Couples Match 2011

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SuziQ

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Who's couples matching? And in what specialties?

Emergency Medicine and Radiology here.

Good luck to everyone!
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Right here with ya Suzi. Radiology and Peds :)
 
Count us in. Radiology and PM&R. :luck:
 
bretticus said:
Right here with ya Suzi. Radiology and Peds :)
Click to expand...

yay!! :) I think there may be more people couples matching in our class than in the rest of the country combined..haha!!
 
Hey guys-

We're couple's matching in IM and Peds. How is it going for the rest of you so far?
 
Surgery and Anesthesia here.
Good luck folks..
 
OB and Psych here. Also having issues with different timelines, though some programs are being super helpful and actually trying to coordinate our interview dates.

Still super stressful though!
 
Same issues here re: differing timelines and one specialty being slower to offer than the other. Hopefully, they'll all catch up in the coming weeks now that the Dean's Letter is released! We were able to schedule our 2 furthest distance interviews on the same days which is great; we didn't think we'd be able to travel together at all. :thumbup:
 
How many interviews are yall planning to go on? I realize it's different for different specialty combos/competitiveness but my fiance and I are having so much trouble trying to decide how many interviews to go on!

None of my advisors can really tell me how many I should go on. I was told that if I was matching alone, I should go on 10-ish but obviously I need to go on more because I'm couples matching. We have 12 in common so far...do you think 15 is enough? 20? Any thoughts would be appreciated :) Thanks in advance!
 
SuziQ said:
How many interviews are yall planning to go on? I realize it's different for different specialty combos/competitiveness but my fiance and I are having so much trouble trying to decide how many interviews to go on!

None of my advisors can really tell me how many I should go on. I was told that if I was matching alone, I should go on 10-ish but obviously I need to go on more because I'm couples matching. We have 12 in common so far...do you think 15 is enough? 20? Any thoughts would be appreciated :) Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

Couples match veteran here (me PM&R, her IM).

12 individual programs should be fine, but I would do as many as you can feasibly/financially do. What helps is the number of programs clustered in a geographical area. Say you interview at 3 NYC programs, and your SO also interviews at 3. That's 9 different rank combos you can create, assuming you're ok with being at different programs (15 combos if you throw in the "999999999 - unmatched" option). The more ranks you have, the better your chances at matching together.

What hurts is the additional number of prelim interviews some of you will have to do.
 
So we've gotten (or not gotten) all our interview offers, and I'm realizing now that there are only 23 different combinations of us matching together (not including one of us not matching). I was hoping to have more interviews together in big cities, but that's not how the cards fell, and now most of our interviews are in smaller cities where we each have one program.

Does 23 combinations sound reasonable? They're a good mix of very competitive and not-so-competitive programs, but I'm still a little antsy. What do other couples have? Thanks.
 
I thought I'd resurrect this thread now that we're done with interviews, finalizing rank lists, and the programs have already submitted theirs.

What are you and your partner applying for? Where are you hoping to match (no need to be specific)? We can all cheer for each other.

I'm doing ob/gyn, and my fiance is doing psychiatry (as I stated in a previous post). We're staying in the Northeast, and applied to a crapload of programs in hopes that we'd be successful.

Good luck to everyone else out there!
 
ortho & rads
 
We ended up with 34 combos. No suicide matches and we are DOs.

I just hope we are in our top 10 at least. He's cool with matching anywhere, but I'd like to go back home to Cali.

:scared:
 
snowkhat said:
We ended up with 34 combos. No suicide matches and we are DOs.

I just hope we are in our top 10 at least. He's cool with matching anywhere, but I'd like to go back home to Cali.

:scared:
Click to expand...

Come on Wyoming!!!
 
Good luck to you all. As someone who will be couples matching (looks like neurosurg/peds, but still could change), I wish you guys the best.
 
How many of you listed all possible permutations of your individual lists in addition to Program X-No Match pairs? My list was like 269 ranks long :eek:
 
kdburton said:
How many of you listed all possible permutations of your individual lists in addition to Program X-No Match pairs? My list was like 269 ranks long :eek:
Click to expand...

WOW :thumbup::thumbup: How much $$$$ was that?
You two BETTER match. Good luck :xf:
 
coup de chance said:
WOW :thumbup::thumbup: How much $$$$ was that?
You two BETTER match. Good luck :xf:
Click to expand...
Probably nothing -- the stat is probably for ranking prelims and advanced combined. I had a pretty normal rank list, but the quoted "number of ranks" was well over 100 because I ranked every prelim I interviewed at on every supplemental list. It is simple multiplication, but it doesn't require extra money because there's a ton of duplication.
 
