Student interviews for radiology residency: what influences how students rank programs?

All radiology programs wish to attract the highest quality candidates to their radiology residencies. Departments expend considerable resources on Electronic Residency Application Service application reviews and student interviews. An important component of the interview day is to display program, faculty, and resident strengths to students. Through a series of surveys administered to students interviewing at the authors' program as well as 50 other programs nationwide, the authors identified factors that may significantly affect how students rank programs at the time of the match. Although many of these factors are unchangeable, such as geography, others can be modified. Key factors identified included the friendliness and approachability of residents and faculty members, teaching, research opportunities, the strength of the interventional radiology department, and call schedules. As a result of reviewing how students perceive radiology programs, the interview day at the authors' institution has been significantly restructured, and current residents now play a larger role in the candidate evaluation process.