the Match.. for med school?

[USeF]

on the thread 'what would you change about the medical school application' there were some interesting ideas so far.

Along the lines of replacing AMCAS, how about taking a tip from the residency applications and creating the Match for med school too?!

This is something I thought about when praying4md explained the Texas match system to me. Here's my adaptation to the full AMCAS schools so far: after all your interviews are done (for at least the bulk of the applicants) schools rank students by tiers, each the size of their incoming class, and students rank the schools they interviewed at in order of preference. An algorithm would then create optimal 1-to-1 matches for both parties.

There are of course its shortcomings like financial aid could not be waited for, and time: either some people would interview after the match day (if in Feb or March) or every school would have to be done interviewing (May). Either way, all the summer waitlist chaos would be greatly reduced. How could we make this work? Let's get brainstorming. Deadline: AMCAS 2003!

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[BlackPuma]

algorithm, matchin, huh?

these math nerds are taking over the planet

 

[brandonite]

I actually think it's a great idea... It takes a lot of the guesswork out of the process, and eliminates a fair bit of the wondering.

There are some problems with it, like financial aid, as you said. People generally don't make their final decisions about med school until later. Perhaps if the algorithm was rolling (ie - the main match takes place on a certain day, but if a spot opens up at a school you prefer to the one you are assigned to, you can then match to that). Another problem is that every school would have to participate in it - even the Texas schools. Otherwise, things would get very confusing...

All in all, it sounds like a great idea to me!

 

[USeF]

good call on the rolling algorithm. So then the entire thing would be centralized, where you have to change the rank of a school as you interview there say within a week. That way the schools can see if you placed it as #1 and if they do the same for you, bam, a match!

once AMCAS becomes streamlined, and I'm sure it will eventually, this could be very attractive and feasible.

 

[postbacchus]

As a dissenting vote, one problem is that you're locked into a decision once it's made. I've been lucky enough to have multiple acceptances, and I'm now waiting for financial aid information before I make a choice. Financial aid could make a huge difference for me, and it would be difficult to rank schools without that information. The Residency Match is better, since it's about salary, not debt.

Interesting idea, though...

 

[brandonite]

Well, you're only allowed to hold one acceptance by March (May??) 15th, so if the match day were to be held at a similar time, then nothing would really change, except we would do away with waitlists, etc... You would have until a certain date to rank all of your schools. So, say, by April 1st, you would have done all your interviews, and would have to make a final decision right then about your schools.

I think it makes a lot of sense... Basically, it solves the problem of people holding on to acceptances at schools they probably will not attend, leading to a situation where people on waitlists don't hear about which school they will get into until August!

 

[md2be06]

At first I didn't like the concept behind the Texas match process, but now I'm kinda envious of Texas residents. One of the most frustrating things about this application process is that most of us seemingly have very little control over our own fate at a particular school once our interview is over. However, Texas applicants can at least control their fate to some extent by ranking higher those schools where they thought they were pretty competitive all things considered. I like the concept of a national match system, but not sure if it'll ever become a reality. If it does, I just hope AMCAS isn't left in charge of implementing the centralized system.