# of interviews to attend

[quote="nebur"]H! i have a couple of questions to anyone willing to respond; I have applied to 50 IM programs. I have 21 interview invitations and 1 rejection, the rest haven't responded. Can anyone tell me as to how many interviews i should go to? i mean, should i cancel the interviews with programs that i may not rank? I dont have problems with travel as i am from NJ and only applied to NJ and NY. I would like to ask for advice what to do with a certain program. This program is accepting me even prior to meeting me to fill up a vacant spot at their program. They want me to start next week. This program does not participate in the match, and i have scheduled an interview, but am willing to join to the match. what should i tell them? They keep calling me to come and see them ASAP. Should i just show up for the interview and decline their offer or cancel the interview?
Thanks for any input! Will appreciate it gladly as i am confused what to do with them.[/quote] Hi,
Congratulations on getting a good number of interviews. The average number of interviews to get matched is about 8. I think above 10 interviews is a safe bet. If you have a lot of interviews, attend as many as you can since it is better to be safe than be sorry! I would say attend all the good programs first and if any of them that you liked offer a prematch, you can cancel the rest! Or else attend a minimum of 15 so that your chances of matching will be good! As for the offer to join a program ASAP, you may attend the interview and see how you like it there. See if you would fit there and think about whether that is where you want to be! If you do not want to go there, you can simply tell them and they will find somebody else. If you do not like it, come back and post it here since, there are many people waiting for a chance! Check scutwork for any reviews on the program. Also, before going to the interview, study their website and be thorough with everything there. Find out the key people in the program and go to Freida Physician search and find out where they went to medical school, residency etc. Call the Program Coordinator and see if you may know who would be your interviewer since most programs send that info in advance and do a PUBMED search on any research articles they wrote and read the abstracts. The more you learn about them, the better it is!

By the way, im a US citizen with good scores i guess.