Hey! So I went and met with the head of surgery for my school and we talked about different options. I really wanted to stay in the SE to be near family so that basically ruled out most DO programs. He looked at my board scores, GPA and clinical grades and felt confident that I would match ACGME. Steps 244/264, Comlex 670s/720s, GPA 3.98, honors in surgery and an A on the shelf. I ended up with 10 interviews but only applied to approx 20 places (6 were super reaches just for fun).
I think it depends on what you want out of your training too and where you're looking to train. I already trained as an M3 and now M4 at a hospital with a community program that I really like so I knew that I wanted more of a community program/community-hybrid program and not something so academic. If I could do it all over again, I would save my money on applications and not apply to those reaches because at the end of the day I wouldn't want to be at a big academic center, however I thought it'd be fun to throw my hat in at Vanderbilt, Emory, UNC, Wake Forest. Pay attention to the resident rosters on a program's website and I would think very carefully about applying to places without DOs. 8 of my applications went out to programs without DOs and I received no response or a rejection. Another great resource is upperclassmen at your own school. One of the PDs from a program I am interested in called me and actually discussed that since they took someone from my school last year, they're much more open to accepting people from our school now as opposed to before.
I hope that helps.... sorry for grammar, 4th year is making me lazy.
