Are you kidding me? Those of us who were incredibly unlucky enough not to match are BARELY even able to grasp what the hell to do with our lives now after investing at minimum the better part of 5-6 months banking on this as a career option, in case you forgot how fun killing yourself on aways and spending crazy amounts of money was. As a poster above pointed out, many of us were courted and told of how likely and certain our matches was. My own home advisors told me it was a "sure thing". I'm thrilled you're riding the wave of euphoria for matching, but as a reminder, It hasn't been 48 damn hours yet since we all found out either good news or for the rest of us majorly devastating news. While I am still at a total loss as to why the hell I didn't match, I guarantee you it wasn't because of my stats (AOA, phenomenal board scores, pubs, and SOLID letters of rec, if that satisfies your curiosity) or where I did aways, so kindly back off....people need to know stats that matched, not dissect the details of the poor unlucky who did not after dragging it out of them on the thread where vulnerable, hurt people are searching for answers as to how to move forward. Nobody who took this process seriously was gambling at matching, and I'm sure their stats are equivalent to your own. On my read, your post comes across as patronizing at best, and at worst it feels like you rubbing salt in what is still and EXTREMELY FRESH wound.
I cannot fathom how it must feel to go through all of this only to end up not matching. But on the point of putting your stats on the google doc, I cannot emphasize enough how important this is in order for any inferences to be drawn from the data. The document obviously already suffers from significant selection bias even amongst those that do match, but without at least some information from those that did not, we cannot make educated guesses on the relative value of any particular stat and we cannot try to form a predictive model. As it currently stands, it seems that receiving a low number of interview offers is probably very bad (duh), applying to more programs does not mean a higher chance of success, and being in the fourth quartile is rough. It also appears that step score may not be overly predictive, and it may be more of a needed threshold to pass. But we can't make any real intelligent inferences without more data (since I'm just going off of five people currently). Figuring out this information could help save next year's applicants the pain you are feeling. Maybe with combined data over the past couple of years, I could a logistic regression model that would let you have a rough guess at your chance at matching (with obviously a wide confidence interval) or at least help to look for some significance (though this is definitely not a randomly selected sample).
Your sentiments are all well and good. Still let's show some sensitivity though during this tough time. As scientific as we'd all like the process to be, it still ends up being very very arbitrary.
My 2 cent. I would not read much into those love letters. If you want to be cynical I'm sure some PD's/Chairs write those to every applicant on their list or maybe just the lowest they've historically gone on their list (e.g. top 20 out of 50 even when they fill their 3 spots by the 10th place on an average yr). I'm also sure many are genuine when they say you will be ranked highly etc., but even in those cases it very rarely means you are guaranteed to match (e.g. ranked top 2 in a 2/yr program). It probably just means you're in the top quarter/third or whatever part of their preliminary list, and may not even have a likely shot of matching. Even if a very selective PD only sends those types of communications to the 5 candidates they want the most, we all know that you could just get unlucky and the 1st 2 ppl on their list ranked that place 1st ( assuming its 2/yr program and you are ranked 3/40 on their list). From the PD's POV, some yrs you fill your list by the 6th spot and some yrs you may go down to 18th; I better play it safe and try to recruit the top 20 ppl on my list of 60. Just for some perspective all the other competitive surgical specialties ON AVERAGE takes 4.4 to 5 ranked applicants to fill one seat. This means in ENT on average a program goes to 13th place on their list to fill a 3/yr program. I can only assume urology is comparable. Of course with such small numbers there can be significant yr/yr variations, as well as significant program to program variation. Another way to look at it is how do you even decide how to rank the mostly amazing people you interviewed. You already rejected 80% of the applicants that applied by not offering them an interview. I remember a certain PD telling our group that he could easily fill the spots in his program several folds over with just our day's candidates. On that same note as a candidate you have to ask yourself how can I stand out from the room full of objectively spectacular people? Maybe an away or 2nd look helps, great poise in the interview room doesn't hurt, or maybe the guy just liked the color of sox.
Utostat... Give it up man. You're making inferences that have already been known in prior matches. Nobody that didn't match cares of you wanna do regression models. The problem with the Urology match is that it's not like it used to be back in the day when all these older docs matched. They all tell you it's a sure thing based in excellent scores and what not. Doing this a second time around and luckily matching, It's definitely is about that but there's more to it behind closed doors. Keep in mind.... This is a small community. Word of mouth and a real genuine recommendation and support go a long way. I'm only touching on the surface for a broken system that will most likely not change in the near future. Again... I'm sorry for those that didn't match, but it is a numbers game ands at likely has nothing to do with your capabilities. Wish you guys the best of luck and my heart truly goes out to you all.
