sunymed Registered User Posts: 7 (5/21/01 5:07:42 pm) Reply How many applicants from your school? How many students applied/are applying in your year. I'm getting worried because in my school (middle of the road in rankings) I have at least 7 (maybe more) applying for orthopedics. I have average pre-clinical grades (some honors/mostly high passes), good board scores (240's), and mostly honors in my third year rotations, but NO AOA/no major research. Sucks that my year has so many ortho applicants (three of whom are junior AOA) IamNikolas Registered User Posts: 20 (5/21/01 5:27:37 pm) Reply Re: How many applicants from your school? Man you think you have it tough? In my class there's over 20 people applying for ortho !! Consider yourself lucky. sunymed Registered User Posts: 8 (5/21/01 6:11:02 pm) Reply Yeah, but... 20, damn, that's a lot. But are you from a top medical school (i.e., Ivy league, UCLA, etc...) or an average med. school. Even if 30 people applied from Harvard, they'd still all get in. IamNikolas Registered User Posts: 21 (5/21/01 8:07:07 pm) Reply Re: Yeah, but... No it's not a "top" medical school like Harvard or Hopkins, but it's no slouch either. Every year 6-8 people match from my school. So the competition is pretty intense for my year. But the fact that people may apply to different geographic regions may make the number of applicants somewhat irrelevant. UCCOM Registered User Posts: 3 (5/21/01 9:21:33 pm) Reply Re: Yeah, but... I feel everyone's pain. In my class there are between 12-15 people applying this year anywhere from Junio AOA to poeple in the middle 50% whom are dying to get in. I don't understand how there are so many Junior AOA people out there. At my school, they took 5 out of 160. Only people with all honors the first 2 years and all honors up till the application process were taken. Seems kind of like some schools don't do junior AOA the same way and don't take it as seriously. 3 people alone in one school are Junior AOA applying to Ortho, other people whom have gotten average grades (some passes) third year who get junior AOA. Seems like people still aren't comparing apples to apples. I don't know, just rambling. OrthoStud Registered User Posts: 16 (5/21/01 10:20:22 pm) Reply Huh????? UCCOM -- no offense, but what are you talking about? Ortho2002 Registered User Posts: 18 (5/22/01 6:29:11 am) Reply i hear ya i believe that he is making reference to the completely subjective nature of AOA selection at some schools in the country. every school has there own formula. some take more, some take less. some take a boat load of butt kissers with average grades over outstanding candidates. thankfully, our school has a standardized solely numerical way of calculating AOA. ABC123 Registered User Posts: 14 (5/22/01 11:20:59 am) Reply Re: How many applicants from your school? U.Wash--3/~180 applied my year vs. rumors of 10 or more planning to the year behind me. The ~ trend the last few years...7,5,6,4 (3 this match)...now a big jump. bonepain Registered User Posts: 16 (5/22/01 2:23:23 pm) Reply relax You guys need to chill... Just 'cause a bunch of people apply doesn't mean much in terms of your match chances. Every school has a bunch of ortho wannabe's who are probably just reaching a bit. However, those Junior AOAs/240+ are the real deal, and will probably have more interviews than they will know what to do with.... those opening up spots for the rest. We only have 1 JAOA guy applying this coming year, with a lot of smart folks going radiology and derm. Last year, about 12 apps, 6 or 7 matched. 2 guys were Jun AOA/250s and got interviews absolutely EVERYWHERE! It was amazing the places they were interviewing... I mean the top places in the country, and I go to a middle of the road med school. They got their No. 1 and #2 I believe. The bottom line, there are not a whole lot of star applicants out there, and they will get the spots they want most likely.... most schools will have a star... but after that everyone is in a similar boat. Thoughts? Ortho2002 Registered User Posts: 19 (5/22/01 4:32:08 pm) Reply others? how did the other 4-5 candidates that matched look on paper? just wondering coming from a non-junior AOA that is intent on matching! bonepain Registered User Posts: 17 (5/22/01 9:21:02 pm) Reply others Actually, they were not all that great. I mean, some of them made up for slightly lesser numbers with research and good recs. I would say most guys were in the 230 range, top third of the class. The funny thing was that the supposed "stars" did not match at programs that were THAT much better than the other guys. However, they did match at programs with reps for having good lifestyles. I don't think the other guys mind going to a harsher residency, though, they all seem pretty happy to me. So maybe if you have slightly lesser #s, but are willing to go through a tougher residency, that would help your chances. Ortho2002 Registered User Posts: 20 (5/23/01 6:04:04 am) Reply others what was the range of the guys that didn't match from your school. And why do you think that they did not match (ie. did they have the personality of a door?!) wyo bone doc Registered User Posts: 4 (5/23/01 9:13:13 am) Reply others Some more numbers for you all from an average midwestern med school: 2000: 9/9 matched with board scores 200's-250's (four of those people were under 230) 2001: 5/5 matched with board scores 210's-240's (2 under 230) I think the numbers just lend strength to the argument that good numbers definitely open the doors, but your grades, recs and away electives seal the deal. UCCOM Registered User Posts: 4 (5/23/01 7:55:16 pm) Reply Re: i hear ya Yes, thank you Ortho2002. Orthostud, I was unaware that between schools, AOA is choosen differently. From what I was told by an administrator at my school, there is only a certain percentage of people who get Junior AOA, and since AOA is first and foremost an academich honorary, my school goes by the top 5 in the class, usually people who have gotten soley honors. From some of the posts by others, I was underthe impression people had gotten Junior AOA with much less than all honors. I guess each school does their own thing. bonepain Registered User Posts: 22 (6/1/01 4:20:04 pm) Reply unmatched No, I would not say they had bad personalities or anything. I would say that they just didn't have extremely competitive numbers. I would say the unmatched folks were mostly in the 220 range, non-AOA. They all matched in backup specialties like peds. I think that as long as you numbers put you into the "big group" of applicants out there you should be fine. The middle of the bell curve is probably like 225, so to make yourself pretty competitive a 230 or above would help. Also, don't worry too much about the 250 dudes, they are not your competition. good luck. g2001 Registered User Posts: 8 (6/11/01 12:40:20 pm) Reply applicant #'s The best advice I can offer is that the applicants from each school should work together and help each other out. This past year at my school, we had 7 guys all match at good programs. We basically worked together and avoided applying to programs that we had very little interest in since we would just be wasting an interview that someone else may have been offered. A program is not going to interview 5 applicants from the same school, they invite 2 or 3 and it gets pretty random at times which people do or don't get an interview. If the really strong candidates from a school will apply everywhere, there's a good chance they will be offered interviews instead of the lesser applicants (by numbers), they won't be able to make all the inteviews and decline the interview last minute. Unfortunately, this is an interview that other students from the same school could have had. It worked out well for our school, but it's tough if you're not all friends or there are some gunners in the group. Sounds like ortho is getting more popular every year. Good luck.