Better to rank "more competitive" program higher?

[shan564]

Multiple people with 15+ interviews in many specialties go unmatched every year. After reading your post, I looked at the data from the 2011 match. In IM, for example, not only were there a handful of people with 12-15 ranks who didn't match, but the match rate was a surprisingly low 90% for those with 16 or more interviews. GS was pretty similar. Other specialties like EM and anesthesiology had close to 0 unmatched applicants with 15 or more interviews. I suspect that people who don't match with 15+ interviews are bad interviewees and ranking 5 more programs probably wouldn't help them.

If the dip in the match rate in IM and GS with very high numbers of interviews is real, it's probably because those people are a self selecting population.

Also consider that if they went on 15+ interviews and then matched in a different specialty, they'll go down as "unmatched" for IM. In other words, if somebody interviewed at 12 derm programs and 6 IM programs as a backup, then if they match in derm, they'll decrease the IM match rate. Is that right?

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[KeyzerSoze]

Also consider that if they went on 15+ interviews and then matched in a different specialty, they'll go down as "unmatched" for IM. In other words, if somebody interviewed at 12 derm programs and 6 IM programs as a backup, then if they match in derm, they'll decrease the IM match rate. Is that right?

I wasn't sure about that, but I don't think it's the case:

For the purposes of this report, match success is defined as a
match to the specialty of the applicant’s first-ranked program,
because that is assumed to be the specialty of choice. Lack of
success includes matching to another specialty as well as failure
to match at all. No distinction was made based on whether
applicants matched to their first, second, third, or last choice.

So people with backup specialties who match into their preferred specialty shouldn't affect the stats for the backup specialty. It's unclear if or how applicants who match in a backup specialty are accounted for, since the charts are titled "Number of Contiguous Ranks Within Preferred Specialty".

 

[sylvanthus]

They can also rank programs they didnt interview at. I don't know why someone would do that, but I am sure some people do.

 

[KeyzerSoze]

They can also rank programs they didnt interview at. I don't know why someone would do that, but I am sure some people do.

That could explain it. Presumably people who do that would rank a lot of programs.