😀Okay, so obviously we are pre-meds, does anybody know what after med school? we gotta choose a residency program related to our specialty, so I wonder if we could choose where to go? its bcuz I prefer not to stay too far away from my parents. 🙂
Thanks
The short answer to your question is yes.
During your last year of medical school you apply to residency programs in the specialty of your choice. You choose the programs you want to apply to, generally with assistance from someone in your school. This list takes multiple things into account, such as quality of educational experience, specific attributes of the programs, location preferences, etc. Which factor is most important will depend on you. Some people want the best education and don't care if they end up in the middle of nowhere, while others would rather sacrifice a little for a more desirable location.
You will then (hopefully) get interviews, and will try to go on as many as possible/choose the most desirable ones. After your interviews you will rank the programs you interviewed at in order of preference.
Let's say you interviewed at 5 programs for example, WashU, Temple, Mayo Clinic, Stanford, and NYU. You would then rank these programs in the order you would want to go to them. Your example preference list is:
1. NYU
2. Stanford
3. Wash U
4. Temple
5. Mayo
Now, these programs also make a list in order of who they want. Let's say that for the type of residency you applied to that NYU has 3 spots a year, and that they interview 10 people for those 3 spots. They will rank the kids that they interviewed.
So now what? Both you and all of the residency programs will submit their lists, and the Match will occur. The Match is the way that people generally get residency spots. Unlike college or medical school, one does not get accepted by multiple residency programs and then get to choose where to go. Instead the Match is almost like a dating website that puts people and programs together.
So, how does the Match work? Well, the system will look at your preference list and compare it to the programs' list. For example, since you ranked NYU first the system will check where you are ranked on NYU's list. If you are in their top 3 (remember that NYU has 3 spots a year), then congrats you get your first choice!
But what if NYU didn't rank you in their top 3 of the 10 they interviewed? Well then there are two options. One is that you don't get NYU and the system looks at the next school on your list (Stanford) and starts comparing again. The other option is that all of the kids that NYU ranked ahead of you actually wanted to go to other programs and actually got into them, which means that NYU would move down its list and you would get in! Hooray!
I don't know what I explained all of this, it is still eons away for you. All you need to know is that you can apply to wherever you want, and that the Match "favors the applicant" over the residency programs because they look at your list first before looking at the residency program lists!
Good luck.
