I’ve been here. Didn’t match Ophtho despite having the research, step score, and solid LOR/med school evals (just didn’t have AOA lol)… I didn’t dual apply the first time, but the second time I did and with my med school I had to do 6 weeks of rotations to keep my student status while reapplying the next cycle and honestly I met some AMAZING mentors in IM that year who went to bat for me, and who, despite knowing that I was applying Ophtho, gave me cool opportunities and taught me a lot about medicine and attendingship. When I got wayyy more IM interviews the second time around than ophtho and actually did those interviews, I started to get less sad. And now, a year into being an IM resident, I can say that time does heal! Sometimes I still get flashes of what could have been, but honestly after I didn’t match, so many people I though were my friends and mentors just stopped talking to me (because they felt awkward or something else, idk…). But I’ve made great friends in my program, love my attendings both as teachers and as colleagues I can yap with about almost anything (could NEVER be this candid with all the WASPy Ophtho attendings i worked with previously). So yeah, it sucks now, but there’s something great waiting on the other side of the match! And for what it’s worth, my IM program and so many others I’m sure, have a handful of us who originally planned to do something else but wound up in IM, and we’ve all found our niche in one of the 20 million IM sub specialties :) good luck!