Success Story

[Guest]

(03-20-2020, 11:31 PM)Guest Wrote: Pristine CV, 20+ interviews, had a bad letter and didn't match.

If you find out you're in a similar boat, talk to a mentor and consider pulling out of interview season. Unfortunately programs oftentimes screen applicants in for interviews by looking at scores and # of pubs and don't look at your letters until interview day.

The letter had a negative comment about you?

[Guest]

(03-21-2020, 09:43 AM)Guest Wrote:

(03-20-2020, 11:31 PM)Guest Wrote: Pristine CV, 20+ interviews, had a bad letter and didn't match.

If you find out you're in a similar boat, talk to a mentor and consider pulling out of interview season. Unfortunately programs oftentimes screen applicants in for interviews by looking at scores and # of pubs and don't look at your letters until interview day.

The letter had a negative comment about you?

Yes

[Guest]

(03-21-2020, 09:42 AM)Guest Wrote: Thank you for weighing in on this as a successful IMG applicant. Could you elaborate on those challenges? Something you wish you knew before starting with research and the whole process at all?

Thanks for your question. I think the biggest one is the importance of phone calls from your mentors to programs before and after interviews. People casually talk about this topic or post it online here, but for IMGs, this is your lifeline. Between December to February, after interviews and before ranking submission, Chairs and Directors receive hundreds of phone calls and emails from each applicant’s mentors. This would change the entire dynamic of matching. This could potentially push up an applicant from not-ranked to ranked-to-match on rare occasions. When they swap the ranking, they obviously need to drag another applicant down. If you are an IMG and no phone calls are made for you, you are the “another applicant.” All the applications look very similar and differences are sometimes barely perceivable within the same Tier. Nobody can blame them for using the simplest reason such as IMG or no phone calls.

Find a really caring, generous mentor who would advocate for you throughout your journey is probably the first and the most important step.

[Guest]

Means a lot, thank you. This does make sense and is definitely something the common IMG talk never mentions. I think I'm in good hands. Best of luck to you for the rest of your journey.

[Guest]

based on some recently pubs, you should publish a ton and come from a top international medical school and in conjunction with your LORs and connections, you should be able to match as an IMG.