Haha.... I talked to a friend yesterday that had 460! They are rads/OBGYN. He said you don't get charged by # of combos, but instead by program number... just get charged for greater than 30... they made every combo possible, even if it meant being across the US from each other and unmatched/matched.

I on the other hand have only 26 combos.... hopefully it works out!
 
coup de chance said:
WOW :thumbup::thumbup: How much $$$$ was that?
You two BETTER match. Good luck :xf:
Click to expand...

It only costs more $$ if you rank more than 30 unique programs on your individual list, so I just had to pay an extra $15 for couples match on top of the normal registration fee. So theoretically you could have a list thats 900 ranks long and not pay any extra fees :D
 
kdburton said:
How many of you listed all possible permutations of your individual lists in addition to Program X-No Match pairs? My list was like 269 ranks long :eek:
Click to expand...

Only ranked places where we would be in the same city or within an hour of each other. We ended up with about 30. What's the point of couples matching if you rank the ones where you could end up on the east coast and your SO on the west coast, or vice versa?
 
Derminator said:
Only ranked places where we would be in the same city or within an hour of each other. We ended up with about 30. What's the point of couples matching if you rank the ones where you could end up on the east coast and your SO on the west coast, or vice versa?
Click to expand...

Well that would be the ideal situation, but ortho and rads are fairly competitive so we don't have 30 pairs unfortunately. Both of us would rather match than not match.
 
are there, or have there been, issues with couples attempting to match into the same residency thru the couples match?
For instance, I go for PM&R, and altho currently undecided, my significant other may also choose PM&R. Being that this specialty has relatively fewer programs, will our match results be significantly effected?
 
kdburton said:
Well that would be the ideal situation, but ortho and rads are fairly competitive so we don't have 30 pairs unfortunately. Both of us would rather match than not match.
Click to expand...

some of our 30 are also me matching to just a prelim, so yeah i didn't have 30 Derm interviews :p hope it works out for you guys!
 
DrMattOglesby said:
are there, or have there been, issues with couples attempting to match into the same residency thru the couples match?
For instance, I go for PM&R, and altho currently undecided, my significant other may also choose PM&R. Being that this specialty has relatively fewer programs, will our match results be significantly effected?
Click to expand...

If you're looking at the same program then there might be issues. I haven't heard of too many instances of people trying to do this, but I know people who entered the couples match both going for the same specialty. Their goal was to match at different programs in the same city, because (1) the politics of residency could potentially negatively affect their personal relationship, and (2) programs aren't too keen on matching a couple since if things went sour in the relationship it could affect their performance. If you don't care about #1 you could always couples match without putting it on your ERAS or discussing it an interview. You could also make some anonymous calls to the programs you're interested and ask them what they think.
 
I met a couple on my interview trail that went through the match together and both matched into surgery at the same program. They are also DOs, so they had a tougher time matching ACGME surgery in the first place and still made it.... it's definitely possible.
 
I'd also worry about couples matching to the same program+specialty, because you will literally never get a vacation together. Ever. For all of residency (unless you count a few days over the holidays).

To kdburton - we only listed combos within 45 minutes of each other. We should still be safe, because our specialties aren't as competitive, but we're getting married and I just don't want to live apart for 4 years. Even if we could transfer, it would be really rough and just not in line with our priorities. So our list had 29 combos, and I think 64 total rankings, including the unmatched ones. Really hoping it won't come to that.
 
gynogrl said:
I'd also worry about couples matching to the same program+specialty, because you will literally never get a vacation together. Ever. For all of residency (unless you count a few days over the holidays).
Click to expand...

Actually, a number of my friends who have couples matched say that being at the same program often makes getting the same holidays easier - some programs even guarantee it for one of your vacation blocks. Of course, they were all in IM and at larger programs where there are always a few people on vacation weeks at any given time.
 
pediperson said:
Actually, a number of my friends who have couples matched say that being at the same program often makes getting the same holidays easier - some programs even guarantee it for one of your vacation blocks. Of course, they were all in IM and at larger programs where there are always a few people on vacation weeks at any given time.
Click to expand...

Maybe this whole same specialty/ same program thing is different for specialties where there are many residents per year (i.e. you can potentially always be on a different rotation throughout your training). Anyways if you're going into a smaller specialty I'd try to seek out some advice from people who considered doing it or actually did apply as a couple to the same specialty and same program. My understanding was that it is frowned upon in ortho, so I imagine it must be similar in other surgical subspecialties where there are only a handful of residents per year.
 
Congrats to everyone! We matched too- EM and rads. Can't wait for Thursday!!!
 
Us too, OB and Psych! Dying to find out where though, because some of our combos make me nervous...
 
matched - ortho/rads
 
Matched: Anesthesiology/Anesthesiology...we had about 130 permutations; could have been more, but we got tired of permutating..anyways that doesn't matter now. Good luck guys!
 
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