Apply to the Residency

Finding a residency program that fits your educational goals, your geographic needs, and your lifestyle is critical to your success in residency and as a physician. Application and interview season can be a busy and often exhausting time. Our goal is to make your experience with our program as informative and as smooth as possible (and, hopefully, fun).

ERAS Applications

We accept applications through Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS). Our program’s Seattle training sites and Rural Training Program are listed as two separate programs on ERAS. We encourage applicants to apply to all of our sites, depending on interest and language ability.

On ERAS, the Seattle side of the program has five “tracks” listed, one for each clinic. The tracks you select will determine which interviewers you will see on interview day.

One of our clinics, Sea Mar, requires its residents to be fluent in Spanish. If you note on ERAS that your Spanish fluency is good, advanced, or native, one of your interviewers will offer to ask you the supplemental Spanish fluency assessment question.

We request that you pay special attention to the following components of your application:

1. Letters of Recommendation: Be sure that your application contains at least 2 letters of recommendation.

2. Personal Statement: Your personal statement is the most important document you will write for residency. It should describe your goals for future practice and how you believe our program will help you to achieve them.

   • Please note that our program is not OMT-accredited and does not have specific plans in place to create this infrastructure in the immediate future. While we do not currently offer formal OMT instruction or training in our program, we welcome your applications and invite any and all ideas on how we can more quickly expand on this opportunity for future learners.

3. Exams: We do not use a standardized exam cut-off score for the purposes of interview selection. Before our rank list meetings in February, applicants must have passed USMLE Step 1/COMLEX 1 and USMLE Step 2 CK/COMLEX Step 2, and exam scores must be available to us.

Please Note:

• Applicants who have graduated from medical school more than one year prior to application to our program are generally not considered.

• Our program does not sponsor visas.  

• Program staff are unable to respond to phone calls and emails regarding the status of candidate applications. Please be assured that applications are being carefully reviewed and candidates who are selected for interview will be notified.

Holistic Application Review

We have a holistic application review process. We do not believe in test score cut-offs or have any automatic invite “algorithms.” Instead, our residents and faculty actually read your application to see if you are a good fit for our program and that our program is a good fit for you. As such, how early or late you receive an interview invitation is not a sign of how interested we are. It’s more a matter of timeliness on our reviewers’ parts.

Interview Season

Seattle Side Interviews

For the 2024-2025 interview cycle, our Seattle sites are holding virtual interviews using Thalamus and Zoom. Our interview dates are below, and each day runs from 7:25 am to 1:30 pm (Pacific time). Applicants invited to interview will receive an email with instructions on creating a Thalamus account and signing up for an interview day through Thalamus.

On the Tuesday night before each interview day, our Seattle residents host pre-interview socials over Zoom.

Seattle Interview Dates:

Rural Training Program (RTP) Interviews

Applicants to the Swedish RTP site must meet the same requirements as applicants to the Seattle sites described previously. Applicants start with an optional get-together with RTP faculty and residents Monday evening via Zoom. The RTP interview process includes two virtual interview dates, one with the residents and faculty at the Port Angeles RTP site and the second with faculty and residents with the Cherry Hill Residency sites in Seattle.

The Seattle part of the RTP interview process is slightly abridged compared to the usual Cherry Hill Residency interview in that it will include only one interview with the Seattle faculty and residents. Applicants who are applying for the RTP only (not applying to the Seattle sites) are strongly encouraged to interview with the RTP prior to interviewing with the Seattle side as that would be most beneficial for you to give you the best overview of how the two programs interact.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions: Rob Epstein (Program Director) at repstein@olypen.com or Jaima Hardman (Program Coordinator) at jhardman@nohn-pa.org.

RTP Interview Dates: