It sounds as if both your girls are off good starts during this interview season…
Wishing them both happy outcomes!
@GoldenRock thank you for that link! I just looked at the guidelines! Now I know why they had to schedule a meeting! Geesh!!! That’s very detailed. I have to do final evaluations and LOR’s in my profession for doctoral and master’s OT students, but they are not nearly as complex!
The latest on the Hahnemann Hospital fiasco…
Although all the residents have been released with at least some of their funding, there remains the question of whether Hahnemann’s residency slots can be auctioned off as property in a bankruptcy proceeding.
@moonpie - I have one in the residency cycle this year. Promises to be a wild ride - I think lots of wine will be needed for mom and dad 
What’s this I hear about hospitals sending out interview invitations to several students - more than they have interview slots available? Apparently, slots are given out on a first come, first served basis. As if things weren’t stressful enough, these kids have to constantly check their email/app for interview invites and respond asap?
This is a longstanding practice. Nothing new about that.
It’s also quite common in some specialties to have 2 competing programs tender an II for same date so the applicant is forced to pick one to interview and let the other one go. Orthopedics is especially notorious for doing this.
D received an invite saying you are invited but you can only register for a date after the first week of October when you receive the next email but with all the dates clearly listed. Another said invites will be sent out only after 8th.
Thought I would come back to CC, since I can’t really talk about this stress with anyone else. DS is in state school. He is applying to a small but relatively non-competitive field (child neuro), though his first choice since starting medical school. He applied to 28 programs and got interviews at 21. He is currently planning on interviewing at 12 programs. He will basically be done with interviews in December when his roommate doing ortho will be ramping up.
This process is both so much better than medical school admissions, but even more scary. Wishing everyone luck this season.
@MizzBee, deep breath. At this point of the process, all you can do is trust that your son knows what he is doing.
Then on match day, make sure you have an adult beverage in your hand at noon!
@mizzbee nothing is non-competitive in medicine! It just depends on where you want to go. I assume he did quite well if he got 21 interviews out of 28 apps and chose his schools carefully.
Ortho on the other hand is highly competitive irrespective of any residency you are willing to accept. They invite 100 people for 2 seats and deliberately have same dates as their competitors so the applicants have to choose which interview to attend.
Stressful season definitely. D was on pins and needles last month as interview requests came in. The furor seems to have died down now. She’s on the road pretty much all the time in Nov and Dec, with the exception of thanksgiving and xmas. We are headed for a much needed family vacation during xmas week.
What is your SIL’s specialty?
Met with my son and his GF this weekend. He’s likely going to stay put for fellowship because his GF is applying for jobs in Boston (she’s a PA).
He still has about 1.5 years left for residency (I think). He’s a PGY3.
It gets very complicated when they have a SO with also a demanding career.
@MizzBee and @arisamp Mine is flying and driving all over the country as well. She’s already exhausted, lol and this is only 2 weeks in! She says interviewing is way more fun for residency than medical school, because she feels like they are wooing her, instead of the other way around. She’s trying to find positives about every program so that she will (HOPEFULLY) be happy no matter what on Match Day. She truly says, so far, she’d be happy at any of the programs she’s been to so far.
Can I make a suggestion? Interviewing is tiring and somewhat mind-numbing. With 10-20 interviews all done in short period, programs start to all blend together. It’s hard to remember the pluses and minuses come February when ROLs are due. Suggest to your student that they jot down a few impressions about each program right after the interview when their memories are fresh. It will help clarify their thoughts on ranking in Feb, esp for the middle of the list.
Both Ds said picking the top 2 or 3 was easy and picking the bottom of the list was easy; ranking all the in-betweens was hard.
BTW, D1 is taking her specialty board exam today. So are all her former co- residents. All weekend, they have been sending each other texts of encouragement and support even though they are scattered all over the US—from New England to California and Hawaii. It’s been very heartening to see.
@mom2collegekids, sent you a PM.
@WayOutWestMom - my D is doing exactly what you had suggested. We did the same thing several years ago while she was interviewing for medical schools as well. It is hard - she called the other day and was just giving me the details of the interview process and said she was too tired to jot down the notes. Reminded her to do it - hopefully if need be, I’ll remember some of the details she gives me! @moonpie - she went to one program this weekend that she said she didn’t like as much as the others.
This is the first one she said this about - should help when it comes to the ranking list.
Thanks @WayOutWestMom! Good advice. Mine actually has a spreadsheet-She is her father’s daughter LOL -with a lot of factors. But I truly think exhaustion might jade some of her responses. . She is to the point where she is flying from one to another. But happy she has my brother to stay with at one, and a BFF from high school at the other (her friend is a resident there : ) so at least she is saving on hotels this week!
D is right now on another crazy back-back-back weekend. Things do calm down thanksgiving week and the few days after. She’s debating dropping a couple of the interviews, but is also a bit nervous about dropping them. Stressful indeed - but she’s making the best of the whole crazy schedule. Met a high school friend at one place, a college friend at another. Meeting up with a couple of friends this Sunday after an interview to run a half marathon. And she buys good gifts for her mom on these trips - maple sugar cotton candy, pralines…
RE: dropping interviews. Once your student has completed enough interviews to hit the 90% certainty— she can start considering dropping interviews. (That number is in the NRMP match report. Usually it’s anywhere from 7 - 10, depending on the specialty.) More interviews don’t substantially improve their odds of matching— and travel fatigue and cost shock are starting to set in.
For most specialties 12-14 interviews has >98% certainty of matching.
So if you D has generally liked all the programs she’s interviewed at so far, she can withdraw from some of the less desirable programs/ locations she has scheduled for December and January interviews.
My DD called me after each interview and gave me the lowdown as she traveled to her next interview;.I jotted them all down in a draft email and when it was time to rank, I emailed it to her. She just rambled and I tried to note emotions, gut feelings, etc. I also tried to make her give me 2-3 adjectives to summarize it. Mainly I looked for comments that might trigger accurate memories when reviewed later.
The benefit was that I enjoyed hearing about them all.
D is a bit confused because a program where she interviewed sent her a handwritten note with a business card for contact…