<p>Does attending a higher ranked medical school make getting the desired residency easier? </p>
<p>Does location matter? That is, if you want to be in X state for residency, does going to one of X state’s medical schools help?</p>
<p>med school rank only helps in so much as it increases your likelihood of meeting a big name physician to write a great letter. It won’t matter that you went to HMS or JHU if no one from there that people recognize is praising the hell out of you, similarly, there are big name people at every institution.</p>
<p>The latter helps two fold. Again with LORs (people in the same area are more likely to know each other) and also to prove you would actually live in the region otherwise away rotations are critical to prove that.</p>
<p>“Does location matter?”
-D. was told that the location is #1 consideration. If person is “pure midwestern” than she will have a better chance in Midwest. By “pure midwestern” - my terminology, I meant that person was born in midwest, went to HS, UG, Med. School in Midwest.
I do not know how it plays out when it is a mixture. I bet than you will have about the same chances in other location.</p>
<p>Something that I don’t think anyone has mentioned up to now - you can be wait listed for a residency interview. Who knew? At that point the protocol seems to be working the phone or writing an email…if the program is one that you are very interested in.</p>
<p>Definitely, there are interview waitlists. DD has had to put herself on the waitlist for some schools where they did not have any open dates she could attend so she went for the wait list. I have also read about people getting interview invites with only wait list dates available.</p>
<p>Apparently the hope is that some people are now over booking and will subsequently cancel those excess dates and you will get that slot.</p>
<p>
…and it happens. D has already picked up an interview that way.</p>
<p>Does this happen: peer programs purposely schedule interview dates on same day to make applicants choose one or the other?</p>
<p>Son is now in his second year of a 6 year competitive residency. He applied to 32 programs, got 17 interviews of which he scheduled 16 without conflicts and ended up canceling several at the end. He ranked 14 with three pretty much tied at the top of his rankings. He had a hard time differentiating a favorite among the top three as each had its desirable qualities and its warts.</p>
<p>He spent over $7000 traveling to interviews and as others have mentioned ended up in the same cities several times…he had one week where he flew out of DFW on Friday morning for a Friday night gathering/Saturday interview in DC, left DC Sunday morning for a Sunday night gathering/Monday interview in Denver only to head back to DC for a Thursday interview then on to LA for a Friday gathering / Saturday interview then back home for two days before doing another east coast to west coast in four days jaunt. He was so mentally and physically exhausted near the end that he cancelled his last two interviews because they were at lower ranked ( in his opinion) programs and he was just mentally finished with the process.</p>
<p>He matched at one of the top three programs and while exhausted all the time finds second year to be much better than first year.</p>
<p>Hope this helps add a little perspective</p>
<p>Trapezius.</p>
<p>I don’t think they purposefully create conflicts but I don’t think they make much effort (if any at all) to avoid them.</p>
<p>D. informally spoke to a 4th year. She (4th year) is applying (has applied?) to practically all the programs, that means over 100. It is not the first time that D. heard about this number.</p>
<p>DD is working her way through the interview season. She met a person last week who has already completed 20 interviews with more to come. It is expensive, especially given the student wants to wait to buy tickets until about two weeks before the dates (unless using Southwest) in case there are new offers. DD has one interview scheduled within driving distance, but has filled in around it with “fly to” locations, so has to fly there :(</p>
<p>DD is keeping a Google Doc with residency ranking and another with reviews. After each interview, she types in notes, comments, and feelings about the program and gives it a grade A-F, then she goes to the ranking doc and places it on the list as it compares to the other programs where she has already interviewed. I think this will come in handy in February when she has to create her rank list.</p>
<p>My S used a similar strategy. His first interviews started in late October while his last one was mid January. Although he could easily recall the big pluses/minuses about each program, some of the lesser aspects of each program tended to blur/fade with time. When it came time to finalize his rank list, S indicated it was quite helpful to have a notebook of his impressions of each program at his fingertips, especially when it came time to deciding about the bottom of his list. Fortunately he got his first choice, but who knows. As I suggested in an earlier post, S seemed to believe that the residency programs used a similar approach in that the people involved in the interview process met shortly after interviews were completed (e.g., weekly) to discuss each interviewee while their first impressions were still fresh in their minds as well. </p>
<p>And it is expensive with air fares, hotels, meals, ground transportation, etc.</p>
<p>This week on the residency interview trail was/is a beaut - West Coast interview early in the week, flew in and grabbed the car to drive to the next dinner/interview, after that interview drove to the next interview location hoping to make it in time for the dinner, interview tomorrow and then driving to another city for another dinner with the interview on Saturday. Whew!</p>
