*****2016-2017 Official IMG General Surgery Interview Invites/Rejections Thread*****

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I hope all of you have done well. Any positive news? How the interviews went? Dont forget to tell us about the results of matching, it helps next generations.
 
I would say new invites now are due to cancellations. I still have an invterview at medstar wsh 2/7 so there is little hope for new invites. Good luck everyone!
 
rejection from Preliminary Wash U in St. Louis (with a nice letter named SORRY LETTER):)
 
Hey guys, I have a question concerning the relevance of the med school an IMG graduated from. Do the programs look for graduates from prestigious med schools or doesn't that matter at all? Like would a graduate from a highly prestigious European university hospital have better chances than another graduate from some no name med school?
 
anyone working on their rank list? a lot of programs seem very similar other than location
 
had 7 interviews with mixed categorical and preliminary positions. ranked 10
 
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Had 22 IVs with 12 categoricals, 5 mixed and 5 prelims. Ranked 20
 
had 7 interviews with mixed categorical and preliminary positions. ranked 10

Wow, that's amazing. Atleast you know you'll be having a career in surgery with that many IVs. : )

If you don't mind me asking, how did you rank 10 if you had 7 IVs?

Also, I was hoping you could offer some advice on what I should do. I only had two IVs but they were mixed. How should I go about ranking them? Im extremely positive I won't land a cat spot since my CK score was pretty low. As a result, I don't mind getting prelim. I'm willing to work hard to convert into a cat.

Program A - prelim
Program B - prelim
A - cat
B - cat

OR

A - cat
A - prelim
B - cat
B - prelim
 
Wow, that's amazing. Atleast you know you'll be having a career in surgery with that many IVs. : )

If you don't mind me asking, how did you rank 10 if you had 7 IVs?

Also, I was hoping you could offer some advice on what I should do. I only had two IVs but they were mixed. How should I go about ranking them? Im extremely positive I won't land a cat spot since my CK score was pretty low. As a result, I don't mind getting prelim. I'm willing to work hard to convert into a cat.

Program A - prelim
Program B - prelim
A - cat
B - cat

OR

A - cat
A - prelim
B - cat
B - prelim

in case if you rank first 2 - cats, and the last 2 prelims, And say you don't land cat this year, you wont get anyway one of those prelims? Or it's about that maybe somebody somewhere ranked that prelims higher than you? That's the point?
 
in case if you rank first 2 - cats, and the last 2 prelims, And say you don't land cat this year, you wont get anyway one of those prelims? Or it's about that maybe somebody somewhere ranked that prelims higher than you? That's the point?

So what are you recommending that I go with this schematic instead?

Prelim
Prelim
Cat
Cat
 
So what are you recommending that I go with this schematic instead?

Prelim
Prelim
Cat
Cat

unfortunately I am not competent in this task, I just asked about what is the difference between this two types of ranking. I hope somebody will reply to you with exact information.
 
always rank categorical programs first. The ranking process favors the applicant. Getting a position depends if you get ranked by the program you interviewed, how high you got ranked and if spots remain filled when its your time. general surgery programs now interview without telling the applicant if it was for a categorical or preliminary positions thus you must rank the program for categorical and preliminary.

ex. u rank program A your no.1. program A does not rank you then you dont match to A and it goes to your 2nd rank choice. This continues until the program has an available position open and that you got ranked by them
ex. program A ranks u 80th out of 120 interviewers but the program has filled all their spots already with other applicants then u dont get matched at program A and the ranking goes to 2nd choice.
ex. program A ranks you top 40 of interviewers and they have an available position for you bingo you match!
 
Has anyone received any emails from PDs recently about where they'll be ranking you?
 
I had a "we'd be honored to be a part of your residency training" as well as just a "Thanks!" <= in reply to me telling them I was ranking them first. I didn't think it would be possible to examine the meaning of a "!" so in depth.

How do you think, this can make a deal for you telling PD's that you are going to rank them first? I guess It's just a false part of this whole game telling each other about "ranking you high", I have read a bunch of posts here about this stuff. PD's tell applicants that they rank you high, so you also rank them high (because they did so, so you think you have a good shot) , and they overally have so big pool of applicants that ranked them high, that was what I read previously. In my understanding if more people rank them high, they have probability to hire basically any guy from the pool (of course depending on their own rank list and their preference) I don't know if this make sense.
 
