Ranking hospitals on pre reg app

[cat123]

Could others who have previously been successful in getting a hospital pre reg place advise me on whether or not to rank the hospitals?

I'm not planning on applying to any of the starred hospitals. I'm applying to 3 hospitals I've got work experience at, and another one that I've arranged to visit for a morning. Would leaving them unranked be a bad idea? I don't really want to rank but I've heard that some hospitals only consider candidates who put them as 1st or 2nd.

Thanks

[Asterix]

I would like to know this too. Where abouts you applying btw?

[Nik]

Have you got a copy of the NHS hospital pre-reg scheme booklet at hand ? There might be something mentioned in the intro to each section. Which region(s) are you applying to ? West Mids interviews are centralised and all hosps in this region prefer you to rank as it makes it easier on the hosps to decide which interviews to give to who. I applied last year to 2 in the West Mids, 1 in South Central and 1 East Mids and I only had experience at 1 of the 4. In the end I decided to rank, with that hosp 1st, and got an interview with them.
Your situation is trickier because you have had experience at 3 hosps, each of which might be interested in taking you on depending on how you did in your placements !

[cat123]

I'm applying for 2 in Wales, 1 in North West and 1 in South West so quite spread out! Did you rank all of yours or just the one you put 1st? I was considering putting my favourite 1st then leaving the others unranked, but really still undecided.
Thanks for the advice, I've just checked the booklet and it looks like none of those regions have said they would prefer me to rank.

[Nik]

Did the hosps you did placements at mention anything about ranking ? Worth checking with the hosp you've got an open day lined up with as to whether they would want you to rank. The golden rule generally seems to be not to rank - I took a bit of a risk with ranking as I only got 1 interview with the place I ranked 1st and got rejected from the rest !

[cat123]

Ahhh thats scary! That really does put me off ranking, although I know West Mids is really competitive so thats why I'm not applying there. I've only done one of the placements so far and they didn't mention anything about it, got the other two and an informal visit type thing coming up so will ask them! Well done on getting your pre reg, I can't wait until October when this whole process is hopefully over.

[crit care]

i didn't rank any of my placements....(north west, south west, east midlands) and it never went against me!

its always the case damned if you do rank and damned if you don't! and then if you just rank 1 place, then the others may see that as a snub to them..if none of them require ranking then don't rank and then if you get interviews just say how you much you want to work with them over the others!

[laurabuk]

I did 4 Northwest and ranked the top two and left the others unranked, but got offered four interviews (2 offers, 2 cancelled interviews). Though my friend did the same, and though he got four interviews but he didn't get his first, got his second and one of the unranked but the other unranked one told him that he didn't get an offer because he ranked X hospital nearby as number 1.