In March of this year, students at the Tufts School of Medicine were matched up with residencies - many with their top choices - on the aptly-titled Match Day.
On Match Day, medical students receive acceptances to the program that best corresponds to their specialties. The process uses a computer algorithm to match residency programs with university students.
"Students did great with their matches this year," Amy Kuhlik, Dean for Student Affairs at the Medical School, said. "Tufts' [medical] students have always done well and are still doing well. The majority gets their first choice and almost all get one of their top few choices."
Specialties for residencies include internal medicine, pathology, OB-GYN, and psychiatry. Internal medicine is historically the most popular specialty, with 22.4 percent of last years' available positions falling under its department.
This year, about 25 percent of Medical School students pursued residencies in internal medicine, with 10 percent pursuing pediatrics and another eight percent in general surgery.
Medical School student Jennifer Lai was matched with her top choice: Columbia University's residency program for internal medicine in New York City.
Despite her accomplishment, Lai said she had a negative experience with the application process. "It is 10 times worse than applying for anything else," she said. Lai said she felt the ranking process was "nerve-wracking." The ranking process is when applicants begin to hear preliminary feedback from schools and then rank those schools that responded positively in order of preference.
The final match is made mutually by the students and residency programs. After students have been accepted to interview at various programs, they complete their interviews and proceed to rank them.
At the same time, the residency programs rank students. The two lists are compiled together to match students with residency programs through a "complicated computer algorithm," Kuhlik said.
"Most students apply to somewhere between 20 to 25 residency programs, but it depends on the different specialties," Kuhlik said. For some specialties, students must apply to even more, she said.
But after some more preliminary consideration on behalf of both the applicant and the program, "most rank about 10 places based on location, reputation and recognition," Kuhlik said.
There is varying opinion, however, with regard to how well the process works and how stressful it is.
"The process really isn't that bad because there is a universal application," said College of Arts and Sciences alumnus Dr. Barry Cukor ('93). "Unlike applying for law schools, you don't need to fill out a different form or write a different essay for each university."
After receiving his degree from Tufts, Cukor went on to medical school at Boston University and said that "applying to [medical] school is actually worse than applying to residencies because it's much more random," as a student's choice of specialty does not come into play yet.
Cukor said he is a proponent of the matching process for residencies because, he said, it is the fairest way to match students with programs.
"It accounts more for students' interests in programs," he said, and the ranking system that is entered into the computerized matching makes the process "less random."
"Most of the programs students apply to are on a similar par, and thus the decision on ranking the individual programs is more focused on finding the right fit," said Lai, who ranked eight programs,
including residencies at Cornell, Massachusetts General Hospital, the University of California at San Francisco and New York University.
"Every program has a different personality and a different character - you just need to find the one that matches your interests and style," Lai said. "The process has much less to do with numbers than do other application processes."
"One can't say which programs are the best, because they vary depending on their specialties," Kuhlik said.
