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2017 Carms Applicants


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Good luck to all of you!!!

p.s: Is it normal that the platform seems not to be working right now? The CaRMS platform opened up today :P

This thread could also be for anyone who wants to rant about CaRMS 2017! :) Or any questions concerning CaRMS application! (if the forum could not answer your questions, always refer to the CaRMS bilingual help desk) 

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Got some of the initial steps done today, seems to be working. Going to wait until the weekend though to get some documents uploaded and start figuring out how the LORs are supposed to work within the CaRMS system.

 

Weird feeling to be at this point... now I just want it to be over and for match day to be here!  :lol:

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Ahahh works for me now!

Has anyone ever asked a referee to submit a LOR in English and French? 

I am from the lovely province of Québec, so some of my staff physicians are bilingual. But I don't know if it would be too much of me to ask them to submit the LOR in 2 languages?

Got some of the initial steps done today, seems to be working. Going to wait until the weekend though to get some documents uploaded and start figuring out how the LORs are supposed to work within the CaRMS system.

 

Weird feeling to be at this point... now I just want it to be over and for match day to be here!  :lol:

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It worked for me.....My intuition is that so many medical students using the carms platform now, so there might a some technical problem.

If it doesn't work by tmr, contact or call the carms help desk :)

I managed to fill out everything until the payment step where it asked me to fill in credit card info but then did not have any boxes for me to put it in!?

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CaRMS has a (expensive) professional translation service. My suggestion would be to ask them to submit one letter in their most fluent language and have CaRMS translate it so that they can spend more time working on a quality letter.

 

Ahahh works for me now!

Has anyone ever asked a referee to submit a LOR in English and French?

I am from the lovely province of Québec, so some of my staff physicians are bilingual. But I don't know if it would be too much of me to ask them to submit the LOR in 2 languages?

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I don't know about the school admins...but my medical school guidance counselor has consistently told us that a narrow application strategy for CaRMS is a NO NO, and apply broadly and always imagine the WORST scenario for CaRMS.

The hard thing about competing with medical students, is that everyone is good and we all work hard...so I could imagine how hard it must be for selection committee to turn down students for interviews.

I guess that it depends on what you really want, and how comfortable of you are with not getting your top specialty?

Some people prefer to not match, and take a year to make them more competitive and apply the next year.

Just wondering what are the school admin saying these days about competitiveness and backing up? Seems many specialties including Internal has been consistently competitive in the last few years. Are the admins more wary these days of not matching? 

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I can't create coversheet on the CaRMS platform today, this is a new problem :( Anyone experiencing diffculties with coversheet as well??

I really hope that the platform won't crush on March 1st :P

Still the same issue, I spoke with CaRMS they said they were aware of the issue and are working on it. Time is money!!

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I can't create coversheet on the CaRMS platform today, this is a new problem :( Anyone experiencing diffculties with coversheet as well??

I really hope that the platform won't crush on March 1st :P

 

I was able to get one prepared, but it was for a letter that had already been sent in a few months ago (so I didn't have to send it, just had to print it). I think it worked ok... maybe?

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Hello Ralk, yeah it is working now! :)

I just realized how a slight CaRMs platform technical problem could be stressful for CaRMs applicants :P

Anyone here who has used CaRMS translation services? Is it a good quality translation company?

I was able to get one prepared, but it was for a letter that had already been sent in a few months ago (so I didn't have to send it, just had to print it). I think it worked ok... maybe?

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It's actually in every medical school's best interest to have all their students matched during the first round. 

CaRMS publishes stats every year with % of match rate for each Canadian medical school. But those stats don't actually take into consideration that 20 people only put plastic surgery with no back-up. 

Medical school administrator doesn't like to have high unmatched rate, i.e it makes them look bad!

Good luck all! Oh how the time flies. And the entire CaRMS process is only 6 months long.

Mac career counselors are pushing hard for us to just match in general but quite a few of us are planning on only applying to 1 specialty and accepting that a year off may be needed.

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It's actually in every medical school's best interest to have all their students matched during the first round. 

