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Rank these factors by the importance for residency application.


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Hello,

 

When applying for a residency program in canada, and let's say for the not highly competitive programs, eg. internal medicine or pediatric.

 

How would you rank these factors from the most important one, to the least important one that could affect your application:

 

1- GPA and grades in school

2- interview

3- MCCEE grade

4- LORs

5- Electives in the same hospital

6- Research experience

7- Extracurricular activities

 

Thank you.

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Important:

1. Elective Performance

2. Interview (in that if you screw up it's very easy to be dropped off a rank list)

3. LOR (more-so if your letter is really good and from someone the committee knows and trusts).

 

Midlevel:

4. Research

 

Doesn't really matter:

5. Grades (unless you have fails all over the place in preclerkship or a ITER that says something like "poor internal medicine clerk" for an internal medicine candidate)

6. EC's (nobody cares)

7. MCQEE (Doesn't matter for Canadian grads)

 

That's what I found anyway.

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Hello,

 

When applying for a residency program in canada, and let's say for the not highly competitive programs, eg. internal medicine or pediatric.

 

How would you rank these factors from the most important one, to the least important one that could affect your application:

 

1- GPA and grades in school

2- interview

3- MCCEE grade

4- LORs

5- Electives in the same hospital

6- Research experience

7- Extracurricular activities

 

Thank you.

 

1. Connections - you need someone to go to bat for you. This is the biggest factor.

 

2. Interview - screw this up and everything that you have done up to that point is moot.

3. LOR - big names + big praise = big shot. The most important thing is to have GREAT (notice how I didn't say "good") letters from at least one person from the field you are interested in. All the rest of the letters also need to be GREAT. A lukewarm reference letter is equally as bad as a negative one.

 

4. Research - competitive programs are using research as a yardstick to measure applicants. This is because programs need to put out research to look good, and residents are great scutmonkeys for that purpose. Most doctors don't work in academic centers so most residents don't stay in the research spectrum when they become independent.

 

5. On-site electives: some programs REQUIRE electives to be considered for interview. Some programs offer interviews to everyone who rotates through. This is a very important determinant for residency success. Plus, a good rotation can make you an even better lock(but on the other hand, a bad one can make you a pariah. I knew of a painfully awkward student who interviewed only at places this student had NOT done electives)

 

6. Grades - evaluations count more than numerical grades. Preclinical is meaningless. Even some clinical exams are meaningless. I've seen people who failed an exam or two match competitive programs in Toronto.

 

7. Extracurricular activities - its a conversation topic but unless its super impressive like an Olympic medal you're not going to be held very high for anything.

 

8. MCCEE grades - nobody cares if you're a Canadian grad. I can't speak for FMGs.

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Your MSPR is important too, in the sense that it contains all your evaluations for clerkship. I doubt they want a student who has fantastic letters from people in their specialty but when you look at the rest of their rotations, their performance was poor or mediocre.

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I'd also add connections in my top three. It just wasn't there in the OP so I didn't put it in.

 

I wouldn't put it number one however. Even if you have a good connection to bat for you, if you perform poorly in an elective at their center, a program isn't gonna want you.

 

I'd put it somewhere around #3, so similar to a letter of reference.

 

Note: I put interview number 2, but only because a really bad interview can get you dropped (let's say you started dropping racial slurs all over the place, nobody is gonna take you). As for securing you a spot, at least in smaller specialties, I think most programs have a preliminary rank list done prior to interviews and I don't know how much it is affected by a good interview performance.

 

Double Note: This is only my experience in a small competitive specialty. Mileage may vary.

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It's mid-level competitive really. The highly competitive would be more the Optho, Derm, Urology, ENT, Emerg type stuff.

 

Emerg is highly competitive? I would've figured that lifestyle wouldn't appeal to a ton of people.

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Set hours are pretty appealing once you realize you don't need to do call (which is a time burgler).

 

True. This is why emerg appeals to me the most. Also, I like the idea of keeping a quick pace while I'm at work. Damn, and here I thought it was relatively low competition.

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True. This is why emerg appeals to me the most. Also, I like the idea of keeping a quick pace while I'm at work. Damn, and here I thought it was relatively low competition.

 

The CaRMS website has the numbers for the past 8 years or so. It's pretty easy to see how many people ranked a specialty first and how many got a spot in that specialty.

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For IMG's, the importance of the EE is school dependent. One PD told me he doesn't care "because everyone seems to do pretty well" (and he doesn't differ between above average and way above average), while another told me that the EE score is the first hurdle. This program only reviews the application of the top 50 scores. Interviews even less. Due to the fact that they only had one spot, he htought interviewing many people is unfair to the applicants and a waste of time.

