If most people match there top 5....

[californiaappli1]

on their ROL , why are we advised to interview at 10+ programs to guarantee a match? Forgive me if I am not understand things correctly. Are those extra 5+ programs just to account for that small percentage that we would go past it?

Sorry for the typo in the title....

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[one11]

It is a not an advice rather than a pure interpretation of the NRMP data. look at these data:
http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Charting-Outcomes-2014-Final.pdf

Mean number of contiguous ranks is 11.5 for U.S. Seniors who matched.

 

[chronicidal]

on their ROL , why are we advised to interview at 10+ programs to guarantee a match? Forgive me if I am not understand things correctly. Are those extra 5+ programs just to account for that small percentage that we would go past it?

The answer is yes. You don't want to be in the 15% of students who match at greater than rank 4 but you decided only to interview at 4 places. The proportion of students matching at >4th rank is also slowly increasing over time as applicants apply more aggressively.

Numbers from Figure 7 http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Main-Match-Results-and-Data-2015_final.pdf

 

[playingfrombehind]

It is a not an advice rather than a pure interpretation of the NRMP data. look at these data:
http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Charting-Outcomes-2014-Final.pdf

Mean number of contiguous ranks is 11.5 for U.S. Seniors who matched.

Also want to stress that stat is for US seniors.
For independent apps chances are not as good.
i.e. for Family Medicine, independents (IMGs, former US-grads, etc.) need 20 continguous ranks for 90% chance of matching and the line never comes close to 100%
-for US seniors I forget the exact number somewhere around 15 family medicine interviews for 99%

 

[playingfrombehind]

Most =/= all, and applying population level statistics to individuals is challenging

Agreed....also technically you only need 1 interview to match. There was a poster in the FM forum who was AMG and had 5+ interviews and didn't match in FM and from some FMG forums people have posted that they have matched with 1 interview. So really who knows..

 

[chronicidal]

Agreed....also technically you only need 1 interview to match.

Technically, you only need to be ranked by a program in the NRMP. Whether they choose to interview applicants in their selection process is up to them and independent of participation in the Match.

 

[playingfrombehind]

Technically, you only need to be ranked by a program in the NRMP. Whether they choose to interview applicants in their selection process is up to them and independent of participation in the Match.

I guess we are splitting hairs here....but an even more precise answer is one program has to rank you and you have to rank them

 

[chronicidal]

I guess we are splitting hairs here....but an even more precise answer is one program has to rank you and you have to rank them

Yea, even more precisely, a stable match is where (one program has to rank you) and (you have to rank them) and there is NOT (another possible match where both the program(s) gets a more highly ranked applicant and you get a more highly ranked program)