Matched on Second Attempt
Here's a story about getting rejected by the match and not stopping!
Let's hear from an IMG who was 6 years out from graduation, needed a visa, and was rejected once --> and overcame the odds and made it!:
03/15/13
Hey Dr. Barone,
I have a great story to tell. I am an IMG who gratuated from Medical school in the Middle East about 6 years ago. I started to study for the USMLE in 2009 when I first came to the US. In early 2010, my father passed away and I had to stop for one year to support my family. I resumed in 2011 and applied for 2012 match. I got rejected. Then I went to work on a research project at a major College of Medicine and applied again for 2013 match and I got matched!!! Thank you again for everything.
N. A.
Questions:
Did you need a Visa from the program?
Yes.
What do you think made the difference? Did connections help?
I can tell you that connections is number 1 factor! People wanted to know who I am before they call me for an interview, they wanted to know if I already know someone in the program or spent time hanging out with some of the residents. If I am familiar with the city I am going to live in. These were important.
I did research and everyone I met always asked me about it because they were interested.
I got 8 week hands on clinical experience. I worked hard for it and I didn't set home and send emails. I went and knocked on doors. I made good relationships with people to build trust. I talked about my experiences and my education in a positive way always to make an impression. But I can tell you, I was super lucky. There were situations where I felt being there, hanging out there, made it happened.
Anything you would recommend to students?
There are 3 things that will get you an interview:
1- Scores are number 1 screening criteria. To be safe, aim for 215 or more.
2- Your graduation year: 0 is perfect, 2 years is okay. 5 years, you can get by some interviews but more than 5 years, I highly doubt it and it's very unlikely. I applied to 400 programs almost and got 0 interviews because my graduation year was 6 years ago. But because of the connections, I was able to get interviews 5 interviews.
3- US clinical experience: People want to know that you are familiar with the health system culture. very important.
At this point, you can guarantee your interviews but still one important thing to support your application is connections.
To get connections: Do a research or a US clinical experience. Anything that will connect you to clinical doctors. University affiliated or University based is better because of more connections. Stay away from basic science lab researches. They are useless because you spend 9 hours a day in your bench in the lab and don't know about anything or meet anyone. If you do a research, be careful to do a research in something most relevant to the specialty you want to go to. Stay away from fancy things that are not relevant.
I hope it helped Dr. Barone.
Thank you very much for your help.