Number of good programs needed to match well

[medstudent7860]

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I know that ranking 12 programs should pretty much guarantee matching. But I have interviews at 5 programs that I'm really interested in and 1 other that I'm waitlisted at for an interview date. Then I have interviews at a couple more that are basically safeties (so it ends up being more than 12 total). But if I were to rank the 5 at the top and then the safeties after that, how likely is it that I would match at one of the top 5? All of them are pretty competitive I think. It seems to me that based on the "12" magic number, if I had interviews at 12 really good programs it would pretty much guarantee me matching at a good program. I'm not so sure of the chances with 5. Do people usually match within their top 5? How often do people get their top choice? And how often does it move down to the bottom of the list or do people get one of their last choices?

 

[235009]

The vast majority match in their top 3. Not sure where you got the "magic number" of 12 from. Quite sure it was more like 8 for US MDs. It would be atypical for you to had 12 interviews all at places you deemed desirable.

 

[AndreasVesalius]

I think he got 12 from NRMP graph. 12 is where the asymptotic portion literally reaches 100%, but you're right, as of 2014 8 was like 98-99% match for US applicants. But there are rumors about more competitive year and interviews coming out later, so I wonder if 10-12 might be safer than 8 this year.

 

[autotroph]

I haven't checked that in awhile...so if you rank 1/2/3/4/5 programs you have (roughly) 69/80/84/91/93 percent chance of matching. That's probably roughly congruous to the rank program people tend to match at (ie. ~70% match their #1, 80% top 2, etc.). The issue with that is that I think this graph is based on contiguous ranks, no? That would make me think that the people that are on the left side of this graph are either applicants that struggled, underapplied (or what have you) which more than likely decreases their odds of matching relative to the pack of average applicants. That would mean that the chances of your average applicant matching their 1/2/3... program would be higher than this graph indicates.

 

[californiaappli1]

I am really nervous about this as I am a below average applicant, and I am worried about matching my top 5 also. My top 5 are mainly low tier programs , but I am still worried I will go unranked in these programs. I just hope interviewing means I have a fighting chance.

 

[chrissyxf]

US Seniors (out of everyone, not just those who matched): 48.8% 1st choice, 15.6% 2nd choice, 9.7% 3rd choice, 6.3% 4th choice, 14.1%>4th choice, 5.5% unmatched
http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Main-Match-Results-and-Data-2015_final.pdf page 49