How to Help Peers with the SOAP
Written by Ammura Hernandez, MD
As an applicant who went through the heartbreaking, gut-wrenching, and totally surreal experience of the Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program (SOAP) during my Match week a few years ago, I know how isolating and insurmountable it can feel. Many of my peers were banned around me during my SOAP week, and I can honestly say I don’t think I could have successfully gone through the week on my own. Here are a few tips, in my experience, of how to help others get through SOAP week.
1. Educate yourself!
There's a lot of medical student folklore and endless Reddit pages about the SOAP. Take some time to read from trustworthy sources and educate yourself on the facts. Read about the SOAP process on the ERAS website so you can meet your friends with the correct knowledge and understanding instead of speaking from hearsay or myth. Listen to the Inside the Match episode on Tips for the SOAP process for additional information from a personal perspective.
2. Create a gathering place
I was fortunate enough that at my medical school, the entire class received an email on Monday morning of Match week, instructing anyone who has not matched to meet together in a large, reserved room in the library. The deans were ready in this space with snacks, water bottles, tissues, multiple print outs of SOAP information, and lists of the remaining available SOAP positions.
I later learned that this is not commonplace at all programs. Check with your deans as to whether your program will reserve a dedicated space to help SOAP students on Monday of Match week. If the answer is no, consider creating this space. This space needs to have strong wifi access, computer access, and printing availability. Most importantly, this space must be nonjudgmental, shame free, and accessible to all applicants who do not match. While applicants who have matched may be allowed in this space as helpers and supporters, SOAP applicants should be provided confidentiality as possible –whatever happens in this space, stays in this space!
3. Help SOAP applicants with their application
On Monday of SOAP week, all applicants eligible to SOAP can apply to 45 programs. While many applicants do not make edits to their original ERAS application (I didn’t!), some may choose to do so. For those rewriting or changing their personal statement, help review edits and provide examples of personal statements from different specialties.
4. Prepare interview clothes
If you’re like me, you buried your interview clothes at the bottom of your closet hoping to never relive the memories from the trail! Make sure SOAP applicants have appropriate, clean, and ironed interview clothes. If they need something taken to the dry cleaners, do so and make sure their clothes are ready to go Tuesday morning.
5. Reserve and prep an interview space
Tuesday through Thursday of SOAP week, applicants will be accepting phone and video interviews. Make sure they have an interview space that is private, quiet, professional, and has strong wifi. Think of library spaces that you can reserve, or consider offering private office space that you may not be needing.
6. Make a spreadsheet
Again, on Monday of SOAP week, applicants can apply to 45 programs; then, starting Tuesday, they will need to be ready to accept interviews for those programs. Make a shared spreadsheet of all 45 programs, list the program website, program director and program coordinators, values/mission statement, and any other relevant information that can help your friend nail their interview.
7. Deliver food/meals
Make sure your friend has access to three health(ish!) meals a day for all of SOAP week. It is a huge sign of support to deliver a quick lunch or grocery run. I also recommend ensuring your friends have ice cream or dessert every night of SOAP week –you all deserve it!
8. Use your therapy skills
SOAP week is extremely stressful (to say the least). SOAP applicants don’t have the headspace to reflect fully on their emotions throughout the week because they have so much work to prepare for. Use your motivational interviewing skills to help SOAP applicants stay on task. This is a time for total support and confidence-boosting –remind them of their goals, remind them how much they have accomplished, remind them of their strengths. Bring tissues and be an active listener; but remember, SOAP week is not a time for reflection, it's a time to work and stay focused. You will have time to reflect on your emotions in the weeks to come.
9. Think about your social media presence
I recommend all SOAP applicants shut off their social media feeds during this week –this is not the time to view another Match celebration or Match email! Irrespective of whether you’ve matched, Match week is a time to be proud of your hard work and dedication which brought you this far. Consider what social media means to you and why you are sharing. If you’re posting to show off, don’t. Be cognizant that your posts don’t, in any way, put down your colleagues who are not in the same boat as you might be.
