Do Letters of Intent Have Any Impact on the Residency Match Ranking Process?

There are no stats that letters of intent (LOI) do or don't work. (Programs do not tend to be transparent about how their ranking processes are handled.) However, because many programs do not want to go far down their rank list (mostly for reasons related to ego), they are eager to highly rank candidates who want to be at their programs. So I advise my clients to do whatever they can, including a LOI, to let a program know it is their first.

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Updating Your Activites After You've Submitted Your ERAS

This week a client emailed me to say that he recently received a new academic award and wanted to let program directors know. He asked me if there was a way to update his ERAS. Unfortunately, once you have submitted your ERAS it cannot be edited. You can send a letter to the programs or you can un-assign and assign a new personal statement at any time. (The latter option has its disadvantages at this late date.)

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Scramble Service: Are They Worth It?

Please see my recent blog entries on the Scramble.

Certain companies will fax or email your information to residencies with unfilled positions. Although I cannot comment on all companies with Scramble services, generally I think it's better not to hire these businesses. You have the greatest incentive to be assertive about getting your background sent. Furthermore, the Scramble is a fast-paced system; you don't need a middleman to slow you down.

Contact me for help with your residency application. I'm conducting Mock Interviews every day of the week.

Pfizer Grant to Stanford: No Strings Attached?

Here's an interesting article on a grant Pfizer is giving to Stanford University with no strings attached. The question is: Is that oxymoronic?

How to Plan for the Scramble

As I mentioned earlier this week, I've been getting a lot of questions about how the Scramble works. So please see my last entry for a good description and a complete calendar for the process in 2010.

Now here’s a step-by-step plan for the Scramble:

1. In the weeks before, consider reworking your personal statement for a second field if you think you might Scramble into a second specialty. For example, if you are applying in Emergency Medicine and think you may not match, it might be worth reworking your personal statement for Family Medicine, if you would be happy in that field as well, as Family Medicine is less competitive. (Of course the problem with scrambling into another field is that your application as a whole will be focused toward the first specialty; however, it still might be worth a try, especially for a less competitive field.) You can upload the new personal statement to MyERAS before the Scramble without assigning it to a residency program.

2. On Monday, March 15, 2010 applicant matched and unmatched information is posted to the NRMP web site at 12:00 noon EST. If you find out then that you have not matched, plan to take the next day off.

3. Create a PDF file of your entire application for emailing and also have copies available for faxing.

4. Because, unfortunately, the Scramble occurs through two means – the official one, which is ERAS – and the informal one, which is faxing and phone calls to programs - it helps to organize a few friends and some supplies, including a phone line, a fax line and a computer, for March 16, 2010.

5. On Tuesday, March 16, 2010 at noon the NRMP's Dynamic List of Unfilled Programs is released. This list includes all of the residencies that have unfilled slots. Thus, after looking at the list, you select the programs to which you want to apply through ERAS. Remember an applicant may apply to a maximum of thirty new programs in addition to fifteen “old” programs (residencies to which s/he applied during the regular ERAS season). There is no charge for applying to programs during the Scramble.

6. Soon after selecting the programs to which you want to apply through ERAS, you begin calling your top choices, while trying to send out your PDF to those programs. This is the chaotic part of the Scramble. Knowing someone at a program can make a difference.

7. Hopefully, at that point you will connect with someone at a residency program who will offer you a phone interview. With luck, you will be offered a spot.

For help with your residency application, including mock interviews, contact me. I am holding some emergency slots open for those who have urgent requirements.

The Scramble: Organized Chaos

I'm starting a series of entries on the Scramble because I receive a lot of questions about the topic.

First, the basics: The Scramble is a process used to fill unfilled residency positions. Some residency programs will have available residency positions even after the NRMP has completed the Match. These positions become available during the Scramble period so that those applicants who did not get a residency position can vie for them.

The calendar (for 2010) is as follows:

On Monday, March 15 applicant matched and unmatched information is posted to the NRMP website at noon EST. Residency candidates can log in with their AAMC ID number and password to find out if they have matched but not where. (The list of residencies that have not filled is not yet available.)

On Tuesday, March 16 at noon EST the Scramble starts when the list of residency programs with unfilled positions is posted onto the NRMP website. This means that unmatched applicants (who submitted a certified rank order list for the Match) will be given access to the NRMP's "Dynamic List of Unfilled Programs." The list is dynamic because it is updated by the NRMP every hour to demonstrate the number of remaining positions at each residency program.

On Thursday, March 18 the Scramble ends at noon EST and the Match results are available at 1pm EST.

The Scramble is a huge and confusing topic. Please see my next entry regarding how an applicant actually scrambles. (Warning: How it's done is not pretty.)