post-interview calls and letters

Do any past applicant have a read on this stuff? Who does it? Who definitly doesn't do it? What does it mean, how should you respond...

I've heard that Campbell Clinic has been known to call their top 15 or so to let them know. I don't know when these calls are made though. h well:

These programs definitely contact applicants (at least as of last year):

CWRU: contacts their top 6

Mayo: sends out letters during february placing you into a couple of different tiers i.e. you have a/an [excellent, good, poor] chance of matching here.

Indiana: Also sends out letters splitting you into tiers i.e. you are in our top 5, you're in our 6-10 group, you're in our 11-15 group, so forth and so on.

U of Kentucky: Phone call from the chairman.

Those are the ones that I know of personally. How do you handle those. Most of the notices that I got were kinda FYI things. . . .meaning that they didn't expect a reply. They just wanted me to know that they had me high on their lists. They didn't seem like they expected a reply. But in general I told them that I had planned to rank them high. Pretty ambiguous statement that doesn't committ you to anything.

Just wanted to throw this one on top again. Seems to me that people are interested in this topic, but this years applicants are hesitant to divulge any info on this stuff yet for obvious reasons. So, thanks Bone_Jock. We'd appreciate it if any other residents could offer up some examples/advice.

Places that contact applicants from FIRST HAND info:
(Sources - people I know who got them, info that programs told me about contact etc)
The list is certainly longer than this, I only listed what I know from first hand info that hasn't been posted (or is different from what has been).

Columbia - calls, "ranked to match" (week after interviews)
Penn - calls, "ranked to match" (week after interviews)
Pitt - calls, top ? (sometime after applicant emails, letters)
HSS - letters, indiciating levels (Amy said "probably" this week, historically end of Jan/beg of Feb)
Harvard - calls, "ranked to match" (close to list due date, historically)
U of Chicago - letters, "highly likely to match" (done)

Remember, competitive programs often don't get the majority of their "top x" (x being number of spots they offer) unless they negotiate (fewer and fewer programs now days). That means that many (sometimes most) people at any given program didn't get a letter/call from that program and are perfectly happy being residents there...

Good luck making your list and detoxing from email and orthogate overload

Duke has made phone calls in the past as well. Along the lines of...we would really like to have you in our program...we think you'll fit in great...if you let the chairman know that we are your first choice, you should be ranked to matched