The Application Process

Here are the four most important parts of your application:

• Letters of recommendation- this is the key to a good application.  In the small academic ophthalmology community, academic ophthalmologists know and trust the opinions of their colleagues.  Good letters from well-known ophthalmologists will help you overcome weaknesses in your application and make you a very competitive candidate. Ophthalmologists will have to work closely with you as a resident in both clinics and operating rooms.  Therefore, they have vast amount of interest in obtaining strong candidates who will excel during residnecy.  Admissions committees rely on those who have worked with you to tell them you are capable of handling the high demands that will be placed upon you as a resident.

• USMLE score- a good number here will get you past the initial screening process and get you interviews to the top institutions.  It may also help you overcome weaknesses in your medical school academic records.

• Interviews- unlike medical school interviewers who you probably have never seen again after the interview, attendings who interview you for residency will work very closely with you for three years.  In addition to the information from letters of recommendation, they want to find out more about you as an individual- your personality and work ethics are going to be very important to them.  They want to know that you are someone who is intelligent, hardworking and responsible.  After you have been selected for an interview, the interview itself will be key to a successful match.

• Reputation of your medical school- unfortunately, the reputation of your medical school and its associated ophthalmology department factor in considerably to the selection process (I do not agree with this, but the reputation of your school will matter).  If you are from a smaller medical school or a school with a small ophthalmology department, you need  to do an away elective and obtain a letter of recommendation to strengthen your application.

San Francisco Match is the primary application service for ophthalmology (like AMCAS for medical school).  The application is done through CAS, or the central application service.  Residency match is different from medical school application because both the applicants and the residency programs rank their choices in order from first to last and the match service will generate a match report giving the most appropriate match between the two parties.  Therefore you will only have a single match, unlike medical school, where you may have had multiple acceptances to choose from.  Ophthalmology is an early match specialty.  The match occurs on January 15 instead of March.  Check out the SF Match site for more information- you can get statistics on previous matches to help you determine if you are competitive as a candidate.  It also has a suggested application timeline.

Again, it has been a long time since I went through and paricipated in the application process.  Please consult more current sources for guidance on the timing and logistics of the application process. 

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