Yes, there is a game to be played with both sides telling each other that they ranked the other person"high". In essence, this means actually nothing. High is relative... it could mean 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. I feel that telling a program you are ranking them "first" is a much different story. Let's say there are 5 spots, and the program has ranked you 6. If they know you ranked them first... You never know what may happen. For big name institutions who match their top picks every year, this probably has no effect whatsoever. BUT if you're dealing with programs who struggle to rank applicants at the top of their list (or programs who get close to, or have participated in the SOAP in previous years), letting them know you ranked them number 1 may give them some security in their rank order list that they could potentially have one less spot to worry about.

Thank you very much for such a good explanation. Let's say you interviewed at 10 places, does it make sense to tell all 10 places that you are going to rank them high? (rank first)? And one more question what is the processes of telling them such an information, you e-mail a program coordinator or the pd directly, like thank you and stuff and + you rank them 1st? This maybe important for next applicants.
 
You can tell programs whatever you want, but just know that if you tell a place you are ranking them #1 (but don't really), and if they rank you #1, AND you don't wind up matching there... it's 100% clear that you lied and you have no idea what the repercussions will be. They could (for instance) hold a grudge against your school and never interview another applicant again, they could see you at a conference etc... the world of surgery isn't terribly large. I strongly disagree with telling programs you are ranking them 1, unless you actually are. If that's the case, I kept my "letter of intent" email short and sweet.

PD-

After a long interview season my rank list is finally submitted. I am writing you today to inform you that I have ranked the surgical program at the university of yahoo number 1. I hope all is well with you and your team.

Student name
AAMC ID: 0987765543123151423

Thank you very much one more time for such a detailed explanation. I hope you have done well and you will get positive results soon. I also think so that lying will not find you in the best way in case if you get "busted". And what about telling the program that you ranked them high instead of telling that you ranked them first? They may take it personal and think like "we are not good enough to be ranked number 1? just rank high?" For example e-mail all the programs you interviewed at (have done well there) that you rank them high? In case just to show up one more time and remind PD that you are somewhere around? Can this be considered as a good idea? One more time to remind about yourself and to pop-up in PD's brain? ...
 
Did anybody get a certain email from a certain program in the midwest telling them their application was favorable and that they were going to be ranked for their preliminary program?
 
Did anybody get a certain email from a certain program in the midwest telling them their application was favorable and that they were going to be ranked for their preliminary program?
CW? A lot of my friends got the same email
 
CW? A lot of my friends got the same email

Yup, that program. Well, that feeling of being special just went down the drain, lol. I wonder how many people will be ranking that program at the top of their list.
 
Hello folks, I have a question and maybe some of you can explain to me. I am thinking too much about the visa issues. After reading tons and tons of posts I figured out that H1B and preliminary surgery is a good idea. I want to ask you, people who got interviews for prelim for cat, for which visa you will be applying J1 or H1B? And how hard is to get H1B surgical prelim spot? I don't ask about H1B cat because if I get J1 cat spot I will not be worrying about this, 8 years J1 is enough to go trough residency + fellowship and then waive J1 in rural area. I am speaking about H1B for prelim also because my personal situation will let me to transfer h1b to green card in 2 years after getting H1B. So what you have done so far, j1, h1b? And overall what is the priority of H1B for surgery prelim, considering the fact that we can waive J1 after board exam and get green card anyway in 2-3 years in rural area. Any specific priorities of H1B for prelim surgery?

Can we match at bigger program on H1B and then transfer to community program also in prelim on H1B and hope to get cat there? Any priorities of H1B over J1 when the time of transfer to categorical appears? Can't concentrate on studying while thinking about this issues.
 
Congrats guys to those of you who matched. I unfortunately didn't even match. One of the programs interviewed me and didn't even rank me, considering they have two unfilled spots in SOAP.
 
Congrats guys to those of you who matched. I unfortunately didn't even match. One of the programs interviewed me and didn't even rank me, considering they have two unfilled spots in SOAP.

