2012-2013 Anesthesiology Applicants

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Thanks gasblaster. I added 1 less-competitive program and some TY programs.

Note to everyone else applying- there is no reason not to apply to 10 TY programs and 10 IM prelims...it's the same price as applying to one, which means the other 9 are free (?) Who doesn't love free stuff!? Just pick some weird place in the country that may be fun to live in for a year, and have at it!
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PonyUp said:
Me too. Wanted to be in that first batch that gets downloaded monday.

If you have friends that are frustrated and can't submit, tell them to hit refresh until it works. Seriously...that was the solution for a lot of people having problems.
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yeah dude, my stuff has already been downloaded by Duke, Virginia, Ohio State, UAB, and Michigan. Evidently we aren't the only neurotic ones :laugh:
 
WashMe said:
yeah dude, my stuff has already been downloaded by Duke, Virginia, Ohio State, UAB, and Michigan. Evidently we aren't the only neurotic ones :laugh:
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Yep a lot of them start downloading pretty quickly and start sorting/filtering through. I'm sure some will start handing out interview invites next week.
 
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gasblaster said:
Yep a lot of them start downloading pretty quickly and start sorting/filtering through. I'm sure some will start handing out interview invites next week.
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I think we have a few days of waiting, though, because they have no idea what our USMLE scores are right now.

Does the score transcript upload happen quickly?
 
gasblaster said:
Yep a lot of them start downloading pretty quickly and start sorting/filtering through. I'm sure some will start handing out interview invites next week.
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How can you see which programs have downloaded your application?
 
afteranesthesia said:
I think we have a few days of waiting, though, because they have no idea what our USMLE scores are right now.

Does the score transcript upload happen quickly?
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If I remember correctly, the USMLE transcripts went up later that same day we submitted.

Things are little different this year so I don't know how/if that would change it. I wouldn't think so except that it's a weekend but it appears everything is still moving along like it was a regular weekday in terms of the tech aspect of it.
 
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InvisibleSphere said:
How can you see which programs have downloaded your application?
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ADTS (applicant document tracking system)

and the usmle transcripts are the only things that are not available to programs at this point (well, and Dean's letters obviously)
 
advice for all you guys applying ----

when i was in your shoes 6 short years ago, my wife and i were couples matching, we were DOs, and we were worried. i think i applied to over 50, so did she; i interviewed at 16, she interviewed at 21. that's a lot of money in applications, flights, rental cars, hotels, food. although - we ultimately ended up matching at our first choice - maybe it was all a waste.

anyway, we put it all on a southwest airlines card, and with points were able to score two free airline tickets. comes in handy during that blowoff period after match and before july 1st.

pick a credit card with some reward benefit and use it for everything.
 
I wasn't able to submit until about 2:30pm. Programs must have been accessing files earlier in the day.

I'm glad that's done, but now I will have butterflies in my stomach waiting for invites. I applied super broadly, so it was pretty expensive for me. I have to be confident that it will pay off :oops:

Good luck guys!
 
I did a similar wide net, ended up applying to 67 programs (anesthesia + prelim + TY). I made changes to my PS for Prelim and TY but it was basically just changing the last paragraph a little.

Regarding the ADTS status, I was told by past applicants that the PS usually completes uploading within the day (which it did) and that the USMLE transcript usually takes 3-5 business days, so it seems like it will be sometime this week.
 
afteranesthesia said:
I think we have a few days of waiting, though, because they have no idea what our USMLE scores are right now.

Does the score transcript upload happen quickly?
Click to expand...

gasblaster said:
If I remember correctly, the USMLE transcripts went up later that same day we submitted.

Things are little different this year so I don't know how/if that would change it. I wouldn't think so except that it's a weekend but it appears everything is still moving along like it was a regular weekday in terms of the tech aspect of it.
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DM27 said:
I did a similar wide net, ended up applying to 67 programs (anesthesia + prelim + TY). I made changes to my PS for Prelim and TY but it was basically just changing the last paragraph a little.

Regarding the ADTS status, I was told by past applicants that the PS usually completes uploading within the day (which it did) and that the USMLE transcript usually takes 3-5 business days, so it seems like it will be sometime this week.
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If you check out the ERAS forum, some people's USMLE transcript uploaded yesterday (night of 9/15).
 
That's interesting, I wonder if it's random or based on when you submitted/how you answered the two transcript questions.

Checking ADTS I noticed a few schools accessed my application already, Duke was not one of them though, mainly Northeast programs and 1 California so far.
 
