People like to make the medical school residency match complex.
They try to conjure up some crazy scheme on how it works.
The match is quite simple and here is how to take the guesswork out of it.
[Note: this is the same for the NRMP (MD) and the NMS (DO)]
In this post I will tell you why you should only care about one thing regarding the medical school residency match and how it works.
I remember it quite well. During one of my rotations, the program director was talking through the match with me. He flipped over some sheet and began to draw out the most confusing and completely wrong way the match works. I could not believe my eyes. He had student A matching at program B but program B wanted student X but student X wanted…super confusing.
It went on and on and on.
Want to know the worst part?
No, it wasn’t his terrible mustache.
The worst part was that one of the residents who was rotating with me said IT WAS THE BEST EXPLANATION OF THE MEDICAL SCHOOL RESIDENCY MATCH HE HAD EVER SEEN AND HE WOULD USE THAT AGAIN TO HELP OTHER MED STUDENTS!!
I was amazed.
The NRMP or the NMS match isn’t that complicated. Sure you could watch a video about it if you care about the details of how it starts and works through it all, but NONE of that matters. All that matters is one thing. All you need to care about is yourself*.
Here is how the match works:
The residency match works in your favor. Period. It does not matter what you think your favorite residency program is doing. It doesn’t matter what any other student is doing.
The only thing you need to do is match the program you have the highest desire to go to the most #1.
Repeat this for the rest of the programs until all of your desired residency programs are ranked.
*Unless you try to enter the couples match in which case you have a slightly lower chance to match both people together. You do have the option for one person to go unmatched for a specific number in your rank list. When looking at the statistics, the match rate is about the same as non-couples when factoring in one person in the couple going unmatched.