Why is your kid flying to LA for his step 2 test. It’s offered in Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta, Houston and Los Angeles.
You live in PA, and your kid goes to Med school in a NE state. So…why not Philly? He could drive.
Because he tried as soon as he was able to and has looked several times since - no slots available in Philly. He had one in Houston farther out time-wise, then found a cancellation in LA that was sooner. He took it (sooner was better). He had hoped for Chicago or Philly originally, and had to work around scheduled rotations.
The slots fill up quickly.
ETA part of our wondering about scheduling a flight is if a cancellation would open up allowing him to go elsewhere. As of fixing lunch an hour ago and discussing it again he’s now pretty locked into his date. He’s arranged his classes and schedule around it. (They had to redo classes/schedule post Covid.)
Which step 2…CK or CS?
Does CA have a mandatory 14 day quarantine for those arriving from OOS?
Re flights…I’d go with Southwest Airlines. If a better city opens up…he can either Bank his flight money…or use it to reserve for a different city.
CS
Not sure about CA’s requirements yet or even what the AAMC might change between now and then. His test is in July.
We’re definitely watching things closely between now and then because who knows? So far, no changes from AAMC.
Many residency programs are considering doing only online interviews so he may be traveling less than you think he will.
Concurrently there are some proposals being floated that will limit the number of residencies applications allowed. (50 total, with applications being sent out in waves.)
Re travel. One of our kids is relocating back here in May. She will be required to self quarantine for 14 days.
I’m hopeful they’ll do more online. He’s hoping to see the places, but knows that might not happen.
His advisor has told him to stick to 15 applications and perhaps just 10 interviews (he expects he’ll get an interview everywhere though one or two might surprise him and not offer it). The lad tells me he might do 20. Peers I know of are planning 30 (and not been told to stick to the lower numbers as my guy was - same person giving advice - same specialty desired).
How many people do 50? Or more?
Right now the med school schedule has my lad (and others) returning the first week in June and working with patients soon afterward. He emailed and asked if they needed to isolate before, knowing that some are coming from hot spots. He was told no.
Seems odd to both of us.
I wonder if they’re planning on testing them. I’d love to know if my guy has antibodies. If so, it’d have been the intestinal variety he had and the “flu” variety his study/work partners had (and he missed). If not, then he might have just picked up a norovirus or something and they might have had the flu (not tested for the flu - just assumed they had it at the time).
If he’s still planning on going into neurology, he’ll need to apply to 2 separate lists of programs. Neurology is a PGY2 specialty. Neurology requires a medicine intern year (transitional or preliminary year) before student can begin a neurology residency.
As for how many–that’s specialty dependent.
The more competitive the specialty, the more programs one needs to apply to.
There is a graph for every specialty in Charting the Outcomes In the Match that show the probability of Matching vs the number of programs ranked.
The AAMC offers an interactive residency application planning tool here:
https://students-residents.aamc.org/applying-residency/filteredresult/apply-smart-data-consider-when-applying-residency/
My daughter’s boyfriend is a fellow. He already knows that his July boards have been moved to September. Now he has boards scheduled in September and October.
Unfortunately because of the pandemic, applying and interviewing for jobs has also been moved back. Sigh!
From the link, 15 sounds like a good recommendation.
The lad has been telling me all about 3 vs 4 year programs and who guarantees vs pretend guarantees vs doesn’t guarantee slots and similar. (I’ve shortened the conversation.) I’m not sure which he likes - that’s why he’d love to visit places.
Definitely let me know if you hear anything about CS Step II changes. I’m leery about him heading out - not sure if flights will actually happen on time and more - but he’s gotta do whatever he needs to do.
Still wondering if we should book a flight now or continue waiting until closer to July.
We canceled so many flights recently I am not in the mood to book anything soon. We will try to book in July for August moving-in. Now if CA has 2 weeks quarantined, not sure what we will do. I don’t want her to be on her own doing all the moving in for the first time. With my husband’s job he has an apartment dedicated to him whenever he visits the labs. So maybe we will just stay there and work for 2 weeks if it comes to that.
I haven’t heard of a 14 day quarantine for coming into Ca.
I’m still working on pushing for refunds on my Tahiti tickets. My D and her H have tickets on Southwest that we need to cancel. We don’t normally fly Southwest, will they just get a credit?
My sister in law and her partner have a big R V trip planned from northern Ca to Oregon and on to Washington state. I think they are leaving end of this month. She plans on going. I’m not sure I would keep those plans.
Normal policy on Southwest tickets that are not fully refundable fares is that you get the full amount of the cancelled ticket to apply to another ticket purchase within the next 12 months.
However, Southwest has some changes for the COVID-19 situation described at https://www.southwest.com/Coronavirus/ , which also lists some advisories for specific destinations.
^Southwest has announced, but hasn’t implemented yet, that it will allow Travel Fund balance to be converted to points. Since Southwest points don’t expire, the refund can essentially be used for another ticket at any time without the 12-month limitation.
I had to book my flight home from dropping my D at her co-op. There are like 10 people on the entire flight. Hopefully it stays that way.
Nominally we are still under shelter in place here in CA so there are no separate quarantine restrictions (just an advisory). So it’s unclear what will happen after that but I think that the biggest risk is group size being limited for a long time that prevents exams from being held in person.
Aloha! Here is your very pretty, made in Hawaii ankle bracelet. You have a choice of the one with a turtle or the one with a hibiscus flower. Welcome to your 14 days in paradise… quarantine. 
https://www.civilbeat.org/2020/05/chad-blair-nothing-screams-aloha-like-an-ankle-monitor/
Oops.
@mom60 - that RV trip sounds good. Why would you think about it? I’m trying to talk my family into an RV trip this summer . … It seems so social-distant safe; and self contained. . . . what am I missing?