I am sorry to hear that ... Have you applied broadly? And I guess you have been looking for only cats? ... Instead of you I'd applied to minimum 30-50 prelims at strong programs with a history of prelim placing
 
Hello folks, I have a question and maybe some of you can explain to me. I am thinking too much about the visa issues. After reading tons and tons of posts I figured out that H1B and preliminary surgery is a good idea. I want to ask you, people who got interviews for prelim for cat, for which visa you will be applying J1 or H1B? And how hard is to get H1B surgical prelim spot? I don't ask about H1B cat because if I get J1 cat spot I will not be worrying about this, 8 years J1 is enough to go trough residency + fellowship and then waive J1 in rural area. I am speaking about H1B for prelim also because my personal situation will let me to transfer h1b to green card in 2 years after getting H1B. So what you have done so far, j1, h1b? And overall what is the priority of H1B for surgery prelim, considering the fact that we can waive J1 after board exam and get green card anyway in 2-3 years in rural area. Any specific priorities of H1B for prelim surgery?

Can we match at bigger program on H1B and then transfer to community program also in prelim on H1B and hope to get cat there? Any priorities of H1B over J1 when the time of transfer to categorical appears? Can't concentrate on studying while thinking about this issues.

Almost every surgery program will sponsor the J1 because it is way less expensive and less paperwork involved. As I can recall, large programs only sponsor the J1 visa. The IMG friendly programs (ex. Maimonides medical center) are those that seem to want to sponsor the H1B but I have seen very few who do sponsor it even if you have passed the step 3.
 
Almost every surgery program will sponsor the J1 because it is way less expensive and less paperwork involved. As I can recall, large programs only sponsor the J1 visa. The IMG friendly programs (ex. Maimonides medical center) are those that seem to want to sponsor the H1B but I have seen very few who do sponsor it even if you have passed the step 3.

Thank you for your reply, I got confirmation about the slim chances of H1B on prelim from a program director on this forum, he is internal medicine PD, but I am sure he/she has evidence based information. I see that things doesn't go well for people this year, even about prelim ... I thought that getting into prelim will be no deal, but people fail to match prelim , prelim that seems dead end anyway. Things went crazy ...
 
I am sorry to hear that ... Have you applied broadly? And I guess you have been looking for only cats? ... Instead of you I'd applied to minimum 30-50 prelims at strong programs with a history of prelim placing

I did. I applied all over the place. I knew I wouldn't get into a cat position since my CK score was low of 214. I'm disappointed at one of the programs which I applied to that interviewed me but ended up having TWO vacant spots in SOAP. Basically means they called me, I flew out there, interviewed me, but didn't even bother to rank me. I'm trying to SOAP into any of the programs which are currently vacant. Lets see what happens. I haven't received any calls yet.
 
I did. I applied all over the place. I knew I wouldn't get into a cat position since my CK score was low of 214. I'm disappointed at one of the programs which I applied to that interviewed me but ended up having TWO vacant spots in SOAP. Basically means they called me, I flew out there, interviewed me, but didn't even bother to rank me. I'm trying to SOAP into any of the programs which are currently vacant. Lets see what happens. I haven't received any calls yet.

I am really sad to hear all of that, basically programs are worried because your step scores, they are not sure that you will pass the board exam on first try, I think that's all about, their worry about scores, because they worry about the board exam, if more than 50% fails - program closes. I really hope that you will soap, then work 24/7 without any vacation, work until you vomit, drink gazilion tons of caffeine, live in the hospital, kill the absite, publish all the case reports available, I hope you will have a chance. My friend is in your boat, he failed to match prelim! Hope for you folks!
 
Thank you for your reply, I got confirmation about the slim chances of H1B on prelim from a program director on this forum, he is internal medicine PD, but I am sure he/she has evidence based information. I see that things doesn't go well for people this year, even about prelim ... I thought that getting into prelim will be no deal, but people fail to match prelim , prelim that seems dead end anyway. Things went crazy ...

Yes matching into a preliminary 1 year surgery position is hard and like you stated a dead end at most community programs. The malignant ones use it as cheap labor. University programs on the other hand which are way harder to get in will help you with placement into categorical at their institution or at another program. No University program wants to get rid of a good intern or mess up his future career unlike lots of malignant img programs do.
 
Yes matching into a preliminary 1 year surgery position is hard and like you stated a dead end at most community programs. The malignant ones use it as cheap labor. University programs on the other hand which are way harder to get in will help you with placement into categorical at their institution or at another program. No University program wants to get rid of a good intern or mess up his future career unlike lots of malignant img programs do.

how this season went for you?