Dude back off on the stats issue...I'm surprised anyone who didn't match has put in their info in the first place! It's been 2 days since results were released, give these people a chance to sort themselves out and figure out the next step they need to take instead of pressuring them to put in their step 1 score and number of interviews. If they eventually want to participate, that's great, but I think successful match data is sufficient enough to help guide people in the future. There are so many intangibles and other variables that this google doc is not even touching upon when it comes to matching, so while it's a good starting point, you need to take everything with a grain of salt.
Let me tell you a story.Following a prostate biopsy, a 60-something man arrives with his son to a urology clinic. At the clinic, he is told that the biopsy shows prostate cancer. His urologist explains that he has localized Gleason 7 disease and discusses his options. After explanation of risks, benefits, and alternatives, the patient elects surgery. The urologist agrees with the patient's decision, believing that given the patient's disease characteristics, he is likely to be successfully "cured" with surgery. On surgery day the patient arrives with his son and is taken to the OR. The procedure is going well when suddenly the patient codes and dies on the table. Two days after the patient dies, the urologist calls the patient's son and proceeds to bombard him with questions about the patients previous health, how the procedure will be paid for, etc. That, my friend, is what you are doing.
i agree with the person above....i can't even begin to think about how these people are feeling. I know people who didn't match who I would have loved as colleagues and probably deserved to match just like everyone else. Give them time to figure out what's best for them. Getting all the stats now isn't going to help anyone.
all i wanted last year after not matching was a success story. a successful reapplicant. It was hard to find them. I now have a decent collection of reapplicant experiences to share. i did a prelim year and have been successful this time around. One of the 15% of med grads to match...ouch.anyone is welcome to shoot me an email.ppmd13@gmail.com
My sentiments go out to all who did not match during this cycle. I am a reapplicant as well, did a research year, and was successful this time around. Feel free to email me for another set of reapplicant experiences: urodoc14@gmail.comBest of luck to everyone, whatever you decide.
While a valid argument can be made for the value of matched vs unmatched data, I must agree with the sentiments of poster #8; your timing comes off as insensitive, and even callous. 161 of your peers, who, like you, wanted nothing more than to be a urologist, just had their worst fears realized. They are in shock. They are devastated. They are vulnerable. They are hurting. Try to be sensitive to what they must be going through right now. Give them time to grieve.
My apologies to anyone I offended - I can't even pretend to know what not matching feels like and how tough it will be to make a decision on what to do next. I certainly cannot advise on what the next best steps are. Rather my only intention was to try and help rationalize what may have gone wrong - was it stats that differentiated applicants or not enough interviews or maybe it's all a wash and it's luck. Maybe it would help some people decide if it's worth trying again. To the posters above - if such data or information exists and has already been described, please share. I would've loved to know. So would have my PD and student advisors. To the poster with the OR analogy - I disagree and would liken it more to the surgery team and the patient's family discussing what may have gone wrong - was there a latex or drug allergy missed? Was the DVC bleeding not properly controlled? Some families would want those answers, just as much as some of our peers. Again I am sorry for my insensitive timing. I truly do wish you all the best of luck.
I feel very grateful for people who wanted to share their reapplicant stories. I don't know you guys, but thank you for taking your time to help the fellow applicants. I know urology is tough and all, but I took pride in pursuing urology because that how s/he is known for-- more chill and courteous to people than other surgical subspeciality people. You guys definitely illustrate that!For those who didn't match (myself included), this will be one obstacle in life that we can overcome. Come on guys! Nobody died in the family right? There are always things to do to boost our chances.Let's do it!!!! :)
To those who didn't match -- my sincerest and best wishes to you all. I know I've met some of you on the trail who didn't match, and I would love to have you all as colleagues should you decide to reapply. I hope that everyone finds something they will enjoy doing, be it urology or something else.I know it is still soon, but I wanted to get an idea across before this forum quiets down.If you did not match, please anonymously post your stats and data in the google doc match list. This will help us and next year's group hopefully get a better sense of what particular characteristics differentiated the matched and unmatched applicants.Thank you all for helping to transform this nebulous process into something more tangible, and helping to create some real data that can be used for future advising.
I can tell you my stats : Step 1 254, Not AOA, 3 non Uro pubs, 1 Uro pub in European Urology, 5 uro posters, 3 uro abstracts(1 first author), 2 national awards, STRONG letters of recommendation, mediocre medschool, 1 Away at semi-prestigous univeristy. Was courted by over 1/2 of the programs I interviewed at. I took no additional time for medschool and got all these Uro pubs out within the past year. Why I didn't match? You tell me because I would love to know. Those of you who matched, congratulations. Those of us who didn't are trying to figure out why but trust me, I don't think its stats because I am sure that I did > 63.9% of the people who applied and that goes the same for a majority of the people who didn't match.
