Mil vs. civ GME analysis

[scubasteve24]

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First post, long time reader; so to start, thanks to everyone who contributes their experience, insights, and knowledge to this community.

"Too Long; Didn't Read": Am I giving a fair comparison between Mil GME and Civ GME competitiveness, and am I using the right data?

I'm trying to do some analysis on the competitiveness of military vs. civilian GME. The threads I'm finding are somewhat outdated or not really quantitative. Wanted to try to help out by providing an updated comparison tool; right now it's Army specific but I'm trying to expand it, and I'd like to confirm that I'm using the right NRMP data.

Check out the spreadsheet with this post. It averages 2010-'15 applicants per position across Army GME offered specialties to identify over-applied for programs (ignore the specialty highlights, that's personal preferences). I've pulled the 2015 NRMP report and the 2014 "Charting Outcomes", but I'm not sure the data on page 8 from the Charting Outcomes document is equivalent to what's in the Army GME Slideshow 2014 and 2015. What I'm trying to get at is "compared between mil GME and civ GME, for which specialties did US med school seniors apply for as their first choice but have to choose a different specialty due to competitiveness of available programs?"

-Am I using the right data for the NRMP match info (p. 8 and 9 of "Charting Outcomes 2014")?
-Does anyone have the data from the Army giving the "preferred specialty match %"
-Does anyone have these equivalent documents for Navy and Air Force PGY1?

PS: My background is '09 undergrad (science pre-reqs complete), ROTC to active Army Engineer officer, Masters (MS) in Eng Management in 2014 (MBA-ish), transitioning to med school after Company Command with 8 years active, Aug '17 matriculation goal, undecided between mil med vs. civ med but leaning 70/30 mil med, and likely USUHS. MCAT was in '08 and Jan '15 and did well both times. So if any other pre-meds have questions about MCAT prep, general Army "stuff", delaying med school (I'm happy I did), or undergrad ROTC, I can talk semi-intelligently about those topics.

Edit: Found what I think is the right NRMP data, still missing some info though.

 

[notdeadyet]

If you're trying to do proper quantitative analysis, one thing that you need to keep in mind is that military GME is very small and therefore conclusions you draw from the data may very well be wildly inaccurate.

Specialties can (and have) been an easy match one year and very competitive the next. You don't have this kind of fluctuation in civilian GME.

 

[scubasteve24]

Solid heads up, thanks. Looking more closely at the Army applications per position, the fluctuation is slapping me in the face now. Hoping this will be a tool to let pre-meds see exactly those kinds of characteristics in mil GME; just gotta get the Navy/AF data in there and clean it up a bit.

 

[Gastrapathy]

The Navy and AF data don't exist for public consumption. The bottom line is that a few specialties are more competitive in the .mil (peds and EM come to mind) but, for the most part, it's about the same with the caveat that any individual year group can be very unpredictable.