Things that are going to be different this year for residency applications:
Many programs are holding virtual open houses to meet potential residency applicants.
These are taking the place of pre-interview dinners and/or facility tours. It’s a great place to network and meet the current residents & faculty.
The season of virtual open houses has already started. Find virtual open house dates and invitations on the website for individual residency programs.
(I’ll also note here that at my daughters’ med school the deans have reached out to all previous grads asking them to make themselves available as a resource to current med seniors to answer their questions about their residency sites and programs. Current med seniors should check to see if their school has arranged something like this.)
ERAS is now posting all its major updates on Twitter. ERAS is also taking questions and responding on Twitter.
If your applicant doesn’t have a professional twitter account, they should open one and follow ERAS.
The NRMP has announced there will be 4th round of SOAP this cycle due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
WOOOWWW this is crazy with all the changes!! I really cannot believe a year ago mine was applying! For those who don’t want to scroll back, she had 20ish (I honestly can’t remember the number) but scheduled 18, 2 of which she cancelled because she got additional II’s at programs she was really hoping for. She matched at her #1 choice (she did an audition rotation there) and my middle daughter and I were her secretaries. I still have PTSD from the ERAS mail “ding”. LOL> we all had access to her calendar and accounts and logged in and scheduled. One of my favorite memories was when my middle (M1 this year) were driving to a first aid course, and we both got the “ding” and we were like “what do we do?” “oh crap! it’s “_______” we have to pull over!” But then luckily, D1 sent us the “got it” meaning she was free to schedule. She was doing surgery rotation, so she was not able to respond for HOURS because some of her surgeries were 8-10 hours.
But here’s a great update… I laughed when I read my last comment about her starting on trauma surgery. Apparently the “hard ass” attending loved my daughter and she got a text after her first rotation saying she had “knocked it out of the park with her first month” and that everyone from the PA’s, nurses to med students had spoken highly of her. She’s so busy, but loves it!! And one piece of advice, a big part of her decision was that she chose her top place based on where she wanted to live and what it offered in her precious free time. That has been a HUGE bonus to go hiking and camping with fellow residents on her days off. She can leave her apartment and be on a trail with view of the Rockies in 15 minutes : ) of course… that also means she had her first drive to work in the snow YESTERDAY.
It’s been a year since our DD was dealing with applications, waiting for interviews, and flying and driving all over the place. Ours got 30 something interview invites, and ultimately attended 14 of them. Like @moonpie she was fortunate to match to her top ranked program. But really, of the 14, most would have been fine.
Our kid is in her second rotation and loves it. She says the program is what she expected so far…and all the pluses she thought were going to be there…are. She is also happy to be back in New England.
Good luck to this year’s applicants. There were four or five of us who all had girls in the match in 2020, and we kept in touch via PM. That really was wonderful…the ups and downs. I believe all the girls matched to programs they ranked highly.
My kid just told us that he submitted his application yesterday. Now we wait I guess. He did say that it’s possible he might have interviews starting as early as this week. ??♀️ We didn’t talk to him yet so not sure how many programs he applied for. His advisors recommended 15. But I’m pretty sure he will do more. He thinks this year because there are no travel constraints kids will be applying to more programs. Hence more competition for a spot. Also he’s applying to highly specialized residency so not many spots available to begin with.
@momworried there are a number of us on this forum who have walked in your shoes…and some of us (like me) worried until it was all over on Match Day.
@Creekland here is someone to share the journey with. I will say, there were five of us last year in this forum who supported one another from September to Match Day in March.
I’ll ??that he gets interviews at most of those places.
Also, can students add additional programs to apply to if they feel they need to?
ETA, my kid’s mentor told her to apply to 50 programs…so my kid applied to…80. I know I know…it was too many but she wanted to be sure she matched and she cast a very broad net. Also in her case, she had an OK Step 1 score and a very good Step 2. And she was applying as a D.O.
@momworried Good to see you here as it’s nice to have company! My guy just applied too (neurology) - to 20 or 21 places I believe after also having 15 recommended by his advisor. Tonight he’s been attending another virtual open house and is glad he applied to their program as he really likes what he’s seeing. I don’t have the full list, but I know he applied to places all over the US, east, west, north, south, and middle. We have no idea where we’ll be hoping to be able to travel to.
He’s thinking interviews will start a week from Wednesday since Wednesday is the day for applications to go to places. He might be guessing though.
Best wishes to your guy! The countdown to March has started!
Applications get released to programs tomorrow–which is more than month later than previous years (Sept 15 was the date prior to this year) and 3 weeks after Dean’s Letters were uploaded (which is when most programs actually started reviewing applicants).
Student can always add more programs at any time. The question becomes is it effective to do so since programs will have sent out most of their IIs already and PDs may not have time the time to review later applications. I suspect that adding late applications is a low reward proposition.
@Creekland --don’t count on interviews starting that soon. PDs/APDs need time to review the hundreds of application they receive. I can see the first IIs going out next week, but actual interviews–probably not quite so soon.
Also, hospitals are jumping places right now with Covid rates going up and ERs and ICUs jammed full. Scheduling at some sites and in some specialties is going be a problem this year.
I think everything is going to be delayed this year–except for the date to certified rank lists and Match Day itself.
I think it depends what part of the country you’re in. On the east coast even though cases are going up our hospitals are pretty empty. I’m hoping we had our share in March and April. Don’t want to see that again. It was pretty scary. I’m in the worst hit state in the country in terms of deaths.
It will be interesting to see the timeline this year. Spoke to my son and he applied to over 40 programs. Not sure if it’s an overkill but he said this year it’s average. Kids applying to over 80. I’m not as involved in the process as I was with med school applications. In fact I know practically nothing. Just whatever he shares with me. He said because all interviews are remote kids are applying to a lot more programs. So if you’re applying to a highly competitive specialty you need to give yourself more chances.
Interviews are coming fast and furious today for my guy. He has three already, two before 8 am and slots are filling super quickly - within minutes for some dates. It’s nice to hear him so excited. One of the three is one of his top choices.
@momworried and anyone else who might be curious, there’s a Reddit page with anonymous spreadsheets for various specialties to get an idea of which programs have sent out invites if you’re curious.
SDN also has spreadsheets by specialty. I used to watch one of them last year to see what dates people were calling. Some programs open up all their slots at once (NYU is one of them) and invite everyone to sign up and also preannounce when they will be sending the invite so every applicant is aware to watch for it. Others progress through one month at a time.
Seeing how quickly those interview slots disappear is stunning. Fortunately so far, my guy hasn’t missed any he’s been invited to and has decent dates. But wow, I can see why one needs a sub if they want to even take a shower or something.
I’ve said I’m a cheerleader, but I never really expected this to be a real active “sporting competition.” It definitely has the feel of one at this point.
The Einstein Healthcare Network in Philadelphia is entering a “death spiral” per their court filings and may be filing for bankruptcy unless the FTC allows Jefferson Health to buy it.
Einstein hosts a number of medical residency programs–and given the mess last year with Hahnemann’s bankruptcy–current residency applicants may do well to avoid Einstein.