By Dr. James M. Dahle, WCI Founder
Interviewing for residency can be really expensive. Expenses include:
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- Application fees ($99 per specialty plus $17-$26 per program above 10)
- USMLE/COMLEX transcript fees ($80)
- Match fees ($85)
- Airfare
- Hotels
- Car rentals
- Gasoline
- Meals
- Clothing
- Dry cleaning
- Fees and interest on any loans to pay for the above
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This could easily add up to thousands and thousands of dollars at a time in your life when your income, net worth, and credit are all at their lowest. The costs (and the risk of not matching) are even higher for International Medical Graduates (IMGs), Foreign Medical Graduates (FMGs), DOs, couples, and anyone applying in super-competitive specialties. A recent study calculated it out and found that most MS4s spend between $1,000-$13,225 with a median of $4,000 for residency interview costs (when I originally published this story in 2017, it was between $1,000-$5,000 for an average of 12 interviews). If you spread that median of $4,000 over the same average of 12 interviews, that's $333 or so per interview. That's pretty amazing actually, but forgive me for my incredulity. More likely, students never added up all the damage.
Either way, let's talk about it.
How to Reduce Cost of Interview Expenses
#1 Figure Out What You Want in Advance
Part of the interview process is figuring out what you want in your residency program. The more of that you can do in advance, the better off you're going to be in the end. Not sure whether you want to live on the West Coast, East Coast, or Midwest? The interview process is an expensive way to figure that out. Want a residency with more critical care time? Then don't apply to programs that have minimal time in the ICU. Still haven't decided between your two favorite specialties? That's going to cost you.
#2 Know Yourself
You need to get a sense for how you stack up with your peers. Are you a particularly strong applicant, middle of the road, or weak? The weaker your application relative to the competitiveness of your specialty, the more programs you need to apply to and the more interviews you need to go on. Are you Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) at a US MD school with 270 board scores applying in family practice and most interested in programs in your state? This is going to be a very inexpensive process for you. Are you an IMG with average board scores applying in orthopedics? This is going to cost you some money.
I totally blew this when I applied. I applied to 30 programs and got invited to interview at 28. I interviewed at 21. What I should have done was applied to 12 and interviewed at eight. Relative to my competitors, I was a strong applicant in only a moderately competitive field. If you're not sure where you stack up and your faculty advisors aren't helpful, then sure, apply to a few more programs. Applications are cheap compared to airfare (and especially compared to a year of lost attending-level earnings). But if you're getting invited to interview everywhere you apply, you don't need to go on all of those interviews.
#3 Stay with the Residents
Many programs offer you the opportunity to stay with a resident. Take advantage. Not only is this a chance to show one of the residents how cool you are, but you also get the inside scoop on the program and the interview process. Oh, and you don't have to pay for a hotel room, WiFi, parking, and maybe even some food. While you're at it, try to arrange to go to the free dinners the night before for the same reasons—save some money and meet more residents. It is entirely possible to eat dinner the night before, breakfast and lunch at the interview, dinner the next night at the next residency program, and NEVER pay for food while interviewing if you can line up your interviews just right. Just remember that those dinners and the time you spend at the resident's house are all part of your interview, so be on your best behavior.
#4 Drive
As a general rule, MS4s have more time than money and should live their life accordingly. Unless you're going a long way to interview, you're probably going to be better off buying a couple of tanks of gas for your beater than an airplane ticket, airport parking, and car rental fees. So drive when you can. I was a little handicapped by this when I was applying. When I applied, the closest EM residency program to my medical school was 12 hours away. I had to buy a few tickets, but it was a lot fewer than you might imagine with 21 interviews. I knocked out 10 of those interviews with a single round-trip flight. I flew into Michigan and then drove to Maine, interviewing in Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New York, and Maine along the way.
#5 Leave Your Partner Home
Of those 21 interviews, guess how many my partner went on with me? Two. She didn't need to go places she had been before, and she didn't need to go to all my “safety school” interviews. Leaving your partner home as much as possible saves on airfare and makes it more likely to stay on a resident's couch when it's just you.
#6 Be Smart About Geography
Mendenhall Glacier Ice Caves- hurry before they melt!
