Chance at top Psych Programs?

[inasaur]

[Deleted]

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[G Sheb]

You have a good chance everywhere. Some elitist places will take a lesser applicant because they graduated from an Ivy League medical school (it is a club after all), and some will be impressed by your credentials and give you an interview. I wouldn't sweat it too much for not honoring that clerkship. Having a particular vision for what you're looking to do will give you an edge. There is a lot of randomness in the process as well. Good luck.

 

[Monocles]

Hi SDN, I was wondering if I had a shot at some of the most competitive psychiatry programs in the Northeast.

School: Lower ranked state school, MD program
Step 1: 250s
Clinical grades: 5 Honors, 2 High passes, 2nd quartile (My school gives out a lot of honors). I did not honor psych unfortunately. It was near the beginning of my 3rd year and I was dealing with some personal emergencies at the time. I did honor my M4 psych acting internship.
LORs: Strong - one psych attending is former faculty at a Harvard affiliated residency, another told me I am the #1 student she has ever worked with

Gaps in education: 1 month LOA due to aforementioned personal emergencies

I will be doing an away rotation at a top 10 residency program.

I think your odds are very good. It's been a couple of years since I've been on any sort of admissions committee but it would not be your stats that keep you out of any competitive programs. As long as you don't interpersonally botch your away rotation then you should do fairly well.

ECs: focused on advocacy and community outreach

I'm very interested in expanding access to high quality mental health care and am interested in collaborative care as a means to do so.

Look into Cambridge Health Alliance as their mission will be fairly aligned with your personal goals. They by far have the best work/life balance out of all the harvard programs.

Research: lacking. 1 pysch related poster in undergrad. 1 case report pending

The only program that might ding you on this is MGH (esp if you end up interviewing with more research oriented faculty).

Otherwise I think you have a reasonable shot at BWH and BIDMC. Would also recommend applying to Brown in RI and Yale in CT.

Are you more attached to the region or looking into more competitive psych programs?

LORs: Strong - one psych attending is former faculty at a Harvard affiliated residency

EDIT: I would actually leverage this as much as you can. See if your attending knows the PD in person and can give a personal vouch through a phone call or email. For better or worse connections mean quite a lot in this system.

 

[Stagg737]

Agree with the above, I think your odds at the vast majority of programs nationally are pretty solid. Be prepared to address your LOA as it sounds like your biggest question mark. The only places you may struggle at are places with heavy research emphasis but sounds like that's not your top priority anyway.

 

[inasaur]

I think your odds are very good. It's been a couple of years since I've been on any sort of admissions committee but it would not be your stats that keep you out of any competitive programs. As long as you don't interpersonally botch your away rotation then you should do fairly well.

Look into Cambridge Health Alliance as their mission will be fairly aligned with your personal goals. They by far have the best work/life balance out of all the harvard programs.



The only program that might ding you on this is MGH (esp if you end up interviewing with more research oriented faculty).

Otherwise I think you have a reasonable shot at BWH and BIDMC. Would also recommend applying to Brown in RI and Yale in CT.

Are you more attached to the region or looking into more competitive psych programs?




EDIT: I would actually leverage this as much as you can. See if your attending knows the PD in person and can give a personal vouch through a phone call or email. For better or worse connections mean quite a lot in this system.

I mostly just want to end up in a major city, preferably on the east coast, so looking at Boston, Philly, etc. I have a particular fondness for NYC and would love to live there, but I'm planning on applying all over the country.

 

[inasaur]

Agree with the above, I think your odds at the vast majority of programs nationally are pretty solid. Be prepared to address your LOA as it sounds like your biggest question mark. The only places you may struggle at are places with heavy research emphasis but sounds like that's not your top priority anyway.

I did not address it in my personal statement, since it was just one rotation off. I plan on addressing it in ERAS section about interruptions in education, but that's only 510 characters. Essentially there were a number of acute life stressors that happened in quick succession at the beginning of M3. I ended a relationship of 5 years that involved a shared home and significant financial ties. Soon afterwards I experienced the unexpected loss of my closest friend. I also had some concerns about poor professionalism displayed by other providers at my rotation site. I discussed all this with my clerkship director and dean of student affairs and decided it would be best if I took a short leave to fully deal with my personal matters and just made up the rotation during M4. I actually received a formal professionalism commendation for how well I dealt with all of this.

 

[FlowRate]

Hi SDN, I was wondering if I had a shot at some of the most competitive psychiatry programs in the Northeast/NYC.

