Match Day

[deschutes]

Fast-forwarding waaaay too far ahead into the future...

How are Match results announced?
(I remember hearing something about a magic envelope with a Golden Ticket.)

What if you're not at a US school - do you only have the option of logging on to the NRMP website (which I imagine will be jam-packed with anxious candidates come March 17, 2005)? Or does the NRMP email results as well?

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[yaah]

Schools are allowed to release the information I think one hour before they are posted on NRMP. Thus, you can skip your match day events at your school and simply log on, but you have to wait an extra hour. Some people simply can't do that.

Every school is different. Some just have the envelopes all sitting on a table and at the designated time (I can't remember whether it's 10am, 11am, whatever) they let people in. My school was like others where they have everyone's envelope in a basket, and they pull them out randomly every 10 seconds or so. I was like 80th name called so I didn't get mine until like 20 minutes into it. I think some places add another extreme and make everyone open up their envelope in front of everyone and read where they got. That sounds fishy to me though, do you have the option of saying..."um...I don't want to tell" if you match only into a prelim year instead of that orthopaedics spot?

I actually can't remember if they email you too. I know they email you a couple of days before match day with a message "congratulations, you have matched!" and that's it. Unless you didn't match, at which time the scrambling begins. But you don't find out where until match day itself.

 

[carrigallen]

I think at our school, the envelopes are all distributed, and then in the middle of the ceremony, everyone opens theirs at once.

Kind of like "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, eh?

....'For a minute, no one moved, and then all the slips of paper were opened. Suddenly, all the women began to speak at once, saying, "Who is it?," "Who's got it?," "Is it the Dunbars?," "Is it the Watsons?" Then the voices began to say, "It's Hutchinson."
...
Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her. "It isn't fair," she said. A stone hit her on the side of the head. Old Man Warner was saying, "Come on, come on, everyone." '

...Who is it? Who didn't match?

 

[deschutes]

I think some places add another extreme and make everyone open up their envelope in front of everyone and read where they got.

That is miserable. Both the prolongation of the agony of suspense, and having to publicly announce your match result. The school might as well just post a list of names and where they matched.

 

[b&ierstiefel]

That is miserable. Both the prolongation of the agony of suspense, and having to publicly announce your match result. The school might as well just post a list of names and where they matched.

My school has it both ways...either you can find out in public at Match Day or you can find out earlier at the office of student programs. I think I shall do that latter. Plus, I may not even go to Match Day...these classmates aren't my real classmates and I feel no true sense of solidarity with the class of 2005.

That's what sucks about being an MSTP student. 4 years into your training, all your classmates and buddies graduate. Then when it's finally your turn to graduate, you barely know the people you are graduating with. Plus, the cliques have already formed and I don't care about bustin through those forcefields.

 

[QuietSylph]

Kind of like "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, eh?

LOL. I love the comparison -- it's so (disturbingly) accurate! Now every time I encounter that story, I'll think of the Match!