This varies a lot by specialty, but the more you can limit your geography, the better. If you are in school on the East Coast and want to stay there and you are not in a hyper-competitive specialty, you can probably find plenty of driveable interviews to attend. But even if you want to go somewhere across the country, try to only apply in one area. The worst thing you can do is schedule one interview in Georgia, one in Maine, one in Texas, one in Michigan, one in San Diego, and one in Seattle. Six separate trips. Not cheap. Now if you have to do that because those are your only interviews, then do it. But being smart about geography when applying can eliminate expenses for most people.
Line up your interviews one day after another. You drive all afternoon, make it to the resident dinner, sleep at the resident's house, wake up and eat at the interview, and then drive to the next resident dinner. Five days away from home, five interviews knocked out. Sure, it probably won't work out quite that well, but if you can knock out 3-4 interviews in the same week and make it home for the weekend, you're doing it right.
I applied to two programs in North Carolina, and I was invited to interview at only one of them. I didn't go. It wasn't worth a trip across the country for only one interview when I had plenty of others and it wasn't a program I was dying to see anyway.
#7 Pack Food
I confess I didn't do this one (remember I wasn't very smart about money prior to about PGY3). But if you really want to save some money on the interview trail, you can bring food with you for the occasional meal you'll have to pay for yourself. Or swing by a grocery store. Restaurants aren't for food, they're for carefully planned experiences with people you care about.
#8 No One Cares How Much Your Suit Cost
You should wear a suit or its female equivalent to interview. It does not have to be expensive or fancy, just professional and conservative. If you watched what you ate as an MS3, you might even be able to use the same one you wore for your medical school interviews. Nobody cares. These people all wear pajamas to work. Your goal when dressing for an interview is to not stand out because of what you are wearing. Stand out for other reasons like your awesome personality. Conservative and conformity are the names of the game here. You don't want them to remember what you wore.
And guess what? At every interview you go to, you interview with different people. They don't know what you wore the day before at the interview across town. So even if you wear the same suit five days in a row, nobody who matters will know. And those who do know (co-interviewees), are doing the same thing. You don't need five outfits. Those threads are expensive. Here's another news flash: you don't have to wash suits every time you wear them. Wait until you spill something on them.
#9 Minimize Fees and Interest
Most interviewees aren't paying cash for their interview costs like I did. They're spending borrowed money. It might have been just regular student loan money they budgeted for these costs, it might be a special interview/relocation loan, or it could just be a good old-fashioned credit card. Try to minimize the cost of doing this. Remember that every dollar you spend will be three by the time you pay it back. If you're going to use a credit card, get one with a 0% deal for the first year and pay it off in your first couple of months of residency. If it is a special loan, don't take out more than you need, and shop around for the best possible terms. You can start with whatever your financial aid office is recommending, but recognize that might not be the best choice. At least you can usually defer them for the first three years of your residency.
#10 Meet People
Going on the interview trail is a lot of fun. You meet a lot of people just like you with all the same worries and issues. You'll make some friends and lots of acquaintances. Occasionally, you might even be able to pool expenses like sharing a ride between interviews or a hotel room.
One other thing to think about that wasn't around when this article was first published. Since the pandemic, so many of these interviews have been conducted on Zoom. I'm not sure if that option will continue to be offered in the future, but if an online interview is offered, it could be worth taking advantage of that opportunity to save money from traveling across the country. If you have a list of top-3 residencies, though, it's still probably worth traveling to those.
What do you think? What did you do to reduce your interviewing expenses? What do you wish you had done? Comment below!
[This updated post was originally published in 2017.]
11. Take a year off during med school. Then all your friends will be interns all over the country when it comes time for your to interview and you can stay with them for free.
I did 14 interviews but knocked out 11 on a 42 day road trip during which I only paid for hotels for 5 nights. The rest of the time I was hanging out with friends and family. I had a ton of fun and would do it that way again in a heartbeat. It did require an impressive master list of potential interview dates for programs I was interested in to allow me to coordinate geographically such that driving made sense.