School: Lower ranked state school, MD program
Step 1: 250s
Clinical grades: 5 Honors, 2 High passes, 2nd quartile (My school gives out a lot of honors). I did not honor psych unfortunately. It was near the beginning of my 3rd year and I was dealing with some personal emergencies at the time. I did honor my M4 psych acting internship.
LORs: Strong - one psych attending is former faculty at a Harvard affiliated residency, another told me I am the #1 student she has ever worked with
Research: lacking. 1 pysch related poster in undergrad. 1 case report pending
ECs: focused on advocacy and community outreach
Personal Statement: I've gotten feedback that it's well written. I'm very interested in expanding access to high quality mental health care and am interested in collaborative care as a means to do so - especially integrated women's mental health.
Gaps in education: 1 month LOA due to aforementioned personal emergencies

I will be doing an away rotation at a top 10 residency program.

Thanks!

I was a resident-interviewer for all 4 years of residency and on resident selection committee for the last two at one of these programs. I'm now going on three years out of date.

The top ~33-50% of interviewed applicants at some of these programs, in terms of the resume/semi-objective factors, have everything. Excellent step scores, Honored core and elective psych (and almost everything else), glowing LOR, top 20 alma mater, and usually at least one publication, if not many. So you're not at the very top of the stack. But those top applicants are also interviewing at most of the top residencies (as well as non-top residencies where they have specific interests.) You are, however, competitive enough to get interviews and competitive enough to match, especially if you interview well. Our system very heavily weighted interview performance. Stats are just to get in the door. Random faculty might have hangups about random things (including not Honoring core psych) but those things usually aren't dealbreakers with an otherwise compelling file and interview.

Just make sure to throw in some safety/non-coastal programs that you're interested in.

 

[inasaur]

I was a resident-interviewer for all 4 years of residency and on resident selection committee for the last two at one of these programs. I'm now going on three years out of date.

The top ~33-50% of interviewed applicants at some of these programs, in terms of the resume/semi-objective factors, have everything. Excellent step scores, Honored core and elective psych (and almost everything else), glowing LOR, top 20 alma mater, and usually at least one publication, if not many. So you're not at the very top of the stack. But those top applicants are also interviewing at most of the top residencies (as well as non-top residencies where they have specific interests.) You are, however, competitive enough to get interviews and competitive enough to match, especially if you interview well. Our system very heavily rated interview performance. Stats are just to get in the door. Random faculty might have hangups about random things (including not Honoring core psych) but those things usually aren't dealbreakers with an otherwise compelling file and interview.

Just make sure to throw in some safety/non-coastal programs that you're interested in.

How many residency programs do you think I should apply too? And what would be an example of a good "safety" for me?

 

[mistafab]

How many residency programs do you think I should apply too? And what would be an example of a good "safety" for me?

I recommend you ask these questions to the faculty advisors in your department who can review your app in full, and know patterns of previous applicants from your school. You just can't get more than generalities here based on the limited data we have. I wouldn't dox yourself to get better answers either.

 

[Stagg737]

I did not address it in my personal statement, since it was just one rotation off. I plan on addressing it in ERAS section about interruptions in education, but that's only 510 characters. Essentially there were a number of acute life stressors that happened in quick succession at the beginning of M3. I ended a relationship of 5 years that involved a shared home and significant financial ties. Soon afterwards I experienced the unexpected loss of my closest friend. I also had some concerns about poor professionalism displayed by other providers at my rotation site. I discussed all this with my clerkship director and dean of student affairs and decided it would be best if I took a short leave to fully deal with my personal matters and just made up the rotation during M4. I actually received a formal professionalism commendation for how well I dealt with all of this.

This sounds like a very good explanation, especially if you've got that formal professionalism commendation in your app, and would likely alleviate a lot of concerns by those reviewing your app.

I'll second Flowrate's comment on interviews being essential. I knew people who had far better applications on paper than I did but didn't interview well who either didn't match or matched way down their list. I'm talking about people who went on 12+ interviews. I don't know how I was ranked at other programs, but I did get several compliments at interviews about the interview sessions and was told that I was a much better applicant in person than on paper. I do know I ended up at my top choice and was not particularly concerned about actually matching when that Monday rolled around.

 

[FlowRate]

How many residency programs do you think I should apply too? And what would be an example of a good "safety" for me?

I think mistafab's advice is spot on. The generality I'd give is I think you're good to go with adding some non-coastal or lesser-prestige university programs. That's really more about fit/regional interest. Pretty much all of the "ultra competitive" residencies in psych are coastal/ivyish.

 

[jdp207]

Your application is quite similar to mine when I applied last year. I struggled to get attention from the highest tier elite coastal programs (MGH, Columbia, BWH, Yale etc) but my application well received at other extremely well nationally regarded programs. I ended up matching at my #1.