<p>She has friends at most of her interview locations - props to them for putting her up. There have been no hotel stays thus far.</p>
<p>Talked to someone applying to neurosurgery. Was told 3 openings at any school is considered a large program, 200 seats nationwide with probably 300 applicants. Some apply to 80.</p>
<p>DD just did 10 interviews in 10 different cities, in 20 days. Some of the cities were in the same general region so there was driving not flying between them, but the saddest was having to fly home for an interview and then fly out elsewhere the next day, even the home interview cost for a flight. There is also one area of the country to which she will have flown multiple times for different interviews due to the scheduling conflicts.</p>
<p>DD is grateful for friends, family, family of friends, and current residents from her school living in interview cities who have been able to put her up for free at many locations.</p>
<p>"Some apply to 80. "
-Yes, and not only for “neurosurgery”. D. hear about applying to ALL programs very frequently (the number is higher than 80). Most likely D. will not do it. But she is all ears for now, no solid plan, some preliminary talks, informal chats,…etc. Surprizingly found one great post on SDN (she said that person was more “grounded” than many others on SDN.) She is trying to figure out some requirements and adjust them to her specifics. Soo complicated. It looks like 65 - 70 programs might be her number (no plans for either coast as of now), and normally (on average) this results in about 10 interviews.<br>
somemom,
Congrats to your D.! Amazing what they go thru. Logistic side by itself is incredible.</p>
<p>Sending good wishes to all on the interview trail. D and a coresident hosted a get-together/dinner for prospective residents here for interviews. She said there were ten of them and all were very qualified – and very nice. It seems like just yesterday that she was criss-crossing the country in her search. It was a tough process, but I do believe, for many reasons, that she ended up exactly where she was meant to be. She ranked all fourteen programs where she interviewed, and felt she would be happy at her first thirteen, and very happy at her first seven. She said she would survive at fourteen, and it would be better than not matching at all. Fast forward two years – she has never worked harder and never been more tired, but she feels confident that she chose well. I am very happy for her.</p>
<p>Congrats, hrh, on being satisfied with D’s accomplishment. Very important!
it is ahead of us and we start realizing that the effort will be much more than applying to Med. Schools. When D. was asked recently about her “dream” place, she said she would be very happy to stay were she is now. We hope that it will happen. Still not clear about number of residencies to apply, she is just listenning and hear conflcting messages. But the goal seems to be the same - 10 interviews. Somebody (very credible source) told her that applying to 25 and 70 will still most likely result in the same 10 interviews (in D’s case). It will be a dream come true if she is interviewed at all 3 places at her current location. I started dreaming whole year ahead, very unusual for me…</p>
<p>D is an M3 at a state Midwest med school. #1 in hs, NMF, ACT/SAT 99%tile, etc. She went to undergrad at a Top 15 school (in the Midwest) and did very well. Her undergrad majors (a language and another ‘combined’ major) made it so that she has had to work very hard in med school (lacks a science background). MCAT was average. Her first two year med school GPA was in the “B+” range… Her Step 1 score was slightly below average. Her clinical eval scores so far have been in the ‘above average’ to whatever the top score is. She has a lot of publications due to a fortune introduction to a researcher when studied abroad in undergrad and a summer position in a lab after M1. She wants to do an Internal Medicine residency (no plans to specialize at this time). What would be your advice as to where to apply, how many programs to apply to, and where does one find this information? Is it all ‘word of mouth’? </p>
<p>It seems that often those discussed on CC are the ‘high flyers’. What advice do you have for an very average medical student regarding a general Internal Medicine residency? Any insight would be greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>MidwestParent, Firstly, welcome back to CC Premed Forum.</p>
<p>Being a parent living thousands of miles from MS3 DS, I really do not know enough about residency and specialty choices to give you any advice. I mostly come here to say “hi”.</p>
<p>With this said, it appears DS may be interested in IM as well - at least so far he thinks so. But he said he might specialize later on (do not know what to specialize yet.) It appears that he thinks his IM rotation is one of the most demanding ones (mentally, not physically.) This was because IM attending would “grill” the students so he needed to prepare for it. His stats in hs, NMF, etc., were similar to your D’s. No preclinical grades. STEP-1 likely above average as compared to his class average (maybe by ~20 points?), this clinical (half?) year likely all honors so far (but this is outdated info, as we have never asked him about this.) Do not know about his research/publication front. Likely will do the “fifth year” for research per his school’s tradition. He has stopped playing classical music instruments that we selected for him a long time ago. But he still played other instruments he later chose for himself. He still keeps lot of “music gears” in his dorm room (I have never been there though so it is just my guess) but he occasionally complains med school is not as much fun as UG in this regard.</p>