BR41N5 - 31 March 2009 01:00 PM

More advice: find out if Columbia, Hopkins, and Indiana’s internal candidates want to stay there. If they do, don’t bother showing up for the interview.

This can change from the beginning to end of the season.

ranklist09 - 31 March 2009 12:32 PM

- Don’t waste your time to travel to certain places if you didnt’ rotate there and they only take rotators

Can anyone give some examples of what programs you would not have a chance of matching at unless you rotated there?

BR41N5 - 31 March 2009 12:10 PM

Maybe they assumed with you interviewing at the heavy hitters, you’d be looking to go elsewhere and they didnt rank you as high?

Good discussion…
This is something that I’ve been curious about. My mentor, who is a NS attending, confirmed to me that this is “human nature.” He suggested that you really have to sell that institution that you are in fact interested in matching at their program. [This of course excuses the fact that the question of where you interview is a bit questionable. It taints how they view your application. This begs the question is there any way to “skip” this question...]

crittergetter - 31 March 2009 03:05 PM

ranklist09 - 31 March 2009 12:32 PM

- Don’t waste your time to travel to certain places if you didnt’ rotate there and they only take rotators

Can anyone give some examples of what programs you would not have a chance of matching at unless you rotated there?

My understanding is that Barrow fits that description, although I have no data to confirm this. I received this information from my mentor when we talked about my 4th year away’s.

Isnt UVA the textbook “Won’t match unless you rotated” place? Of course, this might also be a self-fulfilling prophecy - everyone wants to go to the big-time places so lots of people rotate there; and most places would naturally rank someone who rotated there higher than someone who just interviewed.

Everyone wants to match at a famous place. Unless you’re a superstar, perhaps it’s best to limit one away to a high-volume/high-prestige place and the other to a more reasonable place where you have a more favorable chance of matching given your rotation there?

Programs aren’t particularly concerned about “best” on paper applicants.  They will take a known candidate with a 250 (or 235 and lots of research) and a great personality/work ethic over a 265 unknown applicant every time.  So, just because you look strong to a place on paper doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to match there.  Personal relationships will go farther.

Also, most places (high and low tier) have home applicants and away rotators trying hard to match there.  So if you slip past the top few places on your rank list, it can be pretty easy to slide way down.  I think a key to matching well is to be smart about where you rotate.  It can be wise to look at the match list and focus on places that make sense for your application.

h.perowne - 31 March 2009 03:58 PM

Everyone wants to match at a famous place. Unless you’re a superstar, perhaps it’s best to limit one away to a high-volume/high-prestige place and the other to a more reasonable place where you have a more favorable chance of matching given your rotation there?

Makes sense; you’d probably want to have a letter from a well known chairman - this has been emphasized to me time and time again. At the same time, you’d really like to lock up a spot at a lower-tier place, provided you’d want to go there based on how your sub-i goes.