[serious] Are residency interviews delayed this year?

[Cfalzy]

Does anyone else feel like the interviews are really delayed this year??

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[sunshinefl]

I’m copying and pasting this from a group text with my med school friends. This is what I was trying to figure out.

So, I looked at the IM spread sheet from last year. Interview invites were still pretty active until thanksgiving. Then they started trickling down to almost nothing by end of December. Wonder if this year being later start, are we 5 weeks behind or did programs send a bunch extra to “catch up” to that timeline? I’m guessing somewhere in between but closer to the second one.

In a normal year, most programs wait for MSPE release which is October 1st to invite. So we’re only really closer to 3 weeks late this year, and there was a lot of interview invites these first 2 weeks. Like days look more active than last year in number of programs releasing/day.

 

[hallowmann]

It'll be a mix of both. It takes a while to work through apps, but programs feel rushed this year, so they're trying to move a bit faster. So the answer is that it will be delayed a bit, but not as much as if everything was pushed a month the way the applications were.

 

[Joltheadq]

I haven't gotten any interview. This is my 2nd cycle and I'm an unmatched medical graduate. I seriously think that this career won't happen for me. Other than taking my boards, I don't know what else I can do to make something happen? I am totally F'd.

 

[FCMike11]

I have been thinking. Historically, it wasn't feasible to even attend every interview you are invited for. By flying to a program, staying in a hotel and everything that goes in with that - that shows a minimal level of desire/interest at least. Due to time constraints, you could only do this with so many programs.

I don't speak with many students about their plans, but in my close friends, one of them who is pretty qualified (and dual applying) has had weeks where they zoomed several interviews (>3) in a week with two in a day even. I think programs will end up having to send out more interviews because student rank lists will be longer, on average.

This is new circumstances for all parties and I would expect things to settle down - eventually. Meaning, more interview invites will come.

 

[odyssey2]

I have been thinking. Historically, it wasn't feasible to even attend every interview you are invited for. By flying to a program, staying in a hotel and everything that goes in with that - that shows a minimal level of desire/interest at least. Due to time constraints, you could only do this with so many programs.

I don't speak with many students about their plans, but in my close friends, one of them who is pretty qualified (and dual applying) has had weeks where they zoomed several interviews (>3) in a week with two in a day even. I think programs will end up having to send out more interviews because student rank lists will be longer, on average.

This is new circumstances for all parties and I would expect things to settle down - eventually. Meaning, more interview invites will come.

God I hope you’re right. I’m applying now but my concern is programs are filling all their spots with the top applicants who aren’t dropping since interviews are now just a zoom call away, and then these programs will have a rude awakening when they have to drop much further down their rank list on match day. There’s no coordination between programs so how are they go to know that they’re interviewing a lot of the same people?

 

[ThoracicGuy]

God I hope you’re right. I’m applying now but my concern is programs are filling all their spots with the top applicants who aren’t dropping since interviews are now just a zoom call away, and then these programs will have a rude awakening when they have to drop much further down their rank list on match day. There’s no coordination between programs so how are they go to know that they’re interviewing a lot of the same people?

Programs can't just fill their spots with top applicants because they don't know what will happen in the match. They still need to interview at least as many as they typically do and possibly more with having them all done remotely.

 

[OneTwoThreeFour]

My program increased interviews from ~200 for 15 spots to 275 because of all this.

 

[Redpancreas]

In terms of what has happened so far, it seems many major academic programs on the east coast that traditionally send their first wave out in early October (2 weeks post-certification) have just gotten around to sending their invites out (4 weeks post-certification). Additionally, I know one program affiliated with my medical school that still is reviewing applications and hasn't send out their first wave of invites. Lastly, I have heard of several programs declaring internal deadlines for when they will give applicants a decision right from the get-go in order to allow for a more "holistic review" and "minimize the stress of an already stressful application season".

Overall, its hard to draw definitive conclusions until the cycle is over and without a birds eye view. So far the overall trend appears to be a bit of a delay relative to the delayed certification which makes sense given the extra work programs have. Additionally, programs can probably afford to take more time to decide who they invite given that video conferencing will allow the actual interviewing process to go faster.

Anyways, what everyone cares about now is if there will be a second "wave". On one hand most of what my friends are seeing now are a slow trickle rejection emails and a single interview invite off a waitlist here and there, however, there seem to still be a minority of programs yet to give out a bulk of their interviews. Overall if I were to guess, I would say no second wave, but maybe 10-20% more interviews per applicant.