I would cite this as a side-benefit of taking a year off, rather than a way to independently reduce interview costs. The opportunity cost of that year vastly outweighs any interview cost savings from staying with friends.
Yes, it was a tongue in cheek remark. But it was a nice perk of the extra year.
All great suggestions. Just wanted to throw in a few things I did that saved me a lot of money as well last year.
1. Most of the programs paid for my hotel (I went to 12 interviews). 2 interviews were in my city where I lived. In places that didn’t pay for a hotel, I stayed with friends/family as often as possible. And lastly, when a hotel wasn’t paid for, I used Marriott points that I got as a bonus from getting their credit card in January of 2016. (80K points). So I never paid for a single hotel —– those points also covered my hotel when I was looking for a house for residency.
2. I did med school in the midwest, and so I was able to drive to 7 out of my 12 interviews. My threshold was to drive to anything within an 8 hour drive. My junker car is not well equipped to make a lot of those road trips (and I intend for it to carry me through residency), so I rented a car for 3 of the intervews, drove my family in our van for 2 of them, and 2 were in my city. Cost me about $30-50 for each interview to rent the car, and those cars definitely got much better gas mileage than my car. Definitely worth it to not worry about my car dying on my in the middle of an interview trip. You can get pretty cheap deals on rentals if you check multiple sites and do things like “pick your own price.”
3. I only paid for 2 one-way flights, the remaining 5 flights were “free” i.e. purchased with points. I got 2 southwest credit cards in 2016 (plus and premier), one in April and one in August. Each one came with a 50K point bonus, though they also charged me $168 in fees to start the cards. You’ll see that the fee paid for itself. Additionally because I accumulated >110K Southwest points in a year, I got a companion pass for my wife so she could fly for free with me through 2016 and 2017. One of these trips involved flying my family of 5 into Las Vegas and renting a van, then driving to interviews in CA and AZ, and visiting family in AZ, CA, and Southern UT. My wife and baby flew free, so I only used enough points for 3 people. It made for a nice vacation on the cheaper end of the spectrum! ——– I still had enough points at the end of interview season that I was able to send my wife on a week long trip to visit family in the Spring.
4. As you noted, food was always provided the night before, then the hotel provided breakfast, and the program always provided lunch. I usually packed some snacks for my drive/flight out. At most I bought some food on my flight/drive home.
5. I wasn’t able to coordinate a bunch of interviews together, but I was able to save a bit by putting a few interviews together
-CA and AZ: rented car in Vegas and drove from 1 to the next. Plus we saw a lot of family and went to the beach!
-UT and MI: flew to utah for interview, then flew straight from UT to MI for next interview the following day. It cut out a one way flight home between interviews.
-Ohio and KY: Dropped my kids in Indiana with family and drove with my wife to both of these 2 days apart. This cut off about 500 miles of driving.
All in all, the whole thing was still very expensive. Several thousand dollars. I don’t think I would have done anything different. I applied to 33 programs, got invited to 17, attended 12. I feel like that was pretty reasonable. The programs I turned down were either geographically undesirable to me or “backups.”
—-This info doesn’t include prelim/transitional year interviews. There were 4. 1 in my home city and the other 3 were done during other interview trips (2 in AZ and 1 in UT). So I guess my trips were more efficient than I originally considered.
**The credit card bonuses saved me thousands of dollars. I highly recommend doing it if you’re preparing for interview season next year.
Timely post! Some other suggestions that have been helpful to me so far:
1. If you must fly, try to build some flexibility in so you can volunteer to get bumped from oversold flights. I got a $600 voucher this way early on in the season for taking a flight 1 hour later that paid for essentially all of my other airfare for the rest of my interviews. When you do get bumped, be sure to negotiate for other things too – dinner or hotel vouchers, lounge passes, etc. are all fairly easy to get “thrown in” in addition to the voucher. Atlanta and Detroit are two airports that, in my experience, are frequently delayed or oversold, so arrange travel accordingly.
2. On a similar note, don’t fear the “budget” airlines, especially on your return trip – just be careful to pay attention to any additional fees for baggage, printing your boarding pass, etc. that can eat up those savings quickly. A flight on Spirit recently for me was $99 compared to a similar flight on Delta, advertised at $250. Is your tiny in-flight Diet Coke really worth $150? I thought not.
