Where is the best place to get loans for application season? I assume these will need to be personal loans since out medical school won't raise maximum government loans per semester for interview costs. Finally, roughly how much did interview season cost and for how many interviews?

Hey everyone, 

Just wondering what the etiquette is on changing the FB name in your experience. I know, everyone does it. If there are any PAs or residents that can comment on this I would appreciate it. Thanks again!

Hi everyone, 
I have posted here before but my name is Corey and I am a senior at Northwest High School! I am conducting original research about the recent advancements in neurosurgery. I made a survey for my research! May you please take the time to answer my survey? I promise it is really short ! I am very interested in the world of neuroscience and I will be attending the University of Miami in the fall of 2018 and be majoring in Neuroscience on the Pre-Medicine track. I also plan on expounding my senior research in college. This project is REALLY important to me! If you would like to be interviewed, please feel free to email me at corey.neurosurgeryproject@gmail.com for more details!

Survey:
https://goo.gl/forms/Taym8DkeVtC1K6Nf1

Hello everyone, my name is Corey Jones and I am a Senior at Northwest High School in Maryland, USA. I am conducting original research for my Senior Project about the recent advancements in neurosurgery and how they affect the procedure and performance of neurosurgery. I am focusing on frameless stereotaxy, neuroendoscopy, MRI, and CT Scans. As part of my research, I have to conduct a survey and interviews. Attached below is my survey! May you please take the time to fill out the survey? It will only take a maximum of 10 minutes and I would greatly appreciate it! If you are interested in being interviewed, feel free to message me or comment below! The interviews will be conducted via video chat! Thank you so much for your time! Have a great one!

https://goo.gl/forms/xA8XHGffEh1QPxrZ2

So I emailed a program coordinator ~1 month ago asking about their Sub-i application (couldn't find info on VSAS or their website). The PC was very nice and basically told me not to worry she'd go ahead reserve me a spot for that month, and to apply in May when it comes out as a formality.

As I've thought more about it there's another program that I'd rather do that month at (research interests more closely aligned, connections between my mentor and the PD, etc).

Would it be rude to go ahead and do the other one? Or am I basically locked in? Should I email the PC and let her know I'm doing the other one? Or just hope she forgets?

Has anyone withdrawn sub-i applications before and still gotten an interview? Or would switching basically kill my chances? I like this program a lot still and would love to go there.

Wanted to give an inside look on what matters, this is one person’s opinion and biased towards how the academic programs I am familiar with handle it, ymmv and the criteria are probably weighted differently at less academic places.

step 1: important as a screening tool, except for subis, applications with a score below 240 don’t get reviewed at our program.  Overall it is not as important as people on this website make it out to be.  A score below 240 hurts you a lot, but there is not tons of mileage for higher scores though higher is better.  A super high score is more important for people who went straight through school or only took one year off.  Less important for MD/PhDs and people with crazy amounts of research, but they still need to be above the cutoff to have a good chance.

Step2: not important unless you do different on it than step 1, much better helps a little, almost nobody does significantly worse so if you did I guess you are special

Subi performance: the people who rotate with us are judged mostly on their sub-i.  Subis fall into about 5 categories: rockstar, good but not particularly impressive, meh but inoffensive, poor but no major red flags, and horrible.   The majority of subis are in the middle 3 categories.  Being a rockstar obviously helps your chances at our program.  The 2nd tier people can do ok if the rest of their application is stellar.  The rest are ranked at the bottom of the list.

One thing that isn’t appreciated on this website or its predecessors is that as more subis hurt themselves than help themselves with their performance.  

Letters: super important for people that didn’t do subis with us, letters from away rotations are more useful than home letters. It is hard to get to the top of our rank list without doing a subi or being one of the rare people with outstanding away letters.  The reality is that everybody’s research mentor says great things about them.  Most home program letters are positive.  A relatively small number of people get truly glowing letters from away rotations.  Most away letters are pretty generic but that is probably because most sub-is aren’t outstanding.  That said, even chairs that write mostly generic letters will write a different letter for the standout applicants with one or two notable exceptions whose letters are always completely useless.

Clinical grades: all honors or close to it is a plus, again more important for people who didn’t Subi with us

Research: very important at our program, probably less important at less academic programs, getting stuff published is what counts so make sure to do a mix of low and high risk projects, important to have some first author stuff, hard match at our program without a history of basic/translational research

Interview: faculty and resident’s impression of you is important, this is a subjective thing, good presence, decisiveness, being well spoken etc all are in your favor, having a good eq is appreciated

Resident input: every program is different, at my current program resident opinion carries a lot of weight, varies some by program, but the residents can blackball people at most places

Calls: we will make calls to the home programs of the people who are in consideration to be at the top of our rank list to get the inside scoop, likewise a concerted lobbying effort from your mentors can help if you are already near the top of the list

Other stuff: if there is something about you that is truly unique or different try to get it into your application somewhere, people with strong records of success in athletics or bootstrapped from humble upbringings tend to get an extra boost, seeing a continued track record of success throughout an applicants educational career is a plus, if you’ve worked a real job put that in your application (residents who have dug ditches, washed dishes, waited tables etc. tend to do well with the slave labor reality of neurosurgery residency)

Hi guys I’m  currently a m1 at a top northeast med school and I was wondering how hard it is to match into neurosurgery. Sorry if that sound like a stupid question.

Talked to a friend who rotated there who seemed to like it as an up and coming program, any thoughts?

Represent your residency program and face off against your colleagues in a challenging competition of neurosurgical skills, hosted by the Young Neurosurgeons Committee (YNC) at the AANS Annual Scientific Meeting.

Each year since 2006, the AANS Neurosurgical Top Gun Competition has provided a forum for residents, fellows and medical students to test their skills at various surgical simulation stations and be awarded a score for their efforts. Top scorers at each station are awarded cash prizes. The participant with the best overall score receives a cash prize as well as a prize for his or her residency program.

http://www.aans.org/en/Trainees/Young-Ne...ompetition

PI am currently a M2. Just took Step 1, and am waiting for my score. I looked at the match list from last year and this year.  Looks like the vast majority matched are from top schools like HMS, Duke, Stanford, Penn, etc. I am from state school. I wonder if it is realistic for someone like me to have a chance to match. Any insights will be greatly appreciated.