2012 Main residency Match statistic

Analysis infogram of 2012 Main medical residency match: insights into nature & number of applicants and positions  

As documented last year 2011match statistic, this years infograph regarding the status of the match applicants to medical residency is presented. The infograph shows data that have been normalized to a 100 residency spots in main residency match and 100 residency applicants. Of a 100 applicants to the main residency match 46% were International medical graduates while 54% were American medical graduates. Of the 46% that were, international medical graduates (IMGs) close to 60% (28 of 46/100) were Non US IMGs. This category encompassed visa-seeking applicants. On the other hand close to 40% (18 of 46/100) were US IMGs meaning, US citizens or green card holders who were schooled in international Medical schools. This statistic provides an estimate of nature and number of residency applicants.

Second part of the figure shows number of residency spots that have been normalized to 100 and then the relative fraction of each of the 3 subgroups. As can be seen, the number of black chairs represent the American medical graduates (80%) while the orange chair represent Non US IMG (11%) and blue chairs are US IMG (9%).

2012 Main Residency Match

Interestingly in a hypothetical world if there were only 100 applicants and 100 residency spots, once can see from this figure that there will be adjustment of seat status based on the number of applicants, this AMGs will be at 54%, non US IMG will be at 28% and US IMG will be at 18%. The discrepancy between demand over supply and preference of residency programs to offer positions to American graduates creates the skewed position ratio.

Also, looking at it the other way. If we were to fix the number of positions for IMGs at 20%. Then 46% percent of applicants are vying for 20% positions, which makes for tremendous competition. Doing subgroup analysis, the possibility that a non US IMG will get a position is 0.39 while the possibility that a US IMG will get a position is 0.5. This result validates the fact that for graduates of foreign medical schools (Caribbean or others), chances are better than those of visa seeking applicants. The characteristics of an applicant that matches differ from those of an unsuccessful candidate, improving on those factors greatly improves your match chances.