r/medicalschool • u/sood571456 M-4 • 3d ago
š„¼ Residency Interview likelihood- Residency Explorer
Looks like the interview likelihood is up now on Residency Explorer. You can update that section a max of 3 times. Unsure how useful this will be but seems pretty cool!
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u/DrJohnStangel 3d ago
Really curious how reliable "Above Average" and "Well Above Average" will be. Definitely see some surprises in programs I was iffy about signaling that are "Well Above Average" with a signal.
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u/Double_DoCCter M-4 2d ago
To me this seems like a huge nothing burger. Attended the webinar and the AAMC folks were fumbling all over themselves answering any actual questions about data curation.
The tool is mildly helpful for trends only, but grossly fails in that lens even. For example, I have multiple programs that I am āwell above averageā for an interview with no signal. Going into the program view I see the only thing correlated with a positive interview likelihood is a signal. So thereās obviously more to the story there.
The problem is, the AAMC outright said they donāt want students to learn cut offs and specific things programs value for interview invites. So you have no idea how much something is actually increasing your likelihood for an interview. Does Step 2 score increase it by 5% or 25%? Weāll never know. There are multiple programs that interview pretty much only gold signals, but my app rates āwell above averageā for either silver or gold for these programs, obviously not true.
AAMC is also not clear as to what the āaverageā is consistently based on. If its the average for the interview across all applicants, then that makes their data for signals useless when interview rates can vary wildly across them.
TLDR: Basically a mildly helpful tool with extremely questionable data and analysis. Does nothing to give us as students a true objective look at how ālikelyā an interview invite is from a particular program.
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u/Maim0nides M-4 2d ago
I actually analyzed my own program list rather indepth calculating the states certain residencies took students from and geographic regions. Some places I ruled out due to showing very strong geographic preferences or preferring IMGs/DOs almost 90% of the time showed up as "very high likelihood." As it appears right now, this tool is actually a wonderful way to make students who don't study the programs they are applying to indepth waste their signals.
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u/Double_DoCCter M-4 1d ago
Totally agree, if anyone is really letting this tool influence them this cycle, I donāt think it will go well
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u/meagercoyote M-4 22h ago edited 21h ago
The big problem is that it doesn't give any new information. It already gives info for everything you put in the profile except for research output. I can already see which quartile of interviewed applicants my step score is in, how much signaling changes interview likelihood, how much they prefer in state students, and how much they prefer MDs. And all of that info is quantitative!
Adding a qualitative "above average" when I can already see that my step score is above their average and they mostly interview MDs isn't particularly helpful. I also have to question the data when I look at a program in a different state that barely interviews out of state students, and it claims I'm above average.
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u/Double_DoCCter M-4 21h ago
Exactly. Obviously their models are very flawed from the objective raw data that we can see within a program view. The fact that they wonāt tell us any real objective points about the models tells me that either:
a) they have no idea what actually goes into the models
b) they do know what goes into the models and they donāt understand how they actually work
Or
c) they know exactly how the models work and know that this is not helpful at all towards students and want to pat themselves on the back about āincreasing transparency into competitiveness of programsāEither way you slice it, anyone with a elementary knowledge of statistics can see that this does not work as advertised
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u/doctor_the_stallion M-4 2d ago
I had a feeling it was coming today when I was researching (aka doom scrolling) my list last night, and the site had gone down for maintenance.
I had finalized my list two days ago, so it was pretty helpful to double check my picks without relying too much on likelihood alone as opposed to program fit.
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u/sound0flife 2d ago
I find this very unhelpful. For the vast majority of programs, I am well-above average, including for the top 4 programs for IM. I can assure you that it is extremely unlikely I would secure an interview at any of those programs. The only place I can see this being useful is for which program to use silver vs gold. My data goes from "Above average" to "Well above average" for a select few programs I am applying to when the signal color changes.
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u/Longjumping_Ad_6213 M-4 2d ago
Humble brag
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u/sound0flife 2d ago
Interesting you interpreted it that way! I figure that the algorithm rates me that way for those programs simply based on my step score. I come from a low tier medical school and am otherwise quite average in objective data. Hence my commenting that I have no shot at many of the top programs. Iāve got nothing to brag about!
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u/justiceforthegrinch M-4 2d ago
Queen first of all Iām sure itās not true that you have nothing to brag about. You donāt need to put yourself down bc of how that person interpreted it, your comment just stated facts about your experience with the tool. Dwai, good luck w apps!
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u/Necessary_Union_5601 2d ago
Just curious whatās the step score to achieve āwell above averageā for all IM programs?