3. Don’t limit your options to staying with residents – get creative! Old friend from high school/college? No better time to reconnect! Roommate or friend has family in the city? Reach out! People get that you don’t have money – it’s ok to be shameless at this point.
4. Skip the Uber (or taxi – which can actually sometimes be cheaper if you check) and figure out how to use public transit to get to your destination after you arrive. If you’re interviewing in a big city, there’s a pretty good chance that there’s a train or bus that can get you to the hospital easily from the airport. If the hospital is associated with a University, there’s usually also an option to use a discounted student shuttle service to get back and forth as well – sometimes even for free!
5. If you must stay at a hotel, always ask if they have discounts available for interviewees at the program. They will never volunteer this information, but frequently will have a “hospital rate” that is not advertised which you can take advantage of.
6. Recognize that this is still an expensive process. The AAMC now offers some excellent data on how many programs you should aim for depending on your specialty and board scores (https://news.aamc.org/medical-education/article/how-many-residency-applications-strategy/), which can greatly assist you in the process. You’ll see that there’s a point of diminishing returns after which applying to more doesn’t help your cause. If you anticipate applying to a specialty where that number is high (like ENT, about 40 programs), think about your financing options early so you’re not left scrambling trying to come up with the money as a 4th year, when your loan amount is likely to be lower than the first three years.
These are awesome suggestions, especially #1. Knew a guy who got 3 free flights from 1 trip because he kept allowing himself to get bumped. AirBnB might be cheap as well. You just need a bed and a shower, maybe an iron. Yeah, applied to around 30 programs in ENT back in the day. Probably unnecessary but having seen the process on the other side it can be totally random that you aren’t selected. People are researching better screening methods, but I wouldn’t expect those numbers to change any time soon. Agree with the one suit option too – just varied the tie.
I picked two parts of the country in which to apply and interview. One was close to home, so I was able to drive (and in one case, walk) to those interviews. I knocked most of the other interviews in a big road trip.
As far as the suit goes, you’re spot on. I picked up a charcoal gray suit at Men’s Wearhouse as a college student applying to medical school. I later wore it for residency interviews, and again for job interviews. A few months ago, I dusted it off to be a pallbearer. That suit’s gotten plenty of mileage, gets pressed for free at any store in the chain, and I’ve probably had it dry cleaned once or twice.
Cheers!
-PoF
This is aimed at men, because that’s what I am.
At the risk of sounding overly fastidious, make sure your clothes look nice and relatively up to date fashion wise. You’re interviewing to be a physician, you don’t want to look like the guy who pulls his high school suit out of the back of the closet once every 2 years for a funeral.
I agree that you shouldn’t go nuts here, but spending $600 or so on a nice suit (banana, jcrew?) is totally worth it here and if you get a nice item you can wear it for years.
There are styles in men’s suiting that I would not recommend you be incredibly far off for your interviews. The boxy look is out unless you’re a secret service agent. You can say “well people shouldn’t care how I look” or “I woulnd’t want to go to a program that would care how I was dressed.” Good luck with that I guess.
All right, let’s do a quick poll. Anyone besides MPMD have any idea what he is talking about with a “boxy look?” I rest my case. Maybe it’s different in some fields, but the people I was interviewing with wear pajamas to work and were often post night shift while interviewing me. I still don’t own a $600 suit. The last time I went out suit shopping a year ago, I think I came home with three of them for $1000 and that included a bunch of shirts and ties too. Supposedly I got a really good deal at a sale, but I have a feeling they have those sales most of the time.
I have no idea what he’s talking about. Most physicians are expected to look professional but the goal is not to be an outlier in a good or bad way.
I’m a woman and bought a banana republic black wool suit for <$200 for med school interviews. It seemed like a ton of $$ at the time but I got invited to interview on a 3 day notice and bought the first suit that fit. I wore it for residency interviews with some new shirts. For 2 day interviews I wore same suit but different shirts underneath. I plan to wear it for fellowship and job interviews as well. I've dry cleaned it twice total. It doesn't look like Armani but it's good enough which is what most MS4s should aim for.
