What applicants said about Duke Univ Med Ctr-NC in the 2026 cycle

someone from penn state apparently

also one of their fellows

yeah that was so weird

i said hi to all of them lolll

yes this was honestly so strange

and there were a couple who forgot to take time even when that's the reason they tell us they're there

I'm more curious about Arkansas> home??

yeah lots of us low/mid tier applicants try to avoid this spreadsheet as it makes us more stressed, the high tier applicants have tons of interviews and their stress is probably more about where they are matching while for some of us, we are stressed about matching at all!

we all are stressed about matching

Which schools ARE having second looks? Which ones are for sure NOT having second looks?

Vandy, Jeff, Iowa IS MedStar, Duke, Northwestern are NOT Cleveland Clinic you can message to set one up

so unnecessary at this point lol

Right, why are they sending us two rejections emails bruh

> i felt this was the case at many top tier/high ranked institutions, they know derm is super competitive and we would all love to match there, they know they don't need to put in any effort...

Why did you find them not engaged? I don't mean this in a snarky way, but what were you expecting to be different? (Just trying to understand where you're coming from)

yeah they seemed very uninterested, resident room was kinda awk

Man I had such a different experience! Very interesting. I actually really liked it.

not enthusiatic, not trying to sell their program, vibes felt like "you should be grateful you got an interview with us"

Gotcha! I got different vibes. I got the laidback vibes tbh.

I don't think it was laidback they just didn't gaf

yeah totally agree with the not enthusiastic and not trying to sell their program at all - like this interview day really stood out among all my other interviews and was the first time I felt this

If you like them so much maybe you should marry them

lol I did like them! I'm just being honest. It sounds like we had different experiences. Maybe I caught them on a good day. Who knows.

reasoning makes sense. You don't know what they'll change.

I think it's a yellow flag for a program for the same reason, especially if the interim chair is from a different department too...

>I'm looking at you Duke.

penn also getting a new chair

a really amazing one. I wouldn't make your decision based on that

penn chair is absolutely a positive

share more about the inpatient pls!

the order of interview rooms is usually just based on the order people signed up on thalamus. so it means you tend to sign up quick to be the first candidate of the day for PD but doesnt mean anything in terms of match , I've noticed i've been towards the start for ones i was faster for

all applicants meet with PD and chair, i think order doesn't have an indication!

did duke actually send cookies out

I didn't get a cookie :(

I al so did not get a cookie :(

oh sad I did get one, but iti did come directly from the baker so maybe that messed with shipping!

mine came today so they're probably still going out

I think a lot of them aren't anymore. I know MedStar and Duke aren't doing them. UConn does not either. Northwestern is also not hosting one.

this is a great question, i was also wondering

Hard research questions otherwise good

POOP

what does hard research question entail? (not interviewing here just curious)

I don’t think the questions were hard but the person asking research questions was hard to talk to

i botched it man /:

why what happened :/

they asked hard questions

also feel like i botched it and vibes were not good like they didn't react positively to my answers 😭

i didn't apply but what kind of hard questions did they ask youuu??

I was asked "if you were a flavor of cream cheese, what flavor would you be and WHY" last year lol, caught me very offguard after the behavioral questions

I didn't even know creamcheese had flavors. Idk how I would answer this LMAO, classic? Low calorie cuz im on a diet?

dang is this what they meant by hard qeustions lol maybe weird is a better way to describe it hahah

POOP

Monday 7:30PM EST>where do you see this? on thalamus?

where do you see this bc I haven't heard/seen anything

POOP

cackling

shits cold af here (northeast)

you should go outside instead of deleting someone else's words to silence them thnx

weirdos

POOP

> honestly don't know, I picked Penn because of its name and ranking and defintely thought there would be more support for students interested in derm. Seems like HMS also isn't that supportive based on what's written below so idk what "top" schools support students interested in derm

I will say that coming from a top school that isn't supportive can hurt you because if you reach out to other programs for research opportunities they will say that "Penn has an amazing dept work with them" and then we are also told not to do aways as it will hurt our institution name (prob because they think we will underperform)

that's crazy, any other top schools telling their students not to do aways? do you guys tend to match good anyway?

we do match well but I think it's because there's a ton of us - like we have double digit derm matches but also a ton don't match - lots of us are told to extend graduation as we are reapplying as med students rather than residents - also doesn't hurt the match rate that way lol - some of the ppl here come in with crazy good connections and exisiting research PIs, it's the reality of going to a top school, lots of competition and not enough opportunities despite there being already so many because too much interest. I have friends at HMS that also have been advised not to do aways prob the same for the T10

duke specifically advises their students to do 2 aways (smart advisors) (actually that's new, and primarily student driven bc they've had consecutive years of students not matching)> yale also advised us not to do aways

coming from a T10 also hurts when applying to mid-tier/lower-tier/community programs because they think that you won't come there (when some of us only have interviews at these programs)

so true, coming from another T10 school here and people are not getting high numbers of interviews here despite being outstanding candidates in every respect, just think that a ton of programs assume we'll go to another top program so the mid/low tier programs are incredibly low yield. also not advised to do aways

similar to the penn story, i won't say what school but also T10? when i reached out to other programs, they were like oh you go to X school, work with them, they are your best bet!

ikr how many ii are you at? did your home offer you an interview?> i'm at 7II but I did 3 aways + home and networked! despite that one program telling me off. shouldve just left that program alone but i still applied and gave them a gold lol CLOWN move!

bigger clown move is complaining when you have 7 interviews. Go prep?

#cope! never complained. simply giving more insight into how top schools can "affect" you

my sister (applying med school rn) also wants to do derm, do i tell her Penn is not the place for derm? Had no idea Penn was like that. She interviewed there and it is her first choice.

applied to the track but am not sure if that is a separate interview invite process/if anyone got an email specifically abt it

I don't think it's separate