Mass General Brigham-MA

Did rejections already go out?

see above comment about LORs as method of first round app evaluation

Wow. So if we got rejected so fast, it means our letters suck? That is somehow more unsettling to me than if it had been a Step/AOA screen...| are you seriously expecting an interview invite from every derm program? you're not special. get over it

Yikes... calm down.

Probably statisically the majority of us will be getting 6-11 interviews or so, so it's OK to be rejected a lot

My question was more whether it bodes poorly to be in the first round of rejections. Obviously majority of applicants will be rejected by majority of programs. I am fully aware that I am a thoroughly average applicant.

Hey man, don't mind Mr. Crankypants over here. We're all in this together

I doubt that being rejected in first wave means you suck the most....they probably split all the apps into chunks and go through them in groups, and decide which out of each group they want to interview/reject

<-I got a first round of Wake Forest rejections but UWisc invite, so I don't think it means anything,

That makes me feel better! Thanks!

Are you talking Univ of Washington or UWisc for the invite?

UWisc - UWash won't go out for a while

you guys really need to try and not take every rejection personally. If you apply to every program, even if you get 15 interviews which is absolutely outstanding, you still get >100 rejections. if you take every one personally, you are in for a very long and depressing application cycle. even applicants with the most amazing stats get tons of rejections..... there are SO many things that go into the decision besides stats, different programs value different things and they can only interview so many people. hang in there!

Current derm resident here who's involved in reviewing applications. Believe me, when I say, getting rejected does not mean you have a weak application. Even tippy top applicants will get >50% rejections and most of you will (if you applied to all programs), get > 90% rejections. Programs don't interview many applicants and tend to preference people they know (rotators, home students, etc.) or those who have regional or local connections (especially for non-top programs). If you're Wake Forest, for instance, do you really think that top Harvard applicant who grew up in California is trying to move to Winston-Salem. Would you want to waste one of your say, 25 interview spots on that person (no idea how many they interview).

The people reviewing applications are certainly not taking chances with their limited interview spots, especially when they know people are applying to 100+ programs. Most applicants who are rejected are probably more upset about the concept of rejection and what that means to their anxiety and ego, not really about the program itself.

Yeah, youre right about that. I actually asked Modlin about it and he basically said that the NIH funding list only includes Dermatology DEPARTMENTS. At places like UCLA, for example, there is a Dermatology Division under the Department of Medicine, so their NIH grant totals are found in the sum for DOM (and cannot easily be separated out in the data they publish). Places like MGH/BWH also dont funnel their NIH grants through a Department of Dermatology, so the numbers are skewed. This is part of the reason why it is so difficult to come up with rankings of Dermatology programs.... and thus why I labeled it as "Ouija" -- its basically as good as a psychic reading and certainly not to be taken as "the whole picture"! Hope this helps. As a side note, Doximity rankings are equally as bad (if not worse). There is a bias because programs can reward people for going in and ranking and there has been skewing due to these pactices.

OP: I figured it was something like that. Might be worth sticking a caveat statement at the top or something, as I'm sure these posts will soon get buried in the archive

maybe I will just paste this conversation. Do you have anything to add?

Mmm...unfortunately, as you righly pointed out, there's really no good way (that doesnt involve spending the rest of your life mining NIH reporter) to get a good sense of funding in dollars. One suggestion might be to add additional columns for "known clinical strengths" and "known research strengths" and weaknesses that people could go in and fill. Would be helpful for people with specific interests potentially, but could also be very skewed/biased. As for the research side, id honestly just strip out the NIH funding ranking from BRIMR, as I think its so misrepresentative as to be actually harmful

Not going to pull the data as I think it is valuable to have accessible in a central location here, but would warn people that low numbers or blanks do not mean a program is receiving little/no funding. If there is anyone here who would like to do some data mining and get a better estimate of values, please let us know and we can work with you on that.

Apparently we're not allowed to post interview invites from top programs on this spreadsheet (see Yale, UCSF)

Harvard, Stanford, Penn, and NYU will crash the sheet

Mid or low-tier program sends out an invite -> "Congrats! Internal or external? Any ties to the program?" vs Top-tier program send out an invite "I DIDNT GET AN INVITE THERE SO YOU MUST BE A TROLL. WHY ARE YOU COMMENTING ANONYMOUSLY? LIARRRRRRRRR"

Please stop. This is not productive.

congrats!

A moment of appreciation for Harvard for sending out invites, waitlists and rejections all on the same day --> preach

Amen.

agreed, very nice to know where I stand

Nope.

Received email confirmation today

Can you people update the Utah interview info already?

Why are people going crazy over Utah? I do not understand...

Utah is the new Harvard.| I heard residents arent happy there

Yes. You will be at a signfiicant disadvantage

I am going to have to miss a few dinners, too. I think just make sure to explain the situation. They understand, and no, I don't think you will be at a significant disadvantage.

depends on the program- some programs require you to attend the dinner like Harvard, some say it is optional like Yale. so check in the email the wording for the dinner invitation, and whether they give you the option to RSVP. I would say most programs understand that sometimes we cant make it for dinner- especially that many flights are getting delayed in this season

Rationalize however you want but its better to attend one interview and the dinner than attend two interviews. Almost every program gives votes to residents or takes their input. If you don't attend dinner, you are much less likely to get support from them. Especially if you have a neutral interaction at the actual interview day

Strongly disagree with the previous statement. Current residents can veto you if you do something really inapporpriate but no program I've ever heard of gives them real weight in making the rank list beyond that veto. The residents might be able to subtly sway the attendings by saying good things about you but thats a small advantage at best. Go to more interviews and give yourself more ranks on your list. Maybe if you want to cancel a program you dont care about in order to make your top choice's dinner I could see doing that, but thats about it

Current resident here. I matched at a program despite missing dinner so it's not a deal breaker. I disagree with one of the comments --- many programs have residents interview or rank candidates. The chief residents usually have more weight.

yup, not gonna be able to make it to harvard interview