Whoa, that explains a lot! I trained at a program in a different region. During the interview, somehow I accidentally introduced into the conversation topics a local would know. One part of that conversation was companies that had larger factories in the areas. At the time, I thought I was geeky but the conversation kept going and going.I think an underrated comment is Slide also mentioning tier bias. Name brand programs know that people will pack up and move to them. Middle and lower tier, it’s less likely and you don’t want to go way down your match list. They’re more likely to try to attract the locals. I was told by a mid/low program PD out of my region that they knew there was no way I’d go there. This may not be completely true at the very low tier spots if they’re trying to avoid having an unmatched position.
That all leads to people seeing the same fellow interviewees at pretty much every stop. I don’t know how many buckets there are, but you end up in one.