Interview expenses

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

Where is bokelley? (We should be able to tag a la FB!).

Also, he doesn't have to do a prelim year somewhere besides where he matches, right? I know people who did that for fun if they were single but I wouldn't want to move twice with a baby...

[Pollyanna]

If he interviews in Nashville he is more than welcome to stay in our guest room.

[scrub-jay]

Also, he doesn't have to do a prelim year somewhere besides where he matches, right? I know people who did that for fun if they were single but I wouldn't want to move twice with a baby...

Or multiple babies... if you follow in our footsteps... (lol) We are facing the same thing and it is a definite factor to consider.

[oceanchild]

DH's parents, because they travel a lot + use mileage credit cards, always have tons of frequent flyer miles, and they lent us some for DH's interviews. Otherwise, we just paid for stuff. We padded his loans the first couple years of med school, but I think by 4th year we weren't doing that any more.

Like T&S, we cancelled a lot of interviews toward the end, once he felt comfortable with the options he had. So if you can save your less desirable spots for later interviews, I think that helped.

(He was flying everywhere, btw. We lived in DC, and the furthest east he applied, outside of his home program, was Cleveland.)

[MarissaNicole]

I'm bracing myself. I think we should be okay with what is typically offered financial aid wise because we have only ever taken enough for tuition and that left about $20k unclaimed. Wishing I had taken more last year to be on the safe side this year. I'd prefer not to go the private loan or credit card route if we can, but I think it is going to be rads, so it will be competitive and he has to look at prelim years. Yay?

DH took the full loan amount first and second year, then he only took the amount for tuition his third year (because I was working) and fourth year we took more than the tuition amount so we could afford interviews. However a lot of people in DH's class who did not have working spouses had to take private loans.

[SoonerTexan]

Also, he doesn't have to do a prelim year somewhere besides where he matches, right?

As I understand it, it depends on the program. Some have prelim years built in, some don't. Ideally it would be in the same place we match, or in DFW, allowing us to postpone moving for one more year. DH said the new scramble system actually really is bad for UTSW students, because they would just "make" a spot for you if you didn't match in a prelim year and they had good success at matching people up for full residencies too. Ah well.

Probably time to make a "tell me about Rads" thread.

[bokelley]

Ok I will post more later but in a hurry now

We applied to a crap ton of programs: radiology, prelim surgery, transition years and all inclusive radiology programs. Plus we did that on the MD and DO side. That alone was a small fortune. We had no back up so it was all or nothing.

Once the interviews started rolling in, we took all of them. The only one that paid for a hotel was a prelim surgery place in Oklahoma. Other than that, at least then, the thought was "hey this is rads just be happy you got this far" we uses Priceline a lot! Dartmouth offered a discount on a hotel room. We flew to most of them because we didn't have a lot of time and had lots of interviews. It was freaking nuts and crazy expensive. I took 20k out of my trust fund and from application fees, playing for step 2 of the usmle( which for us was optional since he is a DO), airfare, hotels, suits, car rentals, and food. We spent every penny and then some.

[alison]

I remember the interviews in cities with a high col all paid for hotel stays, and the ones that really wanted to match also paid for hotels and transportation. The ones that were middle ground all had us pay for everything. I had airline miles for dh to use, and there were a couple of flights that had dh leaving at 6-7am back for home. Those meant he just slept at the gate at the airport. .

[MrsSz]

If he's in southern Ohio we have an extra room

[Vanquisher]

We took out a private loan. Ortho paid for nothing. Their thought was, you're lucky we're interviewing you!!

We applied far and wide, dh went on a lot of interviews. Cha-Ching

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

We took out a private loan. Ortho paid for nothing. Their thought was, you're lucky we're interviewing you!!

Uro feels like this too. In fact, many of them even capped the tab on food/drinks at dinner at like $500 for 30 people so he even ended up paying for some expensive drinks, etc.

[SuzySunshine]

DH's specialty also paid nothing, he interviewed everywhere except in the southeast. You're smart to be thinking about this now but don't you guys want to stay local? Are there enough programs that he can drive to that you can cut your costs down? He's always welcome here if he interviews here.

[v-girl]

We paid for travel, the hospitals paid for the hotels.

[SoonerTexan]

You're smart to be thinking about this now but don't you guys want to stay local? Are there enough programs that he can drive to that you can cut your costs down? He's always welcome here if he interviews here.

Thanks! Obviously the ones in DFW are easy. OKC and 2 in Houston would be cheap and easy too. That's 5 out of the potential 15, assuming he gets interviews at them.

[poky]

We paid for travel, the hospitals paid for the hotels.

Most of the EM programs DH interviewed at had discounts on hotels, at least (a few paid for the hotel outright, some didn't provide any help); we paid for everything else.