CaRMS 2023: This year's applicants have significantly fewer interviews

[surgguy2023]

Received an e-mail from my school's administration today saying that medical schools across Canada have been in communication with one another and have noticed that applicants this cycle have received significantly fewer interviews... anyone hear any rumours or have any other information?

[ChemPetE]

I mean I would not be surprised actually. Assuming a migration out of applying from family medicine and ease of applying to multiple programs given virtual interviews, concentrates interviews in other specialty programs. Specialty programs then receive a higher volume of applications (almost twice as many in my small program), lends us to only offer interviews to the top half candidates (as opposed to most/all applicants prior). I can speculate that the total number of interviews actually fairly constant but the distribution changed. I can see the ‘Tinder problem’ getting worse - top candidates (eg top 5-10%) getting an increased number of interviews, and the less competitive applicants (<50%) getting significantly fewer. 

How this affects final match data, hard to say. We’ll have to wait I think until the carms data. And this is pure speculation off of general trends and anecdote, and it may be nothing in the end. Or could be a big change. We’ll see I guess.

[Neurophiliac]

Agreed with the above. Hard to tell significance until report is available. I wonder if the extra measures introduced this year for FM applicants contributed to migration of several-to-many individuals to other specialties.

[NothingButNetters]

5 minutes ago, Neurophiliac said:

Agreed with the above. Hard to tell significance until report is available. I wonder if the extra measures introduced this year for FM applicants contributed to migration of several-to-many individuals to other specialties.

True! I wonder if the change to the FM cost structure to even apply to FM programs reduced the financial barriers of CaRMS and is different than other years… maybe more of a budget to apply to diverse specialties with less of a financial commitment to having to pay for each backup or parallel/alternative path.

Maybe also programs getting Zoom interview fatigue as well, realising it’s not sustainable to interview as many applicants like previous years when they might have been more aspirational to get a bigger pool to rank. 

[dragoncat]

Was told by my programs academic advisor (also happens to be an internist) and by the FM program director that since 2021, when visiting electives got canceled and interviews became virtual, the trend has been more and more applicants applying broadly and to programs they would never even consider if they'd had the chance to do an elective there. Its gotten worse every year and now seems most programs got unprecedented levels of applications. 

Also has been noted by program admins that fewer students are choosing to back up/parallel plan with FM. Many choosing IM instead or applying to 2 or more competitive specialties. 

Just hearing things from classmates about what they applied to and how many interviews they got, match day is going to be horrendous. Its got me scared for a lot of people.

[zxcccxz]

Anecdotally this has also been the case at my school as well - I applied to a competitive specialty which was even more popular at my school than previous years. Many got limited interviews (and some even got none). 

If I had to guess it may be due to the shift away from FM - both gradual over the past few years as well as maybe a sudden one with the introduction of the FM-PROC this year (I know that personally I would’ve thrown my hat in for FM if it wasn’t for that extra test this year). 

As far as I know the number of interviews offered at most schools is consistent to previous years. To me this says that the distribution has changed as ChemPetE pointed out (i.e., top applicants getting interviews across the board and bottom applicants getting less/none). Optimistically, I would take this to mean that for those who did get interviews, there’ll be a higher chance of matching because of more waitlist movement - but that may just be copium idk.

[rmorelan]

some additional information that I received anonymously:

 

"

Sounds like the cost per program to apply from UME applicants to CARMS has changed this year, and significantly reduced fees for additional applications beyond 4 programs. This has had consequences people were not expecting, especially on the PGME side (including our own program). The distribution of interview invites has significantly changed as hypothesized as above. Very strong candidates having increased interviews, with likely the majority having less. Allegedly some individual applicants were offered over a hundred interviews. You can now imagine the scope of the change to this year’s Carms compared to other years.

Possibilities:

 - programs may receive more declined interviews (may be good for those on waitlist)

 - Progams who did not use the waiting list status for interviews will have fewer candidates to interview despite having more applicants than interview spots

 - Despite more applications to small specialties, the number of applicants ranking certain specialties may not be as high in some years past, and expected to have decreased first round match rate. People genuinely interested in some specialties who would have had interviews and matched in prior years may not have had that opportunity this year. It looks like this is now just starting to get on people’s radar as UME has recognized this and starting to talk about this"

 

 

[Pakoon]

36 minutes ago, rmorelan said:

some additional information that I received anonymously:

 

"

Sounds like the cost per program to apply from UME applicants to CARMS has changed this year, and significantly reduced fees for additional applications beyond 4 programs. This has had consequences people were not expecting, especially on the PGME side (including our own program). The distribution of interview invites has significantly changed as hypothesized as above. Very strong candidates having increased interviews, with likely the majority having less. Allegedly some individual applicants were offered over a hundred interviews. You can now imagine the scope of the change to this year’s Carms compared to other years.

