MarsRover Posted January 9, 2019 Report Share Posted January 9, 2019 I was wondering if anyone has any input on how much location diversity a person should have with their electives. I am happy to stay at my own school for residency, but would much prefer to go to UBC. But my preferences are definitely UBC, then my home school before any other school. So my plan was to do 2 electives (6 weeks) at UBC and the rest at my home school. Is this bad? Should I do electives at more locations even if I don't plan to attend those schools? I will be pursuing FM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edict Posted January 10, 2019 Report Share Posted January 10, 2019 8 hours ago, MarsRover said: I was wondering if anyone has any input on how much location diversity a person should have with their electives. I am happy to stay at my own school for residency, but would much prefer to go to UBC. But my preferences are definitely UBC, then my home school before any other school. So my plan was to do 2 electives (6 weeks) at UBC and the rest at my home school. Is this bad? Should I do electives at more locations even if I don't plan to attend those schools? I will be pursuing FM. Anecdotally, i've noticed diminishing returns when you do more electives in the same location. One elective is enough to establish interest, the rest is up to how they evaluate you as a person and how they view your application as a whole. I think the mantra of "its all about the electives, stupid", which has been the motto of pm101 for several years now, may not be fully accurate. By doing an elective at UBC, you are establishing interest there, and you are also giving yourself a chance to get a letter from there which shows interest. However, interest is only a checkbox. You can be the most interested person in a certain center in the world and you still need to convince them why they should take you. This goes doubly for programs that are geographically popular like UBC. You want to come here, cool story, so does everyone else... what do you bring to the table? While you don't lose anything from doing one 3 week elective at UBC, you would lose a lot by doing only electives at UBC and your home school. Other programs will look at your application and be less likely to interview you as it seems like you have clear preferences. Depending on where your home school is, doing an elective geographically far away would be important. If you go to a west coast school and you don't do a single elective in the east, there will likely be some programs that won't interview you. All in all, 3 weeks is plenty to show interest. I would do an elective at your 3rd or 4th choice school especially if it is geographically far away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarsRover Posted January 10, 2019 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2019 32 minutes ago, Edict said: Anecdotally, i've noticed diminishing returns when you do more electives in the same location. One elective is enough to establish interest, the rest is up to how they evaluate you as a person and how they view your application as a whole. I think the mantra of "its all about the electives, stupid", which has been the motto of pm101 for several years now, may not be fully accurate. By doing an elective at UBC, you are establishing interest there, and you are also giving yourself a chance to get a letter from there which shows interest. However, interest is only a checkbox. You can be the most interested person in a certain center in the world and you still need to convince them why they should take you. This goes doubly for programs that are geographically popular like UBC. You want to come here, cool story, so does everyone else... what do you bring to the table? While you don't lose anything from doing one 3 week elective at UBC, you would lose a lot by doing only electives at UBC and your home school. Other programs will look at your application and be less likely to interview you as it seems like you have clear preferences. Depending on where your home school is, doing an elective geographically far away would be important. If you go to a west coast school and you don't do a single elective in the east, there will likely be some programs that won't interview you. All in all, 3 weeks is plenty to show interest. I would do an elective at your 3rd or 4th choice school especially if it is geographically far away. Fair enough. I am based on the east coast now, and would be going to do a 4 week elective and a 2 week elective. I am applying for family medicine, and they seem to have a lot of 4 week electives. Mainly I plan to be there because there is a 4 week elective in a location I want to explore, as well as one in vancouver. My issue has been that I will very likely match to the variety of family medicine programs at my school. However, I will likely add an elective from another school on the east coast. Although it sounds like you may feel its good to still just do more in the West in general to show interest in going west? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edict Posted January 10, 2019 Report Share Posted January 10, 2019 15 minutes ago, MarsRover said: Fair enough. I am based on the east coast now, and would be going to do a 4 week elective and a 2 week elective. I am applying for family medicine, and they seem to have a lot of 4 week electives. Mainly I plan to be there because there is a 4 week elective in a location I want to explore, as well as one in vancouver. My issue has been that I will very likely match to the variety of family medicine programs at my school. However, I will likely add an elective from another school on the east coast. Although it sounds like you may feel its good to still just do more in the West in general to show interest in going west? No not really, if you are on the east coast, doing one in BC will get you access to all of the west coast, it mainly shows you are willing to go away for residency. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garlic Posted January 10, 2019 Report Share Posted January 10, 2019 3 hours ago, Edict said: No not really, if you are on the east coast, doing one in BC will get you access to all of the west coast, it mainly shows you are willing to go away for residency. Conversely, if one is from the west coast, how far away is enough to prove willingness to move for residency? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edict Posted January 10, 2019 Report Share Posted January 10, 2019 14 minutes ago, garlic said: Conversely, if one is from the west coast, how far away is enough to prove willingness to move for residency? I think east of Manitoba would work. Again, this is all anecdotal and guess work, but generally for someone from the west coast, something in Ontario will work for Ontario schools and will still have some effect for Quebec and the East Coast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robclem21 Posted January 10, 2019 Report Share Posted January 10, 2019 The main reason people go unmatched is because they a) only apply to very competitive specialties with no back-up plan, or b) don't apply broadly enough. For less competitive specialties, doing electives across the country isn't as big of a deal, but there was some pretty strong evidence from afmc/carms this year showing that you are significantly less likely to get an interview somewhere if you do not do an elective there for more competitive specialties (https://www.carms.ca/data-reports/r1-data-reports/electives/). It will never hurt you to diversify, meet more people, and make yourself known. I agree with edict that 2-3 weeks is more than enough to accomplish this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnGrisham Posted January 10, 2019 Report Share Posted January 10, 2019 Its FM. I know many people who did no OOP electives and got interviews across the country. And then I know people who did multiple OOP and didnt get interviews at some of those schools. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.