My 2 cent. I would not read much into those love letters. If you want to be cynical I'm sure some PD's/Chairs write those to every applicant on their list or maybe just the lowest they've historically gone on their list (e.g. top 20 out of 50 even when they fill their 3 spots by the 10th place on an average yr). I'm also sure many are genuine when they say you will be ranked highly etc., but even in those cases it very rarely means you are guaranteed to match (e.g. ranked top 2 in a 2/yr program). It probably just means you're in the top quarter/third or whatever part of their preliminary list, and may not even have a likely shot of matching. Even if a very selective PD only sends those types of communications to the 5 candidates they want the most, we all know that you could just get unlucky and the 1st 2 ppl on their list ranked that place 1st ( assuming its 2/yr program and you are ranked 3/40 on their list). From the PD's POV, some yrs you fill your list by the 6th spot and some yrs you may go down to 18th; I better play it safe and try to recruit the top 20 ppl on my list of 60. Just for some perspective all the other competitive surgical specialties ON AVERAGE takes 4.4 to 5 ranked applicants to fill one seat. This means in ENT on average a program goes to 13th place on their list to fill a 3/yr program. I can only assume urology is comparable. Of course with such small numbers there can be significant yr/yr variations, as well as significant program to program variation. Another way to look at it is how do you even decide how to rank the mostly amazing people you interviewed. You already rejected 80% of the applicants that applied by not offering them an interview. I remember a certain PD telling our group that he could easily fill the spots in his program several folds over with just our day's candidates. On that same note as a candidate you have to ask yourself how can I stand out from the room full of objectively spectacular people? Maybe an away or 2nd look helps, great poise in the interview room doesn't hurt, or maybe the guy just liked the color of sox.
Utostat... Give it up man. You're making inferences that have already been known in prior matches. Nobody that didn't match cares of you wanna do regression models. The problem with the Urology match is that it's not like it used to be back in the day when all these older docs matched. They all tell you it's a sure thing based in excellent scores and what not. Doing this a second time around and luckily matching, It's definitely is about that but there's more to it behind closed doors. Keep in mind.... This is a small community. Word of mouth and a real genuine recommendation and support go a long way. I'm only touching on the surface for a broken system that will most likely not change in the near future. Again... I'm sorry for those that didn't match, but it is a numbers game ands at likely has nothing to do with your capabilities. Wish you guys the best of luck and my heart truly goes out to you all.
Dude back off on the stats issue...I'm surprised anyone who didn't match has put in their info in the first place! It's been 2 days since results were released, give these people a chance to sort themselves out and figure out the next step they need to take instead of pressuring them to put in their step 1 score and number of interviews. If they eventually want to participate, that's great, but I think successful match data is sufficient enough to help guide people in the future. There are so many intangibles and other variables that this google doc is not even touching upon when it comes to matching, so while it's a good starting point, you need to take everything with a grain of salt.
Let me tell you a story.Following a prostate biopsy, a 60-something man arrives with his son to a urology clinic. At the clinic, he is told that the biopsy shows prostate cancer. His urologist explains that he has localized Gleason 7 disease and discusses his options. After explanation of risks, benefits, and alternatives, the patient elects surgery. The urologist agrees with the patient's decision, believing that given the patient's disease characteristics, he is likely to be successfully "cured" with surgery. On surgery day the patient arrives with his son and is taken to the OR. The procedure is going well when suddenly the patient codes and dies on the table. Two days after the patient dies, the urologist calls the patient's son and proceeds to bombard him with questions about the patients previous health, how the procedure will be paid for, etc. That, my friend, is what you are doing.
i agree with the person above....i can't even begin to think about how these people are feeling. I know people who didn't match who I would have loved as colleagues and probably deserved to match just like everyone else. Give them time to figure out what's best for them. Getting all the stats now isn't going to help anyone.
I feel very grateful for people who wanted to share their reapplicant stories. I don't know you guys, but thank you for taking your time to help the fellow applicants. I know urology is tough and all, but I took pride in pursuing urology because that how s/he is known for-- more chill and courteous to people than other surgical subspeciality people. You guys definitely illustrate that!For those who didn't match (myself included), this will be one obstacle in life that we can overcome. Come on guys! Nobody died in the family right? There are always things to do to boost our chances.Let's do it!!!! :)