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How competitive is anesthesiology this year. Could you guys enlighten me on what it takes to match at a mediocre or lower tier academic program as a DO student.

I am currently an M1. I am working fairly hard, and I am only doing slightly better than average. Honestly, I don't think I can be in the top 10% no matter what I do. I tend to concentrate on the "big picture" and really try to understand the subject intuitively. I suck at memorizing all the details. I feel like this is what separates the elite students.

Will I still have a decent chance at matching if I have average grades and board scores. I am very flexible on location.
 
VVSHT said:
How competitive is anesthesiology this year. Could you guys enlighten me on what it takes to match at a mediocre or lower tier academic program as a DO student.

I am currently an M1. I am working fairly hard, and I am only doing slightly better than average. Honestly, I don't think I can be in the top 10% no matter what I do. I tend to concentrate on the "big picture" and really try to understand the subject intuitively. I suck at memorizing all the details. I feel like this is what separates the elite students.

Will I still have a decent chance at matching if I have average grades and board scores. I am very flexible on location.
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Well the season just started (literally 1 day ago) so.....
 
Gasblaster is definitely right, you are better off checking back after the match has occurred and if people post their stats etc. You can at least get an idea of the SDN snapshot at least.

Also, google charting match outcomes, it breaks down particular areas of applicants applications and gives you an idea of the demographics of matching applicants (usmle score, aoa, publications, CV areas, etc.
 
... at 2:27 PM today.

Anyone else? Hope everyone's get put out soon!
 
well, no interview invitations yet lol

probably will have to wait for the dean's letter to get released
 
quick question: since I only applied for categorical positions, the residency programs will know that up front, right? That is, if they invite me for an interview they will do so with the explicit understanding that I only intend to consider ranking their categorical positions (which may be a small fraction of their overall positions)?
 
Long time lurker, first time poster. In past years the interview requests went out days after ERAS opened up. Do you think those where....ahem....inaccuracies or do you think they'll start showing up this week?

BTW: I applied to about 40 schools all over
 
vbj said:
Long time lurker, first time poster. In past years the interview requests went out days after ERAS opened up. Do you think those where....ahem....inaccuracies or do you think they'll start showing up this week?

BTW: I applied to about 40 schools all over
Click to expand...

I imagine some places will start sending interviews early, likely based on a basic screening of your Step I score and institution. They don't have dean's letters at this point obviously, but if you went to Harvard and got a 270 or something (I did neither) then I don't think they'd hesitate to extend interviews now
 
VVSHT said:
How competitive is anesthesiology this year. Could you guys enlighten me on what it takes to match at a mediocre or lower tier academic program as a DO student.

I am currently an M1. I am working fairly hard, and I am only doing slightly better than average. Honestly, I don't think I can be in the top 10% no matter what I do. I tend to concentrate on the "big picture" and really try to understand the subject intuitively. I suck at memorizing all the details. I feel like this is what separates the elite students.

Will I still have a decent chance at matching if I have average grades and board scores. I am very flexible on location.
Click to expand...

Just keep working hard and watch the charting the outcomes reports that come out showing changes in competitiveness from year to year.
 
I have got about 3 emails/messages from programs which I believe went out to everyone whose application they received. They all said things to the effect of expect a decision for an invitation within a month, whether due to waiting on MSPE/Dean's letter or for a committee member to review the application.
 
WashMe said:
quick question: since I only applied for categorical positions, the residency programs will know that up front, right? That is, if they invite me for an interview they will do so with the explicit understanding that I only intend to consider ranking their categorical positions (which may be a small fraction of their overall positions)?
Click to expand...

Yep they know. I doubt it really makes a difference. I was told by programs that they rank candidates the same whether categorical and/or advanced. You'll be ranked together for both at the same spot in their rank list.
 
vbj said:
Long time lurker, first time poster. In past years the interview requests went out days after ERAS opened up. Do you think those where....ahem....inaccuracies or do you think they'll start showing up this week?

BTW: I applied to about 40 schools all over
Click to expand...

My first interview invite was within 4-5 days, but for a TY.

My first anesthesia invite was a week after our Sept 1st submit date.

There's a thread somewhere from last year where people recorded their interview invites.
 
i'm so nervous/excited! i applied to 20 anesthesia, 5 im and 5 ty. hope invites come soon!!
 
gasblaster said:
Yep they know. I doubt it really makes a difference. I was told by programs that they rank candidates the same whether categorical and/or advanced. You'll be ranked together for both at the same spot in their rank list.
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hmm... I was hoping this was not the case, but whatever. I mean, it really does not benefit the programs to "rank everyone the same". It makes the most sense to rank the "categorical only" people who you really wanted at the top, then you'd fill in any remaining spots with people who are willing to do categorical OR advanced.

