Benefits of Scheduling Residency Interviews Later

I have realized the bitter way that when someone says "Its fine - take your time" without thinking too much first, they usually don't mean it. I took the liberty of the intent of that statement once and was sorry ..lol

And now, the opposite: I have already dealt with why it's better to have earlier interviews with prematch offering programs. And now lets look at why, though it's always better to apply the earliest, there are some points which make late interviews (As in late December - January) more useful, at least with non-prematch offering programs:


1. Residency program faculty naturally have a better memory about candidates that interviewed later, as they sit together to decide on their program's rank order lists in February. This would especially apply more to programs with lotsa seats and lotsa interviewing candidates. But then again, a good impression is a good impression and is often timeless :-)


2. If you are still interviewing with them towards the end of the interview season, it does indicate that you are surely interested in their program


3. Another important reason for interviewing later at those good University programs that you would hopefully have interviewed at others before and have enough practice and confidence by the time you go for those good programs


4. Gives you more time to accomplish - for example, if you started some research project at the time of applying, and you have a publication by December, then by January, during the interview you have more concrete stuff to show and impress :-)

5. Some program directors have known to tell interviewing candidates that they do not do any prematches - and then towards the end of January if you look at their residency seat quotas ....Boom ! vanished ! Why - coz' late prematches were offered.




To help matters at least somewhat, this database of prematch offering residency programs along with the date of the prematch - so that should be a good tool for decision support during interview time. As I see it, candidates must surely schedule early interviews with programs offering prematches very early.


Come to think of it, prematches seem to be a boon to candidates with bad profiles while they are a bane for those with good application profiles - coz' its a frustrating time when a not-so-good program offers a prematch when you either having a pending interview at a dream program or already had a great interview at your dream program that does not matches....yeah right - life isn't fair





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