re: Calling MD's/Med Students

Algorithm is supposedly just that you go to your highest ranked program as long as you are ranked high enough by them. You can't go to your 2nd ranked program if you're ranked high enough to match by your 1st program.

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What there isn't an algorithm for is how programs choose to rank people and why. Human factor. You'll never understand it.

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I was chief resident of my program my last year of residency, and one of my duties was to participate in the interview process for applicants. I probably did 50-60 interviews over 3 days, took a lot of notes, etc. At the end of the last day, I had a rough idea of who I thought were excellent candidates, but I really had a hard time ranking everyone from 1-50 or 60 (whatever the number was). So, I figured when we all gathered to discuss things, it would take a very long time to sort through everyone.

We went into a conference room, the program director put all of the applications on the table and would hold up one at a time. We'd vote "yes" or "no", and she made two piles. After that, we got a chance to make a case for someone we thought was good or bad from the "yes" pile. The program director would listen while arranging the pile of "yes" candidates, and after we got through all of those, the rank list was determined. It took a total of about 30-45 minutes.

So, a committee of about 8 spent 3 days interviewing candidates and less than an hour sorting through all of it. I don't know if that's how it works everywhere, but I thought it was a little shortsighted when you're somewhat responsible for all of these physicians' futures. It was definitely eye opening.