What I'm saying is that if you give someone a categorical spot when they also applied for (and likely ranked) an advanced spot, you could easily bump off a great candidate who only wanted the categorical spot. Say a program has 5 categorical spots and 15 advanced spots... if you ranked the 5-10 best "only categorical" applicants (which they could see in ERAS) as the top 5-10 picks, you'd probably get 5 then you could fill spots 6-20 with your top choice advanced applicants. However, if you ranked based on who you wanted the most, you might give some of those people who matched "advanced" in the previous scenario the categorical spots instead. In doing so, the previously mentioned "only categorical" people would not match then you'd basically match people who were actually less desirable (i.e. lower on your rank list) as advanced candidates to fill out your list.

I think this makes sense. Maybe it doesn't. I don't know if programs think like this though. The basic idea is that the program wins by minimizing "match competition" between the people who are ranked highly. It's like, if they make me compete with someone else on the list for a spot that I need and that person doesn't (since that person would take an advanced spot), the most likely scenario is that the program would only get one of us when they could have had both.
 
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It doesn't make sense because even very strong programs rank 5-10 people for each spot they fill. So a rank list of 100-200 people for those 20 spots is pretty hard to game in that specific way. I think the vast majority of people apply for both categorical and advanced spots. I know I did. Most people rank by anesthesia programs first as opposed to categorical or advanced, because while specific intern year situations can be good or bad, ultimately we're going for anesthesia and thats the important one to get where you want.....I think most people's lists end up looking like 1cat, 1adv, 2cat, 2adv....etc.


WashMe said:
hmm... I was hoping this was not the case, but whatever. I mean, it really does not benefit the programs to "rank everyone the same". It makes the most sense to rank the "categorical only" people who you really wanted at the top, then you'd fill in any remaining spots with people who are willing to do categorical OR advanced.

What I'm saying is that if you give someone a categorical spot when they also applied for (and likely ranked) an advanced spot, you could easily bump off a great candidate who only wanted the categorical spot. Say a program has 5 categorical spots and 15 advanced spots... if you ranked the 5-10 best "only categorical" applicants (which they could see in ERAS) as the top 5-10 picks, you'd probably get 5 then you could fill spots 6-20 with your top choice advanced applicants. However, if you ranked based on who you wanted the most, you might give some of those people who matched "advanced" in the previous scenario the categorical spots instead. In doing so, the previously mentioned "only categorical" people would not match then you'd basically match people who were actually less desirable (i.e. lower on your rank list) as advanced candidates to fill out your list.

I think this makes sense. Maybe it doesn't. I don't know if programs think like this though. The basic idea is that the program wins by minimizing "match competition" between the people who are ranked highly. It's like, if they make me compete with someone else on the list for a spot that I need and that person doesn't (since that person would take an advanced spot), the most likely scenario is that the program would only get one of us when they could have had both.
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WashMe said:
hmm... I was hoping this was not the case, but whatever. I mean, it really does not benefit the programs to "rank everyone the same". It makes the most sense to rank the "categorical only" people who you really wanted at the top, then you'd fill in any remaining spots with people who are willing to do categorical OR advanced.

What I'm saying is that if you give someone a categorical spot when they also applied for (and likely ranked) an advanced spot, you could easily bump off a great candidate who only wanted the categorical spot. Say a program has 5 categorical spots and 15 advanced spots... if you ranked the 5-10 best "only categorical" applicants (which they could see in ERAS) as the top 5-10 picks, you'd probably get 5 then you could fill spots 6-20 with your top choice advanced applicants. However, if you ranked based on who you wanted the most, you might give some of those people who matched "advanced" in the previous scenario the categorical spots instead. In doing so, the previously mentioned "only categorical" people would not match then you'd basically match people who were actually less desirable (i.e. lower on your rank list) as advanced candidates to fill out your list.

I think this makes sense. Maybe it doesn't. I don't know if programs think like this though. The basic idea is that the program wins by minimizing "match competition" between the people who are ranked highly. It's like, if they make me compete with someone else on the list for a spot that I need and that person doesn't (since that person would take an advanced spot), the most likely scenario is that the program would only get one of us when they could have had both.
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To programs, the most important aspect of their residents is their CA years. The intern year is sometimes not even run under the anesthesia department. So like us, they would rank their applicants on the CA part. To them, it really does not make a large difference if one of their residents does intern year their or not. They would likely rather have an applicant that is going to be a good anesthesia resident vs one that did intern year their. There is typically no difference between the competitiveness of the categorical vs advanced spots. It's all personal preference.

