On October 21 at 8 am EST your meticulously crafted ERAS applications were sent to your chosen EM Residency Programs. Now you are waiting to hear who wants to meet you in a virtual interview. And waiting. It's been 5 days?!? Where are the interviews?!?!
(I know you don't really feel this way. You get that to do proper application review takes time. But it is human nature to worry and to self-doubt, so I wanted to share some concrete information that may help in a year when there is a pronounced lack of solid information to go on.)
This year the County Program Unified Release Date is November 2* at 12 pm EST.
This means that any program that is part of this agreement will not offer their interview spots until then. Most of the self-identified "county" EM residencies participate, as do many other EM programs for whom this date makes sense. This year it is reasonable to expect that the majority of the first wave of interview offers will go out around November 2.
Therefore, there is no reason to panic right now. Even if you don't have 12 interviews by November 4, it is still NOT time to panic. After this first wave of offers there will be more. Many programs do not release all their interview spots right away and all programs will have openings as applicants rearrange their schedules as higher priority interviews become available. Every year this process takes a while to sort itself out.
Have a look at this reference page on on the mechanics of interview season and submit your questions in the comments below.
*A previous version of this post listed the Unified Release Date as November 3rd.
Will interviews be scheduled immediately after they are released Monday, Nov 2 at 12 PM? Or will they open for scheduling the day after?
ReplyDeleteThis is going to vary from program to program. Some will wait until the work day is over so as not to interfere with clinical responsibilities (was the standard), but some will expect you are available to check email and schedule right away.
DeleteThank you for this post! Looks like last year interview offers really started dropping off at weeks 5-6. For those of us that have very few offers do you recommend holding off on emailing our top programs until then?
ReplyDeleteAt most programs sending an email or calling is not going to get you an interview right away. BUT if they were already interested, but not yet ready to offer an interview, contacting them CAN move you up the wait list or rolling interview offer list. Not at every program, but it will help at some.
DeleteWith everything more compressed this year I would not wait 5-6 weeks from now. Give it another week and start contacting programs between 11/10 and 11/15 (yes, I am making these dates up b/c we have no historical precedent to follow).
And right now most applicants don't have enough interviews (but everybody knows someone who already has too many).
Hey Adam thank you for all the info. Just to clarify your previous comment, we shouldn't wait 5-6 weeks before contacting programs and instead do it in a week?
ReplyDeleteFor this new cycle which months do you believe the first and second waves of invites will be sent? I met with some PDs during EMRA fair and thought I left a good impression but haven't received an invite yet, does it matter if I get one in the second/third wave? Thanks for your help!
Yes. Make contact sooner. The reason not to reach out is that there are many programs that get a ton of students reaching out to them and find this very frustrating. But a lot of other programs don't get as many emails and calls and don't mind as much. When you are thinking about who to reach out to, choose your most likely programs instead of your "top" programs. Choose programs where you are a good fit on paper and getting an interview there makes sense. The "dream program", that is likely unrealistic (highly desired region, big name, or both) are the ones getting swamped with emails and calls and will ignore yours. You may get an interview there, later, but reaching out now is unlikely to help.
DeleteUPDATE - many EM residency programs have been trying to let people know that they have not offered ANY of their interview spots yet. Others have only offered some. Despite this I still would not wait until late December to reach out to programs that seem like a particularly good fit. Please do hold off on the generic "I am very interested in your program because of . Those rarely help at all, and certainly won't help now.
DeleteWhat do you suggest as an alternative to the "I am very interested in your program because ________" email? Thanks!
DeleteSorry, that probably deserved more clarity. The letter that does not help is the "I am very interested in your program because of ." A generic letter is assumed to be one you sent to EVERY program and therefore unlikely to move the needle.
DeleteThe most useful letter is the one that illustrates some connection to the program, geographically or academically, that may not have been clear enough on your application. For example: if you are really into wilderness/austere medicine and the program has a focus on that (often indicated by the presence of a fellowship or expert faculty), then this is the kind of connection that it can be helpful to highlight. Sure, they should have figured that out from reviewing your ERAS CV and PS but a lot can get missed or underweighted in the initial review of hundreds of applications.
This sounds like a lot of work, and it is, which is why you should only do it for the handful of programs that make up the top of your realistic list.