For senior medical students and those of us advising them, we all know that the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) opens on September 1. This is currently the time when students reflect about who they are, what they are going to write about in their personal statement, and how competitive they may be in the residency match.
It is always difficult for me to say how competitive each student will be, based on his/her credentials. My starting number is to tell students to apply to 30 residency programs. With each added solid accomplishment (honors grade in 3rd year and EM rotations, research experience, publications, work experience, community service, and board scores), I then recommend that they apply to fewer programs. Remember that you can always cancel interviews, but you can't really add more programs to apply to late in the game. Overall, students should have 10-12 programs on their rank list, after interview season is over.
To help students determine how they would have compared in the 2009 match, the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) and Association for American Medical Colleges (AAMC) just released: "Charting Outcomes in the Match: Characteristics of Applicants who Matched to Their Preferred Specialty in the 2009 NRMP Main Residency Match". Download the document.Some interesting statistics for U.S. seniors who matched (unmatched in parentheses):
- Mean USMLE Step 1 score = 222 (207)
- Mean USMLE Step 2 score = 230 (209)
- Mean # of research experiences = 1.8 (1.5)
- Mean # of volunteer experiences = 6.1 (5.1)
- Percentage who are AOA members = 11% (4.3%)
I'm glad I don't have to apply in the increasingly competitive world of the EM residency match. I'm not sure I would have fared so well... Students are increasingly doing amazing things.