Libertas said:
It doesn't make sense because even very strong programs rank 5-10 people for each spot they fill. So a rank list of 100-200 people for those 20 spots is pretty hard to game in that specific way. I think the vast majority of people apply for both categorical and advanced spots. I know I did. Most people rank by anesthesia programs first as opposed to categorical or advanced, because while specific intern year situations can be good or bad, ultimately we're going for anesthesia and thats the important one to get where you want.....I think most people's lists end up looking like 1cat, 1adv, 2cat, 2adv....etc.
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Yep. Vast majority of applicants apply to both (why not it doesn't cost more) and rank in this way. I know I did and most, if not all, my classmates. To us the most important thing was the anesthesia program, not the categorical vs advanced. For instance MGH and Hopkins only have 1/4 or less categorical spots. If you do only apply categorical, you're greatly decreasing your chances to match at these programs if you only rank categorical programs or rank all your categoricals above your advanced. 1) cat A, 2) cat B, 3) cat C, 4) adv A, 2) adv B, 3) adv C.
 
Maybe I'll see you there, F80.
 
F80 said:
Sounds good, any ideas where you're going to stay?
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Not sure, I wonder if they will provide hotels? I have seen that a lot of anesthesia programs do.
 
smk9 said:
Not sure, I wonder if they will provide hotels? I have seen that a lot of anesthesia programs do.
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Possible, although they mentioned 2 hotels that are in "close proximity" in the email, guess we'll wait for the confirmation email
 
smk9 said:
Not sure, I wonder if they will provide hotels? I have seen that a lot of anesthesia programs do.
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None of the manhattan ones do.

Most anesthesia programs in large cities (NYC, Boston, Chicago, etc) don't provide hotels.
 
Libertas said:
It doesn't make sense because even very strong programs rank 5-10 people for each spot they fill. So a rank list of 100-200 people for those 20 spots is pretty hard to game in that specific way. I think the vast majority of people apply for both categorical and advanced spots. I know I did. Most people rank by anesthesia programs first as opposed to categorical or advanced, because while specific intern year situations can be good or bad, ultimately we're going for anesthesia and thats the important one to get where you want.....I think most people's lists end up looking like 1cat, 1adv, 2cat, 2adv....etc.
Click to expand...

gasblaster said:
To programs, the most important aspect of their residents is their CA years. The intern year is sometimes not even run under the anesthesia department. So like us, they would rank their applicants on the CA part. To them, it really does not make a large difference if one of their residents does intern year their or not. They would likely rather have an applicant that is going to be a good anesthesia resident vs one that did intern year their. There is typically no difference between the competitiveness of the categorical vs advanced spots. It's all personal preference.



Yep. Vast majority of applicants apply to both (why not it doesn't cost more) and rank in this way. I know I did and most, if not all, my classmates. To us the most important thing was the anesthesia program, not the categorical vs advanced. For instance MGH and Hopkins only have 1/4 or less categorical spots. If you do only apply categorical, you're greatly decreasing your chances to match at these programs if you only rank categorical programs or rank all your categoricals above your advanced. 1) cat A, 2) cat B, 3) cat C, 4) adv A, 2) adv B, 3) adv C.
Click to expand...

I don't think I was explaining myself correctly... I agree that people will go 1cat, 1adv, 2cat, 2adv, etc.

What I was saying is if you have two people who are of similar competitiveness, the best way to match them both to your program is to rank the "cat only" person higher than the "cat/adv" person. This is because you want to prevent the latter from matching "1cat" when you still could have gotten them as "1adv", then you leave the categorical spot open for the person who is can only fill the cat, not adv
 
WashMe said:
I don't think I was explaining myself correctly... I agree that people will go 1cat, 1adv, 2cat, 2adv, etc.

What I was saying is if you have two people who are of similar competitiveness, the best way to match them both to your program is to rank the "cat only" person higher than the "cat/adv" person. This is because you want to prevent the latter from matching "1cat" when you still could have gotten them as "1adv", then you leave the categorical spot open for the person who is can only fill the cat, not adv
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This doesn't make much sense. There are probably just as many people who would prefer advanced spots and possibly rank them over all the categorical spots because they need to be in a certain city for a year or because they want to do a cush ty. I know at my program, which has twice as many advanced as categorical spots, the advanced spots go first. Some people ranked advanced and then categorical and ended up with categorical.
 
