No
Opinion
The variable application fees' model of Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) might be expecting that the fees per application becoming higher with increasing number of applications per specialty may deter the number of applications per applicant from soaring. However, this ploy to control the number of applications to manageable proportions for graduate medical education (GME) programs' appropriate and fair review may NOT have been adequately effective, considering that the number of total applications during ERAS season runs into millions. Herein we suggest that the incorporation of two progress bars into ERAS portal may be an additional provision to make applications' numbers manageable.
In the first progress bar at the time of finalizing each application's submission, the applicant must be able to see the total number of applications which have already been submitted to the chosen GME program. This may help the applicant in real-time to consider "less popular" GME programs wherein the manageable numbers of submitted applications will be more likely to be duly reviewed. As corresponding to the total number of interviewees planned by each GME program, the disclosed manageable applications' numbers may further enhance the efficacy of first progress bar in preventing applicants being overwhelmed to apply for numerous GME programs and GME programs being flooded with innumerable applications.
In the second progress bar at the time of finalizing an applicant for interview call, the GME program must be able to see the total number of interview calls which have already been confirmed by the chosen applicant. This may help the GME program in real-time to consider "less popular" applicants who all, because of manageable number of interview invites received, will be more likely to confirm the interview calls. As corresponding to physical feasibility for attending multiple interviews based on joblessness status of each applicant, the deciphered manageable interviews' numbers may further enhance the efficacy of second progress bar in preventing GME programs' interview calls being rejected by the overwhelmingly invited applicants and the innumerable applicants being potentially overlooked for interview calls.
Summarily, these two progress bars can be worthwhile enhancements to ERAS portal.
Reference(s)
- Association of American Medical Colleges. Fees for ERAS Residency Applications. 2018. Available at: https://students-residents.aamc.org/applying-residency/article/fees-eras-residency-applications/ Accessed 2018 May 12.
- Deepak Gupta and Sarwan Kumar (2016) ERAS: Can It Be Revamped? One Point of View. Journal of Graduate Medical Education: July 2016, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 467-467.https://doi.org/10.4300/JGME-D-16-00015.1
Source(s) of Funding
NONE
Competing Interests
NONE