Possibilities:

 - programs may receive more declined interviews (may be good for those on waitlist)

 - Progams who did not use the waiting list status for interviews will have fewer candidates to interview despite having more applicants than interview spots

 - Despite more applications to small specialties, the number of applicants ranking certain specialties may not be as high in some years past, and expected to have decreased first round match rate. People genuinely interested in some specialties who would have had interviews and matched in prior years may not have had that opportunity this year. It looks like this is now just starting to get on people’s radar as UME has recognized this and starting to talk about this"

 

 

Who got over a HUNDRED interviews and what on earth was their CARMs strategy??? Seems like someone took "applying broad" to it's maximum 

[indefatigable]

9 hours ago, rmorelan said:

Sounds like the cost per program to apply from UME applicants to CARMS has changed this year, and significantly reduced fees for additional applications beyond 4 programs. This has had consequences people were not expecting, especially on the PGME side (including our own program). The distribution of interview invites has significantly changed as hypothesized as above. Very strong candidates having increased interviews, with likely the majority having less. Allegedly some individual applicants were offered over a hundred interviews. You can now imagine the scope of the change to this year’s Carms compared to other years.

The change in fees would actually increase the cost for many specialty applications since each program application fee went from $31.00 in 2021 to $57.20 this year (and $55.00 in 2022) with a baseline quota including only  4 programs applications vs 9 previously.  The only difference in the structure itself is no longer charging per site (which basically only applies to FM and a handful of IM programs).  So only primarily FM applicants would receive some savings.  For everyone else the costs have gone way up suggesting (based on the comments above) that applicants are both spending more and applying more. 

Since most FM programs have a single interview regardless of how many sites they offer, this means that an applicant receiving 100 interviews would literally have spent nearly 100x57 = 5700$ in application fees.  Granted, that an applicant who might have had 20-30 interviews in the past would have had to outlay probably a similar amount of money (or more) for travel.  So, the only difference may be the continuing virtual interview protocol which people may be further realizing allows them to apply very broadly.  Regardless, the overall effect is probably similar.  
 

Programs which struggle to fill or are at risk of not filling would probably most benefit from in-person interviews since applicants would have to have more commitment to go to the interview instead of sifting through a deluge of applicants who may not have that much interest in the program and/or discipline. I doubt an applicant that applies to 100 places has time to “personalize" much lol.  
Still, unless more people start transferring it sounds like the new system may be working.

However, if the unmatched rate does jump up significantly it does suggest a changing match landscape.  In this case, it could be that there are both more FM positions (due to FM proc/standardized form reducing demand) and other positions available in the second round due to this "super competitiveness" effect.  However, I suspect that there's a bit of alarm on the forum - I doubt the results will be much different from last year.  FM will continue to be a less preferred choice with other disciplines like IM getting a bit more competitive.  The relatively fixed number/proportion of FM residency positions means that unless CMGs decide to skip residency (and/or more FM programs going unfilled), roughly the same number will ultimately end up in FM.

 

[surgguy2023]

As someone going for a moderately competitive surgical specialty (and who doesn't want family) I'm hoping that even with less interviews than the typical year the match will come out similarly. If anything, those that secured interviews will probably face large "rank list" movements as people with many interviews will be automatically taken off once the algorithm places them with whatever discipline they ultimately match to.

[surgguy2023]

I've seen evidence on these forums of a few specialties becoming competitive (rads, anesthesia) and a few specialties becoming even more competitive (derm), but does anyone know how much selection bias plays into people posting? Have people heard reliable information (in similar vein to the above from administration, residents, etc) about whether CaRMS this year was as brutal as people are saying? Or is it currently par the course?

[rmorelan]

12 hours ago, Pakoon said:

Who got over a HUNDRED interviews and what on earth was their CARMs strategy??? Seems like someone took "applying broad" to it's maximum 

Ha, that data did come from a reliable source I think - and that probably falls into the arial bombardment approach to carms. 

Just declining them sounds like something that would take forever.