What's the deepest and shallowest into a program's rank list you've ever heard of a program filling?

[deleted1168269]

Sometimes I wonder if residencies that have around 2 spots per year ever even have to go past the top ten to match (assuming it's a competitive and desired program?). I'm applying neuro, and many residencies only have 4-6 spots, so I wonder how deep into a rank list programs have ever had to go, or how high into their rank list have they filled their class. Ditto for residencies with 30+ spots, how do they mitigate the risk of not matching!!!?

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[RangerBob]

Shallowest is a program with one spot gets their #1 pick

Deepest is they don't even fill in the SOAP....

Completely varies from program to program, and even year to year at the same program. But most have a general idea if they have say, 10 spots to fill, that they need to usually rank say, 50 to have 80% odds of filling all spots, and maybe rank 80 to have 100% chance to fill all spots based on their prior matches. Not to say there's a 100% chance they'll match every spot, but that in all their years of existence, they may have never had to go past 80. In which case perhaps the PD has a goal to rank 90.

 

[mrbreakfast]

The elite-name neuro programs will generally fill a few spots beyond their class size, e.g. a class of 10 may fill from their top 14-15 ranks. For smaller or lesser-name programs, they might dip pretty far down. There is a ton a variability year-to-year, as well as many variables and random factors.

 

[medschoolaspirant]

https://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ROL-Length-Data_2023-Final.pdf

this shows average number of interviewd candidate pd has to rank to fill 1 spot can be average 12-15. So a class of 10 to fill can be as many as 120-150 Candidate to rank. It can vary by type of speciality type of program. Etc … so number csn vary.

 

[operaman]

We took 5 a year and usually matched down to 7-10 range. Some years there are random drops lower - often due to more couples matches or interviewing more people with strong ties to other regions - but not that much lower.

We would usually interview around 30-40 applicants, and usually the top 20-25 were all very strong and beloved and all matched at very strong programs in the end.

 

[deleted1168269]

We took 5 a year and usually matched down to 7-10 range.

This is exactly what I'm worried about. The programs I want to go to only have 3-4 spots in their program. So even if I get an interview, so do 80 other people. It's very nerve-wracking to think I may have to be in the top 10 of the 80 people who get interviewed in order to match.

 

[operaman]

This is exactly what I'm worried about. The programs I want to go to only have 3-4 spots in their program. So even if I get an interview, so do 80 other people. It's very nerve-wracking to think I may have to be in the top 10 of the 80 people who get interviewed in order to match.

I thought the same thing when I went through. What I learned after about the 5th interview was that the same people were interviewing for all the same programs. So you’ll see those same 80 people at every program where you interview, and you’ll all match.

 

[DOVinciRobot]

I thought the same thing when I went through. What I learned after about the 5th interview was that the same people were interviewing for all the same programs. So you’ll see those same 80 people at every program where you interview, and you’ll all match.

This. At every interview at least half of the interviewees were people I had seen before, usually more than once.

The competitive programs that fill high on their lists end up typically interviewing from a very similar pool of applicants who get dispersed amongst said programs.

I know of an ortho program with 5 spots who almost always fills in their top 10, another with 2 that rarely drops past 5. The super competitive fields tend to be that way, most regular specialty programs do tend to fill a little lower than their top choices unless their top choices are home students (just from my experience).

 

[esob]

I know of a program that filled 10 spots with their top 14

 

[Dr. Anonymouss]

We took 5 a year and usually matched down to 7-10 range. Some years there are random drops lower - often due to more couples matches or interviewing more people with strong ties to other regions - but not that much lower.

We would usually interview around 30-40 applicants, and usually the top 20-25 were all very strong and beloved and all matched at very strong programs in the end.

This is the part I don’t understand though. You said 25 out the 40 were very strong applicants yet you only dropped 7-10 on rank list. So how is it that you decide which students to rank to the point where you only fall just a few in your list.

it’s almost like you anticipate that some of the applicants you interviewed will match at higher tier programs so you don’t rank them highly in order to minimize how low you drop on your rank list

 

[NotAProgDirector]

This is the part I don’t understand though. You said 25 out the 40 were very strong applicants yet you only dropped 7-10 on rank list. So how is it that you decide which students to rank to the point where you only fall just a few in your list.

it’s almost like you anticipate that some of the applicants you interviewed will match at higher tier programs so you don’t rank them highly in order to minimize how low you drop on your rank list

I think you're over thinking this. If there were 20 "strong" candidates and they drop to 10-14, that's 50-75% down the quality part of their list. That's mostly what you would expect in a match.

Also, what makes a "strong" or "highly desired" applicant may vary between programs. Some may be looking for more or specific research, others regional ties, and yet others looking at leadership positions or other application metrics. And whether you're ranked highly on a program's list and you rank them highly yourself may be correlated -- I imagine if you're very excited about a program that may shine through on your interview day and impact their ranking, and vice versa.

Is it possible that programs are trying to jigger with their rank list to "go down as high as possible"? Maybe. And some of that is valid and not just chasing a metric -- in general programs want to have people who want to be there, not people who matched low and are disappointed (although most of those people end up being perfectly happy anyway, so it matters less).

 

[operaman]

This is the part I don’t understand though. You said 25 out the 40 were very strong applicants yet you only dropped 7-10 on rank list. So how is it that you decide which students to rank to the point where you only fall just a few in your list.

it’s almost like you anticipate that some of the applicants you interviewed will match at higher tier programs so you don’t rank them highly in order to minimize how low you drop on your rank list

No that never really factored in. The whole dept interviewed each applicant and we simply averaged the numerical scores for each and ranked them. Then we would go down the list and make slight adjustments if there were issues that someone had, but their potential to rank us was never discussed. In fact, we occasionally had couples match folks where we knew their SO didn’t even get an interview at our institution but we still kept them up high knowing they would only match if their SO failed yo match entirely.

Doesn’t really matter how far you fall on the list especially if they’re all strong anyhow. Plus we were one of the top programs in the country so people tended to rank us highly.

Usually people who didn’t match when we matched below them were couples matchers whose SO failed to match their program, or the applicant matched one of the 2-3 other programs in the country of similar status.

 

[deleted1168269]

I know of a program that filled 10 spots with their top 14

What is a highly sought after program?

 

[esob]

What is a highly sought after program?

reasonably highly sought after in an avg competitiveness specialty