CaRMS publishes stats every year with % of match rate for each Canadian medical school. But those stats don't actually take into consideration that 20 people only put plastic surgery with no back-up. 

Medical school administrator doesn't like to have high unmatched rate, i.e it makes them look bad!

 

plus they do know it is really tough going into the second round and quite often there after to a following year. Match rates for repeats are exactly great- you can easily loop around and not match a second time. Particularly common in some fields. Knowing people in your class passed through the third cycle of CARMS is kind of heartbreaking (I am PGY 4, they haven't started residency yet. Those student loans are still building up interest. It is not fun). Such things are rare of course, and it bad to taint the overall pattern with it. The trouble as always with CARMS is if it works it is wonderful, but if doesn't you are really in hot water.

 

For the schools I think it is a bit of making themselves look good and the a legitimate thought that it is bad for students. 

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plus they do know it is really tough going into the second round and quite often there after to a following year. Match rates for repeats are exactly great- you can easily loop around and not match a second time. Particularly common in some fields. Knowing people in your class passed through the third cycle of CARMS is kind of heartbreaking (I am PGY 4, they haven't started residency yet. Those student loans are still building up interest. It is not fun). Such things are rare of course, and it bad to taint the overall pattern with it. The trouble as always with CARMS is if it works it is wonderful, but if doesn't you are really in hot water.

 

For the schools I think it is a bit of making themselves look good and the a legitimate thought that it is bad for students. 

Yeah, it's been a bit of a dilemma on my end. There is a second specialty I would be happy in but it's just too late this cycle to make even a semi-competitive application for it. My thought is apply cross-country this year to the specialty I want the most, if it works out, awesome. If not, I'll split my electives the year after and apply for 2, possibly 3, specialties. After that, I don't know... but that's still quite far to worry about

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plus they do know it is really tough going into the second round and quite often there after to a following year. Match rates for repeats are exactly great- you can easily loop around and not match a second time. Particularly common in some fields. Knowing people in your class passed through the third cycle of CARMS is kind of heartbreaking (I am PGY 4, they haven't started residency yet. Those student loans are still building up interest. It is not fun). Such things are rare of course, and it bad to taint the overall pattern with it. The trouble as always with CARMS is if it works it is wonderful, but if doesn't you are really in hot water.

 

For the schools I think it is a bit of making themselves look good and the a legitimate thought that it is bad for students.

I get where your coming from but I think it does a disservice to both students and patients to try to force people into family med.

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I get where your coming from but I think it does a disservice to both students and patients to try to force people into family med.

 

oh I didn't say force anyone into a specialty they won't like. that would be rather unfortunate I would agree :)

 

I mean they should start with the usual - if you want something competitive you probably should apply everywhere (those that match often don't despite the warnings - you see it every single year). Apply in first round to anything that you would be reasonable happy doing (for instance if you happen to think you would then apply to family medicine if you don't match in round one, then you should probably already be applying to family medicine in round one. Just rank it at the bottom of your rank list. That way you probably would need up a better location). Rank anything you would rather do than to go unmatched, and rank things in the exact order of your preference. 

 

CARMS is and will be messy for sometime to come if not forever. Not everyone is going to get what they want (but most do!). What to do with those that don't match I think is not well managed at the current time. What do you do someone that wants plastic surgery and doesn't get it? Mathematically no matter how often you apply some that really want competitive fields simply won't get it . Where are those people supposed to go? Right now the process is to have them be stuck in limbo until they finally give up, and take something else. 

 

We see people that take positions hoping for internal transfers and those don't materialize. Residency is long and hard enough without you being stuck doing a field you don't even like, only to end up licensed in a field you don't like so you can look forward to 30+ years of work doing something you don't like.

 

You can try the US route if it doesn't work here - often not a bad option although you have to rapidly get through the testing of course if you don't already have it. You can see why Canada wouldn't like that as they just dropped 20 years of education in you only to have you vanish just at the pay off point. That doesn't make good economics.

 

ha so much doom and gloom :) Again most people get what they want - or close to it. This if anything should serve as a warning that you have to take round one seriously and avoid any basic mistakes.

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