Yes, banana republic. Exactly.
Women’s suits are cheaper than men’s, congrats on getting a good deal on a nice, stylish suit.
A $600 suit is hardly some sort of flashy out of control purchase. Again, we’re talking about banana republic here not bespoke Saville Row stuff.
I actually don’t believe that you don’t understand the difference between a boxy suit like was in style in 90s and a much more fitted suit although I do know that it’s kind of in vogue among financially conservative people to pretend like one doesn’t know the difference. Just compare any TV program from those respective times.
There are plenty of residency programs out there where you could probably get away with wearing jeans and cowboy boots but there are many where you can’t. This is a classic discussion of first impressions.
Can it hurt you to wear an old, out-of-style suit? Yes. Can it help you? Almost certainly not. Conformity was your term and I agree with it. Wearing a really out of style suit is a) the opposite of conformity and b) very often an alternate fashion statement rather than a genuine carelessness.
If you are talking about fields like Plastics or Derm I would tell a student it would be really dumb not to spend a few hundred dollars upgrading to a very stylish suit.
I agree. Wearing this boxy suit would be a bad idea: https://www.millenniumtux.com/the-boxy-suit/
Now I’m not talking about some terrible, crazy suit here. But I think it is a tiny minority of program directors who care, or can even tell, whether you’re wearing a $200 suit or a $1000 suit.
The point is you don’t want anyone to remember what you wore.
Yes exactly, so ask a stylish friend if they think your suit looks really dated. If they say “yes” my vote is to take your loan burden from $200,000 to $200,600. Or drive for Uber for a week and cash flow it. That’s all I’m saying.
For the record I have spent about $300 on clothes in the last year and a decent bit of that was on some good quality hunting gloves.
I’m a multimillionaire, speak to doctors at big meetings, consult with doctors, and during my 29 years in medicine I wore a jacket and tie most days at work, not pajamas (scrubs). I’ve never spent $600 on a suit. (Something you can learn from the book “The Millionaire next door”) Most of my suits were in the $300 range and usually purchased during their semi annual sales for even less. Don’t buy the “latest style” because next year that will be out of style. Buy a nice, conservative, dark color, timeless suit and you will look good in it for years. When I needed new suits or sports coats, I often waited for the Men’s Werehouse to have a sale and picked up several at once. Medical students and residents have no business spending $600 on a suit. You still need a shirt, tie, socks and shoes as well. Right now, near Christmas, there will be great sales on clothing. Good time to stock up. I refreshed my clothes once or twice a year at these sales. Shirts are what wear out the fastest.
I mean why do shop at men’s warehouse? You can get a suit at a thrift store for 10% of what you are paying at that fancy schmancy chain. You could get 5-10 suits at goodwill for $300. Why even have multiple ones? Couldn’t you just get a nice one and wear it until it tears to pieces? And you’re saying your shirts wear out once or twice a year? You should wear them until they fall apart and then replace them at a thrift store don’t you think? Sounds like you might want to read the Millionaire Next Door again?
Moderation in all things.
You have to realize that many of the people who are making the decisions on the other end are older men who aren’t as fashion forward as you. I sincerely doubt that a “boxy suit” is going to hurt you, and whether the break is a full break or half-break, etc.. And nor will the shoes. “I mean really, how often do you look at a man’s shoes?” Do you want the suit pouring all over you like the kid at the end of Big? No. But just get something reasonable at Men’s Wearhouse – 2 for $450 with fitting and shoes last time I did it – and you’ll be just fine. No reason to look like a Hipster for a bunch of 50-60 year old guys. It’s not like they’re standing around the water cooler talking about your clothes. Looking clean, being respectful, and just being a good interviewer with a strong resume is by far more important.
Yeah, I know what he’s meaning by boxy suit….I’ve actually gotten many compliments on my suit and shoes, and got both for around $550. Shopping sales at Nordstrom/Dillards/J Crew should suffice, but definitely get it tailored. For most specialties, people know how to dress really well these days….Looking well-put together wasn’t about impressing the interviewers, it was to give me the confidence that I look as well put together and groomed as those around me
I think the self confidence thing is key. Of course you do also want to look reasonably good and buying a new suit is not a bad idea if your current one is old. Either way make sure your suit fits well ahead of time so you have time to visit the tailor if needed. You don’t want to be uncomfortable in your interview.
