I looked over the charting outcomes and came up with my own conclusions from them. I just wanted to share my take home messages with everyone. I feel a lot better about my ability to match after looking at this. I just wish it helped me know what level of programs to apply to. BTW these numbers are all based on US seniors after the first one.
Here are a summary of some of the stats for General Surgery:
1.6 applicants per position - Second only to Derm and Plastic surgery. This is a very scary number, but not that troubling if you are a US Senior Graduate. Just being a US senior you have an 89.7% rate of matching, while not being a US senior (ie a 2nd time around applicant, foreign medical graduate) you have a 48.15% chance of matching. The 1.6 applicants per spot is very misleading considering the match rates of these two groups. There are more positions available than there are US Seniors. I guess the moral of this story is make sure you match as a US senior.
10 Programs is the median number of places ranked by an applicant who matched. - If you look at the match rate per number of programs ranked the match rate is above 95% after you go above 10 programs ranked. Not to mention the fact that less competetive applicants are likely to apply to more programs. If you are worried about matching Rank 10+ programs, I would venture that it would have to be 10+ programs that are in your league. Also it looks as though applying to more than 16 places doesn't really increase your chances of matching significantly. Only 9 US seniors in the Country didn't match who ranked 10+ programs.
Average Step 1 Board Score for a matching applicant is 222. -However do not to fret over a below average board score. There is still a greater than 85% match rate if you got atleast a 200. Seems like the Cut off here is 230+ which gives you a 95% match rate. However a 230+ on Step II will give you a 98% match rate. So if you bombed Step I rock step II early in the application process.
Research doesn't really matter unless you do a lot of it, and if you are going to do research get published. Match rate for people doing no research is 87%, Match rate for people doing 1-5 research projects is 89%. Match Rate for people doing 5+ is 97%. However being published puts you at 91% match rate as opposed to not being published match rate of 87%.
AOA Membership - 87% if you aren't AOA, 98% if you are.
you can look over the data yourself here: http://www.nrmp.org/data/chartingoutcomes2007.pdf
Hope that helped.
Justin
Here are a summary of some of the stats for General Surgery:
1.6 applicants per position - Second only to Derm and Plastic surgery. This is a very scary number, but not that troubling if you are a US Senior Graduate. Just being a US senior you have an 89.7% rate of matching, while not being a US senior (ie a 2nd time around applicant, foreign medical graduate) you have a 48.15% chance of matching. The 1.6 applicants per spot is very misleading considering the match rates of these two groups. There are more positions available than there are US Seniors. I guess the moral of this story is make sure you match as a US senior.
10 Programs is the median number of places ranked by an applicant who matched. - If you look at the match rate per number of programs ranked the match rate is above 95% after you go above 10 programs ranked. Not to mention the fact that less competetive applicants are likely to apply to more programs. If you are worried about matching Rank 10+ programs, I would venture that it would have to be 10+ programs that are in your league. Also it looks as though applying to more than 16 places doesn't really increase your chances of matching significantly. Only 9 US seniors in the Country didn't match who ranked 10+ programs.
Average Step 1 Board Score for a matching applicant is 222. -However do not to fret over a below average board score. There is still a greater than 85% match rate if you got atleast a 200. Seems like the Cut off here is 230+ which gives you a 95% match rate. However a 230+ on Step II will give you a 98% match rate. So if you bombed Step I rock step II early in the application process.
Research doesn't really matter unless you do a lot of it, and if you are going to do research get published. Match rate for people doing no research is 87%, Match rate for people doing 1-5 research projects is 89%. Match Rate for people doing 5+ is 97%. However being published puts you at 91% match rate as opposed to not being published match rate of 87%.
AOA Membership - 87% if you aren't AOA, 98% if you are.
you can look over the data yourself here: http://www.nrmp.org/data/chartingoutcomes2007.pdf
Hope that helped.
Justin