DannyB said:
This doesn't make much sense. There are probably just as many people who would prefer advanced spots and possibly rank them over all the categorical spots because they need to be in a certain city for a year or because they want to do a cush ty. I know at my program, which has twice as many advanced as categorical spots, the advanced spots go first. Some people ranked advanced and then categorical and ended up with categorical.
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oh... well, hell yeah then! lol

I hope a decent number of people go for the advanced spots first, so I can get ranked lower and still match :D

I guess I always assumed the categorical spots were much more desirable for a given program.
 
btw I got 1 interview invitation today! I hope you guys are getting invitations as well :luck:
 
WashMe said:
I guess I always assumed the categorical spots were much more desirable for a given program.
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I was thinking cat spots might be tougher to get just because it seems like there are less of them at the programs that have both. Like the Hopkins example above.
 
partydoc said:
I was thinking cat spots might be tougher to get just because it seems like there are less of them at the programs that have both. Like the Hopkins example above.
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Personal preference. But yeah I guess if the preference was half and half at a given the # of categorical spots << # of advanced spots, it technically would be more competitive. The majority of programs that offer both still leans predominately towards more advanced spots (just a generalization).
 
partydoc said:
I was thinking cat spots might be tougher to get just because it seems like there are less of them at the programs that have both. Like the Hopkins example above.
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yeah it seems like east coast programs are advanced-heavy... I applied to a couple, but I don't expect interviews and I also don't expect they would rank me high enough to match even if I did interview. Many of the places I'm looking in the midwest are either pretty balanced cat/adv or actually lean strongly toward categorical. Michigan, for instance, has 24 cat and 0 adv.

The reason I have been trying to figure out the programs' ranking strategies is because I applied to some great places that only have a few categorical spots, and now I'm thinking I might turn down interviews if I get them just because it might not be worth traveling across the whole country to interview for one of a handful of spots.
 
WashMe said:
yeah it seems like east coast programs are advanced-heavy... I applied to a couple, but I don't expect interviews and I also don't expect they would rank me high enough to match even if I did interview. Many of the places I'm looking in the midwest are either pretty balanced cat/adv or actually lean strongly toward categorical. Michigan, for instance, has 24 cat and 0 adv.

The reason I have been trying to figure out the programs' ranking strategies is because I applied to some great places that only have a few categorical spots, and now I'm thinking I might turn down interviews if I get them just because it might not be worth traveling across the whole country to interview for one of a handful of spots.
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Yeah, I was thinking I would do only cat spots too so I didn't have to move. But after thinking about it, I figured why the hell not? I'm only applying to local TY programs so I won't have to move twice. Plus, it seems like a lot of the big name programs are both, or more heavy on adv spots. I'd be willing to put up with moving if I got into a sweet program.
 
partydoc said:
Yeah, I was thinking I would do only cat spots too so I didn't have to move. But after thinking about it, I figured why the hell not? I'm only applying to local TY programs so I won't have to move twice. Plus, it seems like a lot of the big name programs are both, or more heavy on adv spots. I'd be willing to put up with moving if I got into a sweet program.
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Yeah, I have a rigid "one move only" rule for personal reasons... it sort of sucks. I thought about trying for the local prelim and TY spots so I could do adv as well, but there are only 4 local prelims (<15 spots total) and 2 TY programs (each with 2-3 spots).

The problem is, if you rank cat1, adv1, then cat2, if you match at adv1 but do NOT match a prelim then you are screwed. It would be nice if it would just bump you down to cat2, cat3, cat4, etc., but what would happen is that you'd be stuck with the adv1 match then you'd have to SOAP for a prelim (which could be a HUGE PITA). I looked it up and I'm certain it works this way.
 
Just in case anyone is interested:

http://www.nrmp.org/res_match/special_part/us_seniors/order_list.html

"A supplemental rank order list will be used in The Match only if the applicant matches to an advanced program on the primary rank order list. The supplemental rank order list is used as part of the Main Residency Match and is not a separate Match. During the Matching process, the Matching algorithm first looks at an applicant's primary rank order list and attempts to make a match. If the applicant is matched to an advanced program, the algorithm will seek to match the applicant to a preliminary position from the supplemental rank order list that is linked to that advanced program. If the algorithm is unable to match the applicant to a first-year program, the match to the advanced program still holds, and the applicant will have to seek a PGY-1 position after The Match."
 
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