It is sad SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) themselves are so callous and subjecting both residents and the patients to expose to virus risk.
Thought Kaiser has done lot of precaution and streamlined procedures when I went to pick up some Rx. But I observed something. A blind man with stick came to pick up an Rx. The big rubber square kept at 6 feet apart creates some challenges and he spoke with that location manager before leaving (I could not hear clearly). Either the stick could not recognize and he was getting tripped and also it was very hard for him to swipe the MRN card in to the small device in the right direction and later to swipe the credit card etc since no longer those things are done by the front desk folks. I felt so bad for the challenges they have to undergo (which we take it for granted).
The only reason a prospective resident would rank only one program is if that student only got one interview invite.
Agree with @bajamm that any place your kid interviews, he should rank unless he hats it so much that he would rather do SOAP potentially in a different specialty area.
My kid interviewed at 14 places and ranked all 14.
Honest question here. My guy has been told heâs likely to get interview invites at all or almost all of the places he applies and then to just pick those he likes the most to âgoâ to (now âgoâ is online). Anything he likes from there should go on his list. Anything he doesnât shouldnât. This is from a couple of advisors he also has worked with on rotations - those who do the selections for their department at his own school. Theyâre the ones who told him to come up with 15 for an original list and theyâve since discussed the list too.
Should I be telling him differently?
My plan was to let them run things figuring they knew what they were doing since theyâve seen/worked with him in action and should thoroughly know the system. Theyâve been there for years - not newbies. âIâmâ the newbie.
@creekland Depends on what he is applying to. Some residencies which have 30-50 spots at each location, 10 interviews is good enough.
If the residency is highly specialized with less than 10 spots, you may need to do 20 or more interviews. People advising him would know how many he should apply to and where he is competitive based on his ranking in the program and previous matches for the school for a similar candidate. I assume he has an advisor from the residency program of his choice at his school.
I think he should go to all that he has time for. If this was a normal year I would add all that he has time and money for.
My D accepted interviews for every place she was invited, unless it conflicted with a program she liked better. She did eventually decline some of the invites, after she had already accepted the invite. She would go back and say sorry, I am not coming⊠After a few interviews she was able to get a sense ahead of time whether an interview would be beneficial or a waste of time and money.
@bajamm D did the samething. I was accepting all her interviews when they came in and once she crossed the magic number, she started cancelling her apps that she did not want to interview at, mostly safeties, as well as those she did not want do beyond the magic number.
It is a must for someone other than the applicant to monitor email traffic, be aware of open calendar and dates and accept a date when an interview comes. It is not uncommon for programs to send the note to more candidates than slots and first come first serve applies in such programs. It is in fact quite common for competitive specialties to send letter to 200 applicants, have only 2 days of interviews and 80 interview slots for 2 spots. To complicate it further, they will set up interviews on the same day as their nearest competing program(s) so one has to choose which interview to show up for. Without having to travel, some constraints may be no longer there (going from one coast to another coast for consecutive interview dates as an example).
My kid received 32 interview invites, and ultimately went to 14 interviews. Her specialty is one that typically has more than 10 in a cohort.
@creekland I will say, my kid was surprised by some of the invites she received, and equally surprised by some of the invites she thought she would receive (and which her mentor thought were excellent choices) and didnât. SoâŠyou never know who will give your kid an interview invite until it is actually received. I have to say, I donât think itâs smart to tell a student they will âreceive interviews everywhereâ they plan to apply. How would the advisor at the Med school know that for sure?
I think this depends. We didnât do this for DD at all. But she was in a rotation situation where she could respond somewhat quickly during the time when invites were being sent. If your kid is doing a surgical rotation, they wouldnât be able to walk out of the OR to respond. If your kid is out of the country doing back woods hiking or something, they might need someone to do this.
We asked our kid if she wanted us to do thisâŠbecause we had been told we needed to. But we didnât need to in her case. YMMV, of course. But yesâŠif your kid needs this helpâŠplease step up and offer.
@Creekland
If your son looks at Charting the Outcomes of the Match, for every specialty that NRMP Match encompasses, there is a graph that has as its axes the probability of matching vs the number of interviews attended & ranked.
There is a key threshold to look a: How many interviews are need to reach likelihood a 90% of Matching. For neurology, that threshold is lowâjust 5 interviews. Having 8+ interviews do not appreciably improve his chances of getting a match.
Once your son has accepted 5 interviews and is offered more, then he can start to pick & choose which programs he wants to keep interviews with and which one he doesnât. Iâm a strong advocate of dropping interviews at places where one has no interest in matching once a candidate has reached their 90% certainty level. Both Ds did a lot of âhorse swappingâ once IIs started coming out. Withdrawing or declining some interviews once they had enough interviews so they reached the 90+ likelihood of matching.
