Iā€™ve written - sorry about that! I read both (obviously), but the brain is getting old. If someone were able to move mine or delete them, feel free.