Great advice, there is often ways to save in any endeavor. When I interviewed near a friend or relative, I stayed with them. Doing a rotation at a place you want to go increases the odds you get what you want, or learn what you don’t want. I ruled out my 1st Choice by doing a rotation with them and learning I didn’t want to work with the new chairman of the department.
Best of luck,
Dr. Cory S. Fawcett
Great advice
The one thing I do remind medical students is not to be penny wise, pound foolish
Depending on which field you are applying to, sometimes the bulk of the cost for interview season comes from the actual applications themselves. For competitive specialities, your best chance to match is your first time applying.
Sometimes it is worth the hit to apply to more programs rather than risk going unmatched or settling for another specialty. I applied to 60+ programs and while my memory is hazy on price, I’m certain I spent >$1000 on ERAS alone.
I wrote an article last year on the costs of applying to and interviewing for residency (OMFS). I was amazed at how much it costs to simply apply before even interviewing. Looking back, I could have easily saved more. Interview and travel fatigue led to many bad spending habits (Uber/Lyft and dry-cleaning) when I should have been persistent in managing my finances. From the mindset of a recent applicant, I can understand how the focus on interviews and getting into a good program leads to poor financial decisions. Thankfully, I have paid back the amount owed since residency, and I am on the right track now with much credit owed to WCI and others.
http://accessomfs.com/costsofapplying
Thanks for sharing!
10. Meet People
Going on the interview trail is a lot of fun. You meet a lot of people just like you with all the same worries and issues. You’ll make some friends and lots of acquaintances. Occasionally, you might even be able to pool expenses like sharing a ride between interviews or a hotel room.
This is exactly what happened to me. Near the middle to end of interview season, I stopped renting a car for the airport-to-hotel section, and would instead hitch rides with people I had met a few times already at other interviews. I did the same a few times for other people. Another time, somebody had the same Thursday and Friday interviews that I did in two different towns, and she ended up canceling her car rental and we drove in my car instead.
I went to med school on the East Coast but I am from the West Coast, and I was able to schedule most of my residency interviews when I was on that particular coast. I was doing away rotations in October and was home for the holidays, so that’s when I went to all my interviews along the West Coast. In November and January when I was back on the East Coast for on-campus rotations, I did my East Coast interviews. It saved a LOT of money, not having to fly cross-country.
Oh! I had more! A combination of travel credit cards for rewards + ebates + Priceline bidding (using a fairly high standard for the hotel, as I was a solo female traveler in an unfamiliar town and wasn’t looking to accidentally end up in a sketchy neighborhood) helped mitigate costs for car rental and hotels.
Guys. I used to have a blog, a LONG time ago. I found it again for this post and its data alone: https://heyhowsmedschool.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/so-money-baby/
I would agree that meeting people on the interview trail was one of the best parts. Unfortunately, in my case this led to more spending as we’d usually go get food and drinks after the interviews and then go out on the town…relationships made were worth every penny.
Haha, you guys were a lot more sociable than I was. Between the pre-interview dinner, the interview lunch, and the actual interview day, I was too zonked and too socially spent to tolerate much more company.
My tips
1. As others have said above, abuse your friends and family network. I stayed with distant relatives and old friends from college or high school I hadn’t talked to in years, and it was a great money saver and often great to reconnect
2. Southwest (and airline credit cards) can be your friend. I opened two southwest cards for 100000 miles total. Despite doing over 20 interviews all over the country, I spent 0 on airfare. Southwest is ideal because all flights are changeable up until take off, avoiding sink costs from rescheduling as more interview offers come in. I canceled one of them post interviews so maybe took a slight ding on the credit score, but overall score went up from the additional credit. One thing to note is that these cards have a minimum amount to spend on them (s.g 2 grand in 3 months) before getting the bonus, so you have to plan ahead.