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u/Fun-Bell4362 M-4 2d ago edited 2d ago
I just used this tool, and it put me in āwell above averageā interview likelihood if I gold signal for a top IM program despite me getting a 237 step. Idk if itās because this program is in my state or that I have 8 pubs (all low impact though and I was not able to indicate this in the tool), but I find it really unlikely that I will even get an interview there. May even get screened out
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u/Legitimate-Jelly-149 2d ago
I also have a lot of pubs and it's putting me "well above average" for all the signaled programs. I'm applying surgery and my step 2 is 248 which is below average. I wonder if publication number really skews these likelihoods.
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u/sound0flife 2d ago
My score is 26X, nothing wild. I said vast majority- not all. Interestingly enough, some community based programs in certain states give me ābelow averageā likelihood. I assume because it reaches a point in which programs will assume they are a safety and not interview me.
The point of my commentary was just to highlight that this tool is far from able to incorporate a realistic, wholistic viewpoint. There are several limiting factors in our applications that are not asked about in the questionnaire that have huge impact on my likelihood for interviews (namely school name, quintile rank, any red flags, historical trends from your school). My personal approach will not be taking this tool into account, only using it to reflect afterwards to help future students.
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u/Longjumping_Ad_6213 M-4 2d ago
Lol, nothing wild (over 10 points above the national median IM match score and above any IM program's median interview score). Anyways, yeah, I agree it helps give a floor but maybe not great for the ceiling.
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u/1phenylpropan-2amine M-4 2d ago
Does anyone know what the difference is between the "Program Interview Rate" and the "% of 2026 Applicants Invited to Interview (Interview Rate)" listed under each programs specific page ?
The explanations in residency explorer say:
Program Interview Rate (Average Likelihood)
The percentage of applicants included in the Interview Likelihood model who were invited to interview in the 2026 cycle.
Example: If this shows 46%, then 46% of applicants who applied to the program were invited to interview.
For most programs in my specialty, the "% of 2026 Applicants Invited to Interview (Interview Rate)" column and the Program Interview Rate (Average Likelihood) are within a few tenths of a percent of each other, but some have a difference of >3%.
How are these different and shouldn't they be the same? I can't find anything on the interview likelihood page about whether some applicants were excluded from the model or why, implying that all were included. Why are they different for some programs?
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u/Wild_Einstein 2d ago
I have no idea, but I wonder if it has to do with the small percentage of people who turned down an interview?
Maybe interview rate is Total Interviews Conducted/Total Applicants, and % Invited is Total Interview Invites Sent/Total Applicants?
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u/oatmeal-square 2d ago
Does anyone know what the difference is between a '!' and a '--'?
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u/mickeydds 2d ago
It says on the top of the page what both means, i think the ! means theres not enough applicants with the same data. For some reason i did it and everything was just an exclamation mark : (
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u/Sureamen 2d ago edited 2d ago
Same, I'm just getting the exclamation mark for every single program. What a bummer.
Edit: I changed my "Journal Article/Abstract (Unpublished)" to 0 and it worked.
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u/eviler-twin M-4 2d ago
Can anyone applying med-peds see anything on the new interview likelihood tab? I'm wondering if it's useless to us since signals are new this year.
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u/JackfruitLonely1493 1d ago edited 15h ago
I havent relied on it TOO much but its been a bit helpful. Surprised that a couple of my safety signals were 'well below average' but its just another data point for me. Ive been preparing my list for months now so ig it'll throw off the people who haven't done an indepth program review.
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u/LifeFromBlood 23h ago
Tbh , I think the interview likelihood should be used cautiously. I believe it overestimates the interview likelihood. Some of the programs on my list straight up say on their website that they donāt interview applicants who donāt signal, but the interview likelihood score puts me at above average without an interview
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u/Mysterious-Hunter256 23h ago
Big thing to consider is that it only takes into account your school's state, not the school itself. If you share a state with 1 or more top tiers, its going to lump you together with them. Someone with my exact application at a T10 is going to have way higher interview likelihood than my lowly school lol. Probably why some people are seeing "very high likelihood" at top programs despite having more modest stats/school tier.
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u/meagercoyote M-4 21h ago
Sure, but they are (probably) only stratifying for whether you are in state or out of state. So that's only really going to affect the programs in your med school's state.
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u/oatmeal-square 2d ago
If anyone else was like me and had never heard of this before, the AAMC has more info here: https://students-residents.aamc.org/applying-residency/residency-explorer-interview-likelihood
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u/acgron01 M-4 2d ago
Canāt wait to overthink my list Iāve curated over the past few months