NRMP Main Residency Match® Final Data Results Show 99.4% of Positions Were Filled

Source:  http://www.nrmp.org/

The NRMP Main Residency Match® final data results show 99.4% of positions were filled, the highest position fill rate in NRMP history.

Washington, D.C., April 3, 2013

Final data released today by the National Resident Matching Program® (NRMP®) show that at the conclusion of the annual Main Residency Match®, the overwhelming majority of the 29,171 available residency positions had been filled at U. S. teaching hospitals. The 99.4 percent position fill rate was the highest in NRMP history.

NRMP Match Summary

NRMP Executive Director Mona M. Signer said, “We are very pleased with the 2013 Match results for medical school applicants and their residency programs. After the NRMP matching algorithm was processed, only 1,041 positions were unfilled, and 939 were placed in the Match Week Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program SM  (SOAPSM) — the process used by NRMP for unfilled residency positions.

During Match Week SOAP, U.S. allopathic senior students and prior – year allopathic medical school graduates accepted 662 positions, and osteopathic students and graduates accepted 90 positions. The other 126 positions were accepted by students and graduates of international medical schools.  The Main Residency Match consists of two processes. The first occurs when the NRMP® matches applicants to graduate medical education (GME) programs by processing their rank order lists with a mathematical algorithm that produces a best result. Then, in the third week of March, the NRMP begins releasing the Match results and unmatched applicants try to obtain one of the unfilled GME slots during SOAP.

The 61 positions unfilled at the conclusion of SOAP were in the following specialties:

  • Anesthesiology 4
  • Child neurology 17
  • Dermatology 1
  • Family medicine 5
  • Internal medicine 6
  • Neurology 6
  • Pathology 1
  • Pediatrics 2
  • Preliminary general surgery 10
  • Psychiatry 7
  • Radiology 1
  • Radiation oncology 1

 Applicant Facts:

According to Signer, “More than 13,000 applicants were eligible to participate in SOAP because they were fully or partially unmatched. Of those, 2,076 were U.S. allopathic seniors, 980 of whom were completely unmatched.” By the end of Match Week, 452 more U.S. seniors had obtained positions, leaving 528 with no position.  Overall, 97 percent of U.S. seniors obtained positions

in the 2013 Match, compared with 98.5 percent in 2012 when 262 had no position. Because the SOAP process was implemented for the first time in 2012, no data are available for prior years.

Signer said she is aware of concerns among medical schools about the number of U.S. seniors who did not obtain positions in The Match, but is not surprised the number is higher this year than last. “Almost 1,000 more U.S. seniors were competing for positions in 2013 than in 2012,” said Signer.  “There are many reasons why applicants don’t match. Some overestimate their qualifications and apply only to very competitive specialties. If they don’t apply to and rank programs in less competitive specialties, they are in danger of not matching,” said Signer.

She added that some program directors at U.S. teaching hospitals will not rank Match applicants who have not passed the medical licensure qualifying examinations prior to the deadline for submitting their lists to NRMP.  A full report on the 2013 Main Residency Match will be available in early May 2013 at www.nrmp.org.

How the Match Works

Conducted annually by the NRMP, The Match uses a computerized mathematical algorithm to align the preferences of applicants with the preferences of residency program directors in order to fill the training positions available at U.S. teaching hospitals.   Research on the NRMP algorithm was a basis for Dr. Alvin Roth’s receipt of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Economics.

The National Resident Matching Program® (NRMP®) is a private, non-profit organization established in 1952 at the request of medical students to provide an orderly and fair mechanism for matching the preferences of applicants for U.S. residency positions with the preferences of residency program directors. In addition to the Main Residency Match, the NRMP conducts matches for more than 40 subspecialties.