3. Don’t worry too much about the suit, you can get a good looking one for 100 bucks on sale at Macy’s, though save some money for tailoring. For suits fit is more important then overall quality
Totally agree. Fit >>> Quality.
I think items #1 and #2 are by far the best pieces of advice. Otherwise, I tend to advise people to try to have a little fun on the interview trail. I did a total of 26 interviews (!) on account of couples matching into two competitive specialties. We used Priceline for hotels/rental cars and Southwest for flights. Even though it was added cost, I loved having the rental car because each trip felt like a mini vacation. I’d check out the best dive bar/taco joint/coffee spot or whatever every place I went. I explored cities I probably will never go to again. In downtime I visited historical areas, botanical gardens, museums, parks. It was amazingly fun to solo travel the country like that. Granted, I planned ahead by saving up $ in advance rather than relying on credit. And – most importantly- I interviewed at places with low cost of living. My relatively extravagant interview lifestyle was offset within a few months by what we saved on rent by not applying to high COL areas.
At first, I thought this blog post was going to be pretty lame. However, it’s kind of entertaining.
1. I bought my residency suit from goodwill for $15. The alteration was $20.
2. While driving to Chicago for an interview, I got caught in a nasty ice storm. I decided it would be safer if I pulled over and stayed at whatever cheap hotel I could find. Because it was late at night and I was still relatively far away from the hospital, I only had a couple of hours to sleep. I convinced the hotel to give me an hourly rate. Apparently, it was in a seedy enough neighborhood that they honored my request.
An interviewer asked me to say something unique about myself. I told him about the suit and the hotel. I’m sure I left a memorable impression
I realize it’s an old post, but I came across it as I was scouring the archives and thought I’d add my 2 cents from this most recent interview season.
1. Program research: includes focus of program, competitiveness, and location. In a competitive specialty where people are paying ~$1800-$2000 on average just for apps (and many approach or surpass $3000 due to sheer panic and no due diligence), doing some research helped me know which programs I could feasibly see myself going to and therefore spent about $1000 for apps. My wife and I made a list in the February prior and looked up every program, looked each up, and discussed it. Starting research early was key.
2. Driving: went to school in a small town with a very small airport. Was willing to drive about 5 hours to get to a big airport for better flight times and prices. I also gave myself a 12 hour drive radius. This also gave me freedom to explore. I matched at a program 12 hours away. Pretty sure it made a positive impression that I made that sacrifice and that I had explored and learned about the area. Other programs were impressed as well when I could mention local sites I had visited.
3. A car can double as your sleeping accommodations. I splurged slightly for the night before the interview (sleep is very important to me). But for the night after? Back seat of the car was good enough.
I was able to string together 3 interviews in a row. Other than that, they were all 1 and done. Even so, I spent $4800 for 12 interviews (which is about $3000 less than my specialty average).
Best way to save money: Interview during a pandemic and do all your interviews on Zoom!
Seriously, all of these are good points, but applicants this year and last year really lucked out.
I wonder if that will persist going forward.
Are application costs tax-deductible? I spent over $3000 this year on fellowship application costs.
Not really. https://support.taxslayer.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015902351-What-are-Job-search-expenses-and-deductions-
You can usually claim job search expenses as a miscellaneous itemized deduction. You can deduct just the amount of your total miscellaneous deductions that are over 2% of your AGI. Note: Based on your miscellaneous itemized deductions entries within your TaxSlayer account, the applicable deduction will be calculated for you according to the 2% threshold set forth by the IRS.
You can deduct certain expenses you have in looking for a new job in your present occupation, even if you don’t get a new job. You can’t deduct these expenses if:
You are looking for a job in a new field,
There was a large gap between the ending of your last job and you’re looking for a new one, or
You are looking for a job for the very first time.
Med students and residents generally don’t itemize anyway.
We are offering only virtual interviews this year. I hope it continues once the pandemic is over. Reducing this cost expands the places that students can consider and let’s them investigate options that would be too expensive if they had to show up in person. In my field people apply to a huge number of programs~60 seems typical. They don’t have 60 interviews but virtual let’s them focus on the ones they most want.