Not sure how many of you are in the same boat.Step 1 > 250, great 3rd year grades but not AOA, ongoing projects in uro, pubs in basic and clinical non uro fieldsso far i have only gotten 1 interview out of the 10 - 12 that have given them out.at this rate, i will only be getting 5 interviews by the end of the season. should i start to worry or is this normal? my application was completed on september 16th as well.
How many of those schools that have given out interviews did you apply to?
Maybe you shouldn't worry yet because your application was only completed recently.I'm exactly in the same boat as you. Submitted on Sept 1st, completed sept 2nd. Step I>250, honored 4/6 clerkships, 5/10 basic sciences. AOA nomination but not elected.2 national presentations non uro. Ongoing uro research with one submitted manuscript to a major urology publication.2 interviews. (1 of them doesn't really count as it's from an affiliated program with my school)Can't back up with anything even if i wanted to. Everything in my application revolves around urology. Don't even know any internal or family medicine physicians to ask letters from.....
Hey ya'll - I would not worry yet...if you look at the postings from last year and the year before you can get an idea of when programs you applied to send out invites. It seems most of my top choices will send them out in the next 2 weeks.... Chins up!
I'm 0 for 9 so far. No rejections but it seems like not many have actually sent these so far. I would say don't worry, but I know I can't follow that advice. With those numbers, I imagine your offers will be coming.Does anyone know if there is just a ridiculous amount of people applying this year? Wondering if they released how many registered for AUA match?
Take my comments with a grain of salt as I too am going through this painful process, and can't say I know exactly what programs look for...But have a little confidence in yourself, especially those posters with great scores/grades/research. If you've worked as hard as some of you appear to have worked in med school, you will start getting good news. Unfortunately, all of us are in the dark right now since we really have no idea when we'll hear from program X or Y. Furthermore, we don't have formal statistics like other specialties who publish average board scores and criteria program directors look for in candidates. That said, we can infer from similarly competitive surgical subspecialties what a good candidate looks like:http://www.nrmp.org/data/index.htmlCheck out the research reports, particularly "Charting outcomes in the match."If you want to simplify things--which you shouldn't do since programs DO read your letters and DO read your personal statement and care about more than just your numbers--check out this graph:http://www.nrmp.org/data/chartingoutcomes11.jpgI interpret this to mean that among seniors who MATCHED (not were interviewed, but who matched) neurosurgery, ENT, and ortho, the mean +/- SD board scores were in the 230-250 range, with plastics being a little bit higher. So, to those of you with 250+ board scores fretting about switching to family medicine, take a chill pill. TONS of programs haven't sent out any offers yet. Heck, some haven't even downloaded mine yet (and I submitted everything on Sept. 1). And honestly, "middle" and "lower"-tier programs (however you want to define those) may balk at immediately offering extremely qualified candidates since they probably have a bunch of great candidates schedule interviews excitedly every year and then cancel 2 weeks later when outstanding program X comes calling. I know this happened to me for med school (called my state school in January since they hadn't offered me an interview, and they were surprised I was actually interested), and a fellow I know told me he had this same experience during the urology application process.Anyway, just wanted to encourage everyone--no matter how competitive or uncompetitive you think you are--to exercise just a little patience AND confidence. In all reality, if you're part of a self-selecting group of aspiring urologists who eagerly post on a message board about how excited you are about urology, you're probably are pretty competitive.
Several thoughts from a fellow applicant here so take it with a grain of salt. 1. If you look back to last year, almost every program sent out at least 2 rounds of interviews. Hope is not lost even for those programs that started sending out invitations. Also, if you look at the interview switches and cancellations, there are more posts there than in the invitations sections. There will be a lot of movement over the next month or so.2. Regions - Schools do have regional bias. Don't worry about schools that aren't close to you that do not extend an invitation on the first pass. I bet a lot of schools wonder "why would this applicant want to come 2000+ miles away when they are a good applicant in their own state?" I can imagine this will also change with the switches/cancellations that will happen over the next month. 3. # of schools. I don't necessarily support anyone doing this but time is important. Most programs have deadlines of Sept 30th. One may apply to more programs within the next week. I recommend thinking long and hard about this since it is expensive, there is no guaranteed solution, and, most importantly, only 10-15% of schools have sent out interviews yet. 4. Plan B - Don't mean to sound like a downer but this something that everyone should consider. We all face the possibility of not matching. Most other specialties have later deadlines than Urology. One could consider applying to general surgery preliminary or categorical. It's my plan B. I think anyone without any interviews by Oct 15th should start seriously considering plan B.