I'm always so confused about match statistics. So according to this, basically only half of the American and Canadian graduates will match. However if you look at Charting Outcomes in the match for diagnostic radiology US Allopathic graduates, it's always like 98-99% of people match. My question is if you want to match into a radiology residency as an US allopathic graduate, is it pretty much guaranteed like the 98-99% seen in Charting Outcomes or is it like this where it's like 50%?
There are one set of statistics from AAMC based on students who submit an application in ERAS. There are another set of statistics from NRMP based on students who submit a rank list in the Match.
You can imagine that the former is a larger number because students drop out of the process. Sometimes students apply to several specialties initially but decide during the interview season to focus only on one specialty. Sometimes students apply to a specialty but do not garner any interviews, so they would not rank any programs. Sometimes students apply to a specialty but only get a few interviews at non-ideal places, and they decide to sit the year out in order to buff up their resume and re-apply the next year; these people would not submit a rank list.
The ERAS statistics also vary by when during the year you download them. If you download them between April and October, you'll find that the figures are larger, because they include participants in SOAP. Because radiology has for several years had many positions open in SOAP, there have been many additional applicants to the specialty that did not apply at first but then apply during SOAP (eg, people who failed to match to orthopedics). These figures are inflated compared to the NRMP figures, which are defined at only one time point, in the Main Match and excluding SOAP.
The NRMP figures separate "US seniors" = current 4th year medical students at MD schools. The ERAS figures defines "USGs" as 4th years and prior graduates of US MD and DO and Canadian medical schools. Thus, ERAS USGs is a larger number than NRMP US seniors. The USG figure includes applicant pools that are less competitive than US seniors, namely those who already graduated (ie, students who didn't match on schedule) and DOs. The number of Canadian students participating in the Match is very small.
The NRMP Charting Outcomes figures separates specialties based on what specialty an applicant's first-ranked program is ("preferred specialty"). For applicants who ranked radiology as a backup, they would not show up in the NRMP Charting Outcomes data, but they do show up in the ERAS figures. The NRMP Match statistics does include the number who ranked a specialty as not-first-choice. Note which report you are looking at.
Let's compare the numbers from 2017. By NRMP figures, there were 706 US MD seniors who ranked DR as first or only choice specialty, plus 210 US MD seniors who ranked DR as not-first-choice, for a total of 916 entrants. By ERAS figures as of 10/15 (ie, including only the beginning of the application season when the bulk of applicants enter, not SOAP), there were 1251 USGs applying to DR. This means there were 335 students applying DR before 10/15/2016 who were at least one of the following: a DO student, a Canadian student, an already-graduated MD student, did not get any interviews from DR programs, or chose not to rank any DR programs they could have interviewed at.
We don't have Charting Outcomes in 2017, so we can look at 2016 figures, which are similar. According to NRMP Charting Outcomes in 2016, 719 of 734 US MD seniors who preferred DR did match to DR, a 98% match rate.
Now to answer your question, for a US MD senior who wants to match DR, what is the chance of success? It's probably less than 98%, because there will be a small number who apply but don't get any interviews and won't be able to rank a DR program.
The ERAS figures cannot be used to directly predict how competitive the Match will be because a sizable minority of DR applicants will not prefer DR come Match time. In addition, there can be shifts in the different competitiveness pools within USGs year to year (eg, seniors vs graduates vs DOs) that confuse the actual competitiveness. You have to look at the yearly trend in the ERAS figures and extrapolate based on historical Match data.
Now take your bets on the US senior match rate in DR for 2018, given that USG applicants increased 12%. I'm going to guess 90%. This is less than a 12% absolute decrease because I'm guessing the number of positions are going to slightly increase, and that a greater proportion of DR applicants will end up ranking another speciality like IR first now that the integrated IR programs are more established.
