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After thoroughly reading the information on ranking and working through the examples, I have come to the conclusion that you should rank sites according to your true preferences. If you rank a less preferred site above a more preferred site the only thing you are doing is hurting your chance of matching at the more preferred site.
This. It's mentioned a few times on the APPIC site, and if you're subscribed to the listserve, it'll come up repeatedly there as well once you get to the ranking phase.
Rank sites based on your preference; try not to let where you think the site will rank you affect your list at all. Essentially, all you're doing if you rank a less-desired site above a more-desired site is sabotaging yourself by decreasing your own chances of matching at the more-desired site.
The algorithm will attempt to place you in site A first, and will keep you there until either the rank is over, or until an applicant whom the site ranked higher than you comes in and "bumps" you out of the spot. If that occurs, the algorithm them attempts to match you at your next-highest site, etc. Where you rank the site doesn't somehow add any weight, so to speak, to that ranking. For example, in the scenario above where an applicant ranked higher by the site comes along and bumps you, you wouldn't somehow have avoided being bumped if you'd ranked the site higher. And similarly, if a site ranks you as their #1 choice and you've ranked them as your #5, if you end up in the open spot with them, you WILL stay there; the algorithm won't bump you out in favor of someone who is ranked lower by the site simply because that applicant ranked the site higher than you did.
My understanding is that this is why APPIC says the applicants are placed at an advantage vs. the sites--applicants' ranks are the first criteria used for placement, and the sites' rankings only come into play in the event of a "tie-breaker." Thus, if there were exactly 10 sites and exactly 10 applicants, and no two applicants ranked the same site as #1, all applicants should end up in their first choice regardless of how the sites ranked the applicants.
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