PGY Matching

[ItsGavinC]

I've posted this message in the pre-dental forum in a response to some other questions, but I'm hoping some of the more knowledgeable peeps here can answer my question.

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Okay, here is the official word from the ADA (from the Future of Dentistry report):

? 1,200 students matriculate into specialty programs each year.

? 30% of dental students apply to GPR/AEGD programs, and there are 1,300 slots open to match with these two programs.


So, there are approx. 4,000 senior dental students at any given time, which means 1200 apply to specialty programs, and another 1200 apply for 1300 GPR/AEGD positions.

What I take from this is that if you WANT to match to a specialty, you probably can. Like I said, I've heard that every specialty last year had seats left open (although they may not be the greatest programs in the coolest areas).

Some of this skewing may be accounted for by practicing dentists who apply to post-graduate programs, but that still doesn't make the numbers fall in line.

So, do these numbers mean that nearly everybody who applies to a PG program (either specialty or GPR/AEGD) gets in (assuming everybody doesn't apply to the same programs across the board)?

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[dr_benj]

ItsGavinC, I believe there are about 4,000 students that matriculate into dental school every year. This would mean there are 4000 senior dental students, not 1250. 1250 seems awfully low. Considering there are 54 dental schools in the US and assuming 4000 matriculate each year that would give an average class size of 74 which seems about right to me. If only 1250 matriculated every year the average class size would only be 23 which is way too low. Maybe this doesn't affect your question at all but just thougt I would point it out.

 

[aphistis]

[previous post deleted]

You're right, Benj. Good call.

 

[ItsGavinC]

Thanks guys, it does affect it. Sorry, I've had a headache all day and wasn't thinking clearly.

I'll change my original post to what it ought to be.

 

[River13]

An open spot at an institution doesn't mean no one applied to that program...for example, last year Universtity of Washington had an open OMS spot--they still had near 200 applications for that position---they interviewed 20 of them, then only ranked 15 in order of preference--and all of the 15 were accepted at other programs...so they reinvited 5 or so for interviews again and picked 1.

An "open spot" doesn't mean no one applied necessarily, especially for competitive programs like endo, ortho, oms.

This can and does happen often in GPR/AEGD however.

 

[groundhog]

Latest ADEA report states that there were a total of 2715 first year dental residency positions available in 2002. Of those , 1782 were AEGD/GPR.

 

[ItsGavinC]

Originally posted by River13
An open spot at an institution doesn't mean no one applied to that program...for example, last year Universtity of Washington had an open OMS spot--...so they reinvited 5 or so for interviews again and picked 1.

So if they picked one then that would mean the spot wasn't open, correct?

I'm talking about positions that are left open the entire year. That is, they are NOT filled by dental students.

Further, because most of these positions require the students to pay tuition, any spot left open is probably not because the school couldn't find an applicant they liked.

 

[gryffindor]

Gavin, the day of the MATCH, a few lists come out. One is of all the applicants and where they matched (or didn't match). Another is all the programs and which students matched into them. A third is the program that still has anywhere between 1 or all of its slots open because they didn't match anyone into those spots.

So how do those spots get filled? One way is how River describes - Seattle re-interviews a few people who didn't match and choose 1 to fill their 1 open spot. I would imagine this is how it works for any competitive specialties that might have a spot left after match (even if you have to pay to go there). Why did this spot not fill? Not b/c there weren't enough applicants (there were probably 100 applicants for this spot), but because Seattle wasn't very good at who they choose to interview. They called to interview say 20 students for 5 spots. Well of those 20, 4 matched into Seattle (they weren't neccesarily the top 4 Seattle wanted, and Seattle also wasn't neccesarily the first choice for those 4). The other 16 got in elsewhere. This means that Seattle was interviewing at least 16 people who weren't interested in coming to their program, but came only because Seattle called them. Basically Seattle was seeking the same competitive applicants other programs wanted and didn't interview the ones who might have actually wanted to attend Seattle (b/c they didn't feel the other 80 applicants were worthy of being interviewed by Seattle.) Anyways, point is, they fill the spot.

Another way to fill an open spot after MATCH is like this. Applicants who didn't match into a program look at the list where spots are open and call the programs directly. With the program on the phone, the might ask you to come out to interview, interview you on the phone, or even give you a decision right there on the phone. It seems like this would be more how AEGD/GPR programs fill their empty slots.

A third thing can happen, which is the open spot just goes empty for the year. Take for example what happened to the 2 GPR programs here in Buffalo. Both programs had 8 slots each. One only matched 2 students, the other matched 0. The program with 2 students picks up a third student when a student fails the NERB in May and calls the GPR requesting to start their program in July. Obviously they take this person b/c they have 6 spots to fill, and and only 1 person beggin for a spot. The other program managed to find 3 students waaaaay after MATCH, but both program are operating this year with only 3 residents (but were designed for 8). This means those 2 hospitals either will cut back in the number of patients they usually see or will work those 3 residents to death.

Very confusing. But after I go through PASS & MATCH this year, I will be happy to post my experiences here for others to preview what actually goes on.

 

[dc-10]

griffin04,
could you post your experiences? What programs are your applying to?

 

[PashaJ]

The MATCH list actually says the names? It must be a little embarrassing for that kid in your class who killed himself the first three years and then he doesn't get into a program while his classmates know that he didn't get in.

We have a lot of gunners here but I'm not sure what their intentions are: specialty or transfer. A lot of them want to transfer back home, esp. the Canadians where it's a heck of a lot cheaper than BU. I wonder if this is the case at NYU and USC.

 

[ItsGavinC]

Griffin,

You've always been a tremendous help. Thanks for explaining the process to me! I really appreciate that.

Please share your experiences!

 

[River13]

Good post Griffin. The point I was trying to make is that I've never heard of an ortho/endo/oms residency 1st year position being "open" due to not having enough applicants...there's always greater demand than supply with these most competitive specialties, even in what may be considered lousy locations where no one really wants to live. Open spots occur in these mainly if a resident bails on the residency prematurely.

I've known of positions that have not had enough applications to fill spots in pros/aegd/gpr...heard of a perio one once...

 

[gryffindor]

Pasha, I think the list of students and where they match or don't match is only available to the school & the programs. I doubt the applicants would see this list. But this is dental school - people would know anyways. Think of how fast rumors fly at your school...

I'll post all my experiences at the end of all this, I promise. You guys are all so helpful to the students on SDN, I would want to do the same. I just don't want to get blasted with a gazillion questions if I post right now, b/c I'm just going through all this the first time and I don't want to misinform anyone.

So far what I can tell you is that PASS is a real pain - they said they'd be up and running in May, but they didn't get their act together till JULY 15. That's tough when a program has a JULY 14 deadline for PASS. (They later adjusted their deadline to July 29, geez that's so much better...). And this post-grad process is costing me a small fortune. But then again, I had an assured acceptance to my hometown dental school, I never applied to multiple schools like most people do through AADSAS. So maybe this is my payback for skipping the process the first time around.

Since this thread is about MATCH, here's what I know about MATCH so far. I sent them my check, they e-mailed me my MATCH number. You have to register for the MATCH by Oct. 3 so they can send you directions of what to do by Oct. 24. If you're interested, check out their website www.natmatch.com .