 

In terms of on-site electives, this is obviously important if you can get them. But since you mentioned the EE, you're likely an IMG. They understand that you can't rotate through many schools like the students studying in Canada. This is where a reference letter from a familiar colleague at another school comes in to play. A "connection" would likely fall underthe reference letter category, with the advantage that it actually gets heard. (Eg if the school uses EE as the first hurdle, it might get you past that point without a good score...won't give you the spot though.)

 

This is from speaking with program directors (3), take it with a grain of salt as the responses obviously vary from program to program.

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  • 5 years later...

Hello,

 

When applying for a residency program in canada, and let's say for the not highly competitive programs, eg. internal medicine or pediatric.

 

How would you rank these factors from the most important one, to the least important one that could affect your application:

 

1- GPA and grades in school

2- interview

3- MCCEE grade

4- LORs

5- Electives in the same hospital

6- Research experience

7- Extracurricular activities

 

Thank you.

 

 

Hey folks,

 

I was wondering whether anyone would be willing to comment on what they have recently found to be the most important/appropriate order of this list. Has there been any changes over the years with regards to greater importance?

 

thanks!

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Hey folks,

 

I was wondering whether anyone would be willing to comment on what they have recently found to be the most important/appropriate order of this list. Has there been any changes over the years with regards to greater importance?

 

thanks!

 

It hasn't changed much. For getting an interview, elective performance matters most as indicated directly by electives with the program, or indirectly by LORs from other programs. For getting the actual residency position, interview is the most important. Connections are still a factor through the process of course - it helps to have someone who likes you on the inside.

 

More minor factors are research experience (of variable value depending on specialty/program), MSPR (mostly as a screen for red flags), and extra-curriculars (very small effect on paper but good for having something to talk about in the interview). I can't comment on grades or MCCEE results, since as a non-Quebec CMG I have neither.

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It hasn't changed much. For getting an interview, elective performance matters most as indicated directly by electives with the program, or indirectly by LORs from other programs. For getting the actual residency position, interview is the most important. Connections are still a factor through the process of course - it helps to have someone who likes you on the inside.

 

I know someone who would have been ranked low for their interview performance, but their sustained connection with the program (knowing the staff and residents well for years, having done multiple projects and electives with them) and LORs got them into the program.

 

This program was a highly competitive surgical subspecialty and the city was a big city. 

 

That is all to say that, we can all rehearse, practice, and pull it together for 20 minutes for an interview, but that cannot trump (sorry for using this word) a long term connection to the department.   

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There is probably variation in the importance of the interview for larger programs (where many of the applicants might not be personally known to the program), versus smaller programs (where many of the applicants might be known through prior electives/projects, and the interview is not weighted as heavily as a result).

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The connections thing is important and yes there is always some anecdotal story of someone who performed at a mediocre level but matched due to who they knew.

 

However, as I've mentioned before, connections are not an end all, be all. Plenty of people match using the basic algorithm of good elective performance/good CV/good letters. Look at the number of school that have a limited number of spots to give away to connections or don't even have a certain subspecialty at their sites - the students from there still match. 

 

If you have a strong relationship with a department, then that is a huge bonus. But in terms of what is vital to matching - I wouldn't actually put it in the top 3, because vital to me means you're overall chances of a successful match are low without this item. A bad letter, bad clinical performance or blank CV = you will not match to the specialty, as these are necessary. The lack of a connection = not vital, since if you perform well on the other 3 aspects, you most definitely still have a decent shot at success.

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There is probably variation in the importance of the interview for larger programs (where many of the applicants might not be personally known to the program), versus smaller programs (where many of the applicants might be known through prior electives/projects, and the interview is not weighted as heavily as a result).

Agreed. Programs like FM which are large have to find a way to standardize the application process. Having said that if you're BFF with the PD then s/he might pick you out of a pile still. 

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The connections thing is important and yes there is always some anecdotal story of someone who performed at a mediocre level but matched due to who they knew.

 

However, as I've mentioned before, connections are not an end all, be all. Plenty of people match using the basic algorithm of good elective performance/good CV/good letters. Look at the number of school that have a limited number of spots to give away to connections or don't even have a certain subspecialty at their sites - the students from there still match. 

 

If you have a strong relationship with a department, then that is a huge bonus. But in terms of what is vital to matching - I wouldn't actually put it in the top 3, because vital to me means you're overall chances of a successful match are low without this item. A bad letter, bad clinical performance or blank CV = you will not match to the specialty, as these are necessary. The lack of a connection = not vital, since if you perform well on the other 3 aspects, you most definitely still have a decent shot at success.

 

 

Thank you to everyone for replying, but I wasn't clear what you meant by "good CV"....are you referring to research and med school extracurriculars (like interest groups and so on)?

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