Army Match Process

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Blubird

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Can anyone elaborate on the Army residency match process and especially how to go about getting a civilian deferrment..who you need to talk to, how it works. When listing the 5 preferences for residencies, do you list "civilian deferment" as #1? Also, do you need to have a "good" reason for wanting to do a civilian residency (ie. my parent is really sick, I need to be close to home) or can it just simply be that you prefer a civilian residency because you like the program better, like the location, etc... I would appreciate any feedback.

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You may want to check out the search function, since this topic has been covered extensively.

It is a confusing process though, so to get you started...

1) You cannot list "civilian deferment" as a choice in your top five. Applying for a civilian deferment in the Army is a separate process that requires additional forms.

2) In the Army, the overall number of applicants roughly equals the overall number of GME spots, so deferments are rare. The top two reasons someone in the Army gets a deferment are along the lines of 1) "My wife has chronic leukemia, and it would be an undue burden to move my family away from her oncologist", or 2) "I'm a crappy applicant with a step 1 score of -300 and a GPA of 0.02, so the Army doesn't want me."

3) Some people try to get a deferment by playing the game and staying under the radar. Basically, you submit your application without doing any away rotations or interviews. If you're a ho-hum applicant, then all the program directors may rank those that did rotations ahead of you. It's a very, very fine line to walk, and if you're a competitive applicant, then it's pretty much a non-starter. I would hazard to guess that most people who go this route end up disappointed.

4) If you really want a deferment but get matched with the Army, then you could go through the rebuttal process. I know of a single applicant from this past year that didn't match with Army ENT (because of the ridiculously high number of ENT applicants) but instead matched into an Army preliminary general surgery program. He went through the rebuttal process and was granted a deferment for the full length of an ENT residency.

I hope that helps.
 
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