Question for Team Cranium. So, my institution has put out ZERO neurosurgeons in its history. Why? I don’t know. There have been applicants however (maybe 3 or 4). Matching this winter would make me the first in school history (F.I.S.H.) and I am very worried because of our horrible history with neurosurgery. How much weight will the crappy job we’ve done in the past hold for me on interviews??? Gosh, we can’t even start sub-I’s until August!!!! ALL ADVICE/DISSES ARE WELCOME.

I am applying from a school that has matched two applicants in over 10 years (as far as I know that is all that applied). But one big difference is that at your school you can’t start sub-I’s until august - what’s up with that? Is there any way to change your schedule? I think that would be a huge disadvantage since applications are due in august, and many applicants already have 1 or two sub-I’s completed at that point. Good luck!

go talk to your dean.  if they want you to be successful, you guys can probably work out some sort of deal.

or, depending on how motivated you are, schedule some vacation and use that to do a rotation somewhere else before august.

thats what i’m planning to do
i’m convinced my school has an agenda against the highly-motivated brain surgeon wannabees.  they won’t let me reschedule exams to present at national conferences, they won’t let me schedule a research block early to push peds to later, and they won’t let me do more than one rotation in the same level (ie no more than two sub-I’s in neurosurgery).  and neuropath research counts as the same “level” as a sub-I, so i can’t even do that.

i finally said screw em, am taking all my vacation early fourth year, and scheduling my sub-I’s then.  i figure i can live without neuropath research and do some hematology nonsense instead.

once this is all over, i’m going to make some big proposals to the board to end this nonsense; until then, i’m just playing the game.

so yeah, consider the early “vacation” to do your sub-I’s; that’s what i gotta do

Thanks for the insight guys but unfortunately my school won’t budge. Who cares, if I’m solely relying on WHEN I do my sub-I’s, I wasn’t that strong of a candidate to begin with. So that’s that. Again, thanks for your input guys.

i don’t necessarily agree.  everyone will agree LOR’s are a significant component of the application and some people really score these on the sub-I’s.