After reading a tons of posts, and speaking to people I figured out that if an applicant has a green card, best shoot I think will be a prelim at a community hospital. But if a person needs visa, I think the best way will be prelim a big institution. Maybe I am wrong but it seems that community hospitals prefer applicants with green cards, and big institutions for example cleveland doesn't care about it. Just check cleveland current residents, less than a half is img. I have 3 friends that matched in community programs in the last 6 - 8 years and all of them have green cards. I hope I will also have a green. Seems that it's an answer today, but, but every year +-50 non-us img's match into cat (according to eras 50 persons match, we can't know they may be reaplicants from the last year, or researchers for 1-2 years, but that's not a point, the point is that even with this emigration politics it seems that people will continue to match cat after many struggles like prelim,research e.t.c. But if you posses green card, boyyyyy ... doors seems to be open to community programs after a 1 year of lovely prelim )) My match is in 2 + years, but I worried so much about this subject, soo much that seems that I overvoried and now I am calm, reality is that doors are closed, it's not 2000's years, but lucky and at the same time Smart people will open this doors somehow, but anyway without luck smartness and scores will now carry you anywhere nowadays. Let's hope that we are lucky :)
 
how this season went for you?

After reading a tons of posts, and speaking to people I figured out that if an applicant has a green card, best shoot I think will be a prelim at a community hospital. But if a person needs visa, I think the best way will be prelim a big institution. Maybe I am wrong but it seems that community hospitals prefer applicants with green cards, and big institutions for example cleveland doesn't care about it. Just check cleveland current residents, less than a half is img. I have 3 friends that matched in community programs in the last 6 - 8 years and all of them have green cards. I hope I will also have a green. Seems that it's an answer today, but, but every year +-50 non-us img's match into cat (according to eras 50 persons match, we can't know they may be reaplicants from the last year, or researchers for 1-2 years, but that's not a point, the point is that even with this emigration politics it seems that people will continue to match cat after many struggles like prelim,research e.t.c. But if you posses green card, boyyyyy ... doors seems to be open to community programs after a 1 year of lovely prelim )) My match is in 2 + years, but I worried so much about this subject, soo much that seems that I overvoried and now I am calm, reality is that doors are closed, it's not 2000's years, but lucky and at the same time Smart people will open this doors somehow, but anyway without luck smartness and scores will now carry you anywhere nowadays. Let's hope that we are lucky :)

Hi I don't want to brag about matching here as many did not. I was in this position last year and it is heartbreaking. I matched preliminary at Michigan State University as partially matched applicants or couples match can call NRMP and they will disclose the location. I agree having a green card is a big bonus since some residency programs do not even sponsor visas. I am canadian and need a J1 visa myself and it is harder to match than my american colleagues from my medical school who almost all matched.
 
Hi I don't want to brag about matching here as many did not. I was in this position last year and it is heartbreaking. I matched preliminary at Michigan State University as partially matched applicants or couples match can call NRMP and they will disclose the location. I agree having a green card is a big bonus since some residency programs do not even sponsor visas. I am canadian and need a J1 visa myself and it is harder to match than my american colleagues from my medical school who almost all matched.

I checked and only 50 programs out of +- 250 doesn't offer J1. 200 programs do. I thought that being a canadian is a privilege ... Good luck!

I think one more bonus of green card is that after unsuccessful prelim pgy1, you can aply for pgy1 one more time without a fear of problem with J1, as long as I know, it's hard to get second prelim pgy1 on J1 because you repeat you years, maybe I am wrong. Seems that you have more tries with green card.
 
I checked and only 50 programs out of +- 250 doesn't offer J1. 200 programs do. I thought that being a canadian is a privilege ... Good luck!

I think one more bonus of green card is that after unsuccessful prelim pgy1, you can aply for pgy1 one more time without a fear of problem with J1, as long as I know, it's hard to get second prelim pgy1 on J1 because you repeat you years, maybe I am wrong. Seems that you have more tries with green card.

green card or not you cannot repeat a pgy-1 prelim twice. You would do a pgy-2 prelim year and not pgy-1 prelim. That is why researching programs with a history of accepting prelims into categoricals is very important. You don't want to have done 2 years of prelim and then not matching into any categorical program.
 
congrats surgeonpgy-0. i'm glad you matched. i'm sure you'll crush it wherever you go.
 
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Hi all,
Congrats on all those who matched. Hard work...Well deserved !

Can someone please share the stats of how many programs are still unmatched ? Is it possible to share the list of unmatched programs?

Thanks a ton all.
And to those who matched-hope you match in your first choice. Good luck!

Ds
 
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