When it comes to looking at Cat 2 applicants' preferences, do you know if the system will consider and compare orders to the 'stack' (as with Cat 1 offers), or will it strictly work down the list and offer the next available hospital that is undersubscribed (after Cat 1 offers are locked in)?
For example: If an interstate applicant's top 2 preferences were both undersubscribed (after all Cat 1 offers had been sent out and decided upon), but the hospital preferenced at #2 was placed lower down in the majority of other applicants' orders i.e. lower down in the stack, would the system automatically disregard the hospital at #1 and offer the hospital at #2 (to 'minimise the total score')? Or would it offer what was at #1 simply based on order (and essentially disregard stacking)?
Would this then influence the orders for Cat 2 applicants who may want to roll the dice on the popular hospitals, as they too would have to follow the stack (or risk those preferences just being overlooked for a hospital that was placed higher on their list compared to everyone else)?
If this is not the case, then it makes sense to simply preference in the order you like.
Hopefully that makes sense - appreciate any advice you may have!
So there are a couple of caveats here which I should mention. As far as I know, each allocation round in the Optimised Allocation system works the same way; the main difference after the Category 1 offers have been given out is the number of places at each hospital is much less (much more so at the popular hospitals).
What the system then does for Cat 2's is this:
1. Find X, where X is the total number of places now available
2. Choose X applicants at random from the Category 2 applicant pool (who have not received a NSW offer yet)
3. Find an allocation which minimises the total score in allocating those X people, and allocate as to one of those iterations.
To clarify - the chance of getting an offer is independent of the preference list you put down as the applicants are chosen in step 2 and the allocation is chosen in step 3.
In your example, the system would be more likely to allocate this applicant to hospital network preference #2 as it minimises the total score for that round.
However, if they had "stacked", then their actual hospital preference #2 might have been far lower down the list, and they might instead have been allocated one of their lower preferences because of where it happened to be in their "stack".
In that sense the Category 2 applicant takes a risk whether or not they "stack" - if they put a preference list as per their actual preference, they optimise their chance of getting at least somewhere they want, whereas if they attempt to "stack", with the limited places on offer (and therefore very skewed allocation), they might end up either being shafted to a lower preference due to the relative competition, or shafted to a lower preference because it was actually higher on the stack than their actual preference.
The caveat of "stacking" is that by doing so you optimise your possibility of getting your first preference at the expense of all other relatively desirable options (because by putting something #1, you place everything else #2 and below, where someone else has put one of those other options at #1). This somewhat works as a Category 1 because essentially all the positions at the "desirable" hospitals are available for that round; as a Category 2 you have the leftovers and so even if you are optimising your chance at #1 you essentially forego any chances at #2 and #3 and so on. This makes a huge difference because in most cases your #1 is likely to have single digit places if any (I know at my hospital network this was the case and I could count the number of interstate domestic and international interns on one hand).
Knowing this, if I was a Category 2 applicant applying to NSW, I'd still be preferencing in the order that I actually want rather than stacking.
Hope that helps.
Appreciate all the advice and your perspectives, and being understanding of those of us applying from interstate (as it's a bit harder to find answers to specific questions).