Agree that someone other than the applicant need access to the applicantâs email and ERAS account, especially if the candidate is on a rotation where they canât check their phone frequently. Interview slots fill fast, sometimes within 30 minutes of being released. (And yes, programs do send out IIs in batch mailings where the number of IIs is larger than number of available slots.)
I also did not help my D with her scheduling. But, she is married and has lots of close friends. I figured if she needed help then her husband probably did it and that she would ask if she needed it. I didnât sense she was struggling with it.
I did keep in closer contact with her during that time, texting multiple times daily. I made sure to keep an eye on how I thought she was doing from 1800 miles away. She had it handled. If she hadnât of, then I woujld of told her what I could help with.
With my D it is easy to tell through text when she is rattled. She doesnât rattle easily, though the night they were unloading the moving truck at the new apartment in the residency city was one of those nights. I could hear her tone of voice through text and it wasnât pretty. Her residency interview season texts were always upbeat, matter of fact and happy.
D1 did all of her own scheduling because she had set up her MS4 rotations so she was finished with all her surgery rotations by the time interview season rolled around.
I did help D2 with scheduling because she went on a backpacking trip where she had no cell service for 7 days during the beginning of II season. She gave me access to her email, ERAS account and Google calendar so I could accept interviews for her and schedule them during that week. (She got 2 IIs that week.) She also had me monitor her accounts during a surgical sub-I when she couldnât just step out of the OR to check her phone.
This matches what heâs been telling me, so I feel better now. Thanks.
He tells me this year the âgameâ starts Oct 1st. Heâs off the whole month of Nov, mainly so he can interview. That was planned when he expected to travel. Now that wonât be happening so he expects to come home.
Today as he left to head back (just had a week off with us) I told him âSure you can interview here! That way I can stand behind you to add my kudos for places I like and turn off those I donât.â
He also tells me interviews can come later, but he was told to expect most in Nov (assuming that hasnât changed with the change in dates).
I remember setting up some interviews for D while she was in the middle of an interview. She also set up some rules that said top choices in November, middle choices in December and low choices in January. There was onetime she was in the middle of an interview, enrolled for an interview late december in one of her top choices but the program admin sent a message to 10 people at once saying a spot opened up before thanksgiving and i had to respond by texting and confirming since she could not respond to emails.
Essentially people set up interviews late in cycle for those locations where they may not want to go with the intention of cancelling them if others go well. We host people from Dâs school interviewing in Houston (I guess no one will be coming this year) and one of them who was going to come in January a year ago essentially said sorry I am not coming because I have decided to drop all interviews in January as unnecessary based on completed interviews.
Every specialty has its own interview cycle rhythm.
Some specialties tend to interview earlier in the season with the first interviews starting early October and IIs going out right after ERAS closes in mid-September. Others tend to start sending out IIs laterâin mid or even late October and the first interview date in November.
Some specialties send out IIs in waves. First wave of IIs going out in October (early, mid or late) and a second going out in mid-November. Others send IIs out in drips and drabs starting in October and continuing on until early December.
Some programs interview all internal candidate first and only send out IIs after all those have have been accommodated; at other programs, internal candidates have to wait for IIs like any other candidate.
Programs also release interview dates selectively to different sets of candidates based on where they see them. I have seen some programs send out a common letter to everyone at once (preannounced when it will come out) so they are giving a shot to everyone at the same time when to sign up but others send invitations based on a pecking order they have assigned to the applicants. First week, the top applicants get an invite with the earliest dates, second week the next level with more dates and so on.
My DDs 14 interviews started October 1, and she had her last one in January (a program she she ranked pretty highly). They were mostly in late October and November, but two were in December and one in January. This was because she needed to avoid conflicts of dates offered.
So, while it might work out that all interviews will be in November, that might not be the case. My kid found that her rotation sites were very understanding in terms of interviews. But she had to be very careful to fulfill the required amount of days/hours for each rotation.
@creekland I think they had 2 dates in the past. September 15th for application submit but schools release MSPE (deanâs recommendation letter?) with a deadline of September 30th. So it depends on which date he is referring to. â
I am checking through some emails and D started receiving interviews starting on September 23rd based solely on her scores before the school MSPE was turned in. However, by 23rd one of the schools had sent it to several separate batches and her earliest date was mid december. Meanwhile one school said this on September 23rd to the people they were inviting.
I just googled the timeline. The first day to submit is Sept 1st. Thatâs most likely what he told me and my mind was thinking Oct 1st.
I know he said he was totally ready - just had to push the button. I assume he will be on top of it - him and all of his peer/friends. I canât see this being an âoops, I forgot!â deal with all the time heâs been putting into figuring out where he might want to apply. When he was here last time he was busy working on the various parts of the application and heâs had his advisor meetings, etc.
Many programs require one so they donât get âcatfishedâ. Programs need to know the person who submitted the application is the same person who shows up for the interview.
