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You’re busy juggling med school and life, and if you don’t stay organized, one of those balls is going to come crashing down. Let’s take a look at what you need to do so you can stay focused, motivated, and completely on top of your juggling act.
ERAS is the electronic application shared by most residency programs and specialties. Here are the parts of the application you will need to complete:
ERAS opened in July, so you can get your basic info entered during the summer. Most applicants shoot to have everything ready by the opening day, which in 2023 is September 6th.
Just when you thought you had done all the essay writing you would ever have to do (remember getting into med school?), you are faced with the blank page of another personal statement. Only this time, you must explain why you are a good fit for your chosen specialty.
This time, your focus should be on the past four years, rather than rehashing high school or undergraduate experiences. As you select your ten experiences, pay attention to activities that demonstrate the core competencies in your field. And remember, it rarely works to recycle your med school AMCAS personal statement! Your application should look professional and show the maturity you have gained in the past four years.
Start working on your personal statement and experiences as early as you can. Be sure to get feedback, either from your medical school or a medical school admissions expert.
In September, you get to start choosing programs. Be sure to apply to programs that are a good fit for you. Do you want a program where there are fellows and subspecialists (which may improve your chance of getting a fellowship in that area)? Or would you prefer not to have fellows competing for cases? Do you like the idea of a large program with many personalities and teaching styles, or a smaller one that acts more like a large extended family?
Your USMLE Step 2 scores and letters of recommendation will weigh heavily for most residency programs, so be sure to focus on these and choose residency programs with numbers that match yours. Some applicants apply to two separate specialties with one as a backup if their first choice is highly competitive. Meet with your department chair or another trusted adviser to decide where you are competitive and will succeed.
Your letters should come from faculty who have worked closely with you and can attest to your strengths and readiness for residency. If you feel an attending has seen you at your best, ask for a letter immediately after you finish that rotation. Do not wait until application season begins, as they will have seen many med students by then and won’t have a strong memory of you (as amazing and memorable as you may be). For all letter writers, share your CV and personal statement and ask them to complete the letter within 4-6 weeks.
It is generally advised to sign the waiver saying you agree to not see your letters. Not signing it will cause program directors to wonder what you are hiding.
ERAS makes it possible for you to submit and store as many letters as you need, then send certain letters out to each program. This allows you to individualize your letters for each program. For example, if you have a letter from a faculty member who has connections to a program you are applying to, you can make sure that letter gets to them. In addition, if you are applying to more than one specialty, you can guide the appropriate letters to each program. You can continue sending letters out after you have submitted your application, so don’t hesitate to request a letter from attendings in your fourth-year rotations. These will often be your strongest letters due to the added independence and responsibility you get as a fourth-year. One of the best possible letters to receive is from an attending who writes that, as a fourth-year student, you performed equal to or better than the interns.
Finally, not all letters need to be from physicians in your chosen specialty. Letters from attendings in other departments can be especially convincing, as they show your ability to master other disciplines and earn respect from colleagues.
Many medical schools have switched over to a P/NP grading system, so the MSPE was created as a way to rank and recommend students without a GPA. According to the AAMC, the MSPE is “a summary letter of evaluation intended to provide residency program directors an honest and objective summary of a student’s salient experiences, attributes, and academic performance.” In 2016, the AAMC released recommendations to standardize the MSPE across all schools. The six sections the MSPE includes are:
Many medical schools will ask you to draft your noteworthy characteristics. These can highlight accomplishments or experiences from any time in your life, and are a good way to bring in information that might not otherwise fit in your personal statement or experiences. Follow your medical school’s guidelines and submit them as early as possible so you have time to incorporate any feedback.
Most schools do their best to portray you as a strong candidate, as they want their graduate to be successful. According to AAMC, the “clerkship evaluations are a crucial piece of information for program directors and are considered by many to be the most important section of the MSPE in determining applicants for interview selection and rank order list.” The MSPE is required again if you apply to fellowships or other subspecialty programs, so it is essentially a permanent part of your academic record.
Your residency interview is a two-way interview. You are looking at them as much as the other way around. Some schools look great on paper, but applicants find that when they visit a program, they don’t gel with the residents. Residencies often rely heavily on their residents to evaluate whether a candidate will be a good fit (after all, they will be your closest colleagues for the next several years). Make sure you come across as easy to get along with and a team player on interview day. If your medical school interviews were very stressful, or you tend to get nervous and stumble with your words, you will want to do some mock interviews before the big day. See What’s the Best Way to Prepare for Your Interview for more info.
Applicants rank the programs they have applied to and residencies rank the students they have interviewed, and a computer goes through one by one, matching you to the highest school on your list that has spots open. Once Applicant A gets matched to a program on their list (let’s say their second choice), they will be removed from all programs lower on their list, which opens those up for other applicants. If Applicant B was matched to Applicant A’s first choice, but then gets matched higher on their list, Applicant A’s first choice school will then open. In the end, you only find out which ONE PROGRAM you are going to, not all the temporary matches along the way.
When faced with the possibility of spending the next three (or more) years apart, many fourth-year med student couples opt to apply through the couples match. You each register for the match independently, apply and interview as individuals, but then you become one unit at the time of the match. When the lists are computed, the couple is accepted to the highest ranked program on their list that accepted BOTH of them. The drawback is that if one half of the couple is not accepted at a program, the other person may be giving up their chance to go there. The upside is that if you let programs know you are applying as a couple, they may push another department to accept your partner. For example, if the department of surgery really wants one half of a couple, they may encourage the department of internal medicine to accept their mate.
Reasons for not matching vary, but may include doing poorly on the USMLE, not being competitive in your chosen specialty, or not including/ranking enough programs.
Some residencies require a transitional one-year internship before specialty training begins (anesthesiology, dermatology, ophthalmology, radiology, and several others). Sometimes applicants successfully match to the transitional internship year but not the residency, while other times they match to a residency but not an internship.
This is the last phase of your medical school experience. There will be speeches from doctors and public health officials on the future of healthcare and your role in making the world a healthier place. Go ahead and imagine all that you can accomplish. Above all, enjoy this moment. You worked hard for it!
Do you need help with your residency application? Explore our Residency Application Package and work one-on-one with an expert admissions consultant who will help you match at your top choice program!