As a physician residency applicant, choosing where to apply—and ultimately where you will train—can feel overwhelming. But if you approach the process by keeping your goals in mind, the decision gets a little easier.
During an education session at the 2025 AMA Annual Meeting in Chicago last month, three long-time residency program directors shared insights on how medical students can evaluate residency programs to find the best fit. Here are a few tips to keep in mind as you finalize the list of programs to which you plan to apply.
Know your priorities
When deciding which programs to apply to, future residents must know their personal and professional priorities such as geography and program size. The more honest and thoughtful you are about your values, goals, and preferences, the better positioned you'll be to find a place where you can thrive.
“Fit is about your alignment to the mission of the program,” said Sanjay Desai, MD, the AMA’s chief academic officer. “And the way you can find that out is by learning about the program. Not just where it's located or how big it is, but what kind of people they graduate.”
FREIDA™ is the AMA’s comprehensive residency and fellowship database and captures more than 13,000 Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)-accredited residency and fellowship programs.
One major benefit of FREIDA is that it includes a personalized search experience, with more than 35 filters that allow users to sort programs by location (either list or map view), program type, application information, demographics, benefits, osteopathic recognition, child care availability, special tracks and more. Users can personalize and access unlimited program views, save favorite custom searches and nickname favorites to reuse with a free AMA account.
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Do the research
Learning about a program requires a deeper dive—one that goes well beyond the surface level resources. Considering that, John Andrews, MD, cautioned against relying too heavily on social media.
“I would just caution you that social media is a curated environment. You have no idea what the selection criteria are for the things that are on the website or Instagram or wherever,” said Dr. Andrews, the AMA’s vice president of GME Innovations.
In addition to FREIDA, the panelists encouraged applicants to use trusted organizational websites, such as those that are run by specialty societies—some provide tools for comparing programs or finding those aligned with your values.
One such tool for ob-gyn applicants is FREIDA’s Alignment Check Index. That tool allows residency applicants to compare their experiences and characteristics to the domains that residency programs consider in their own assessment of their program's values and interests
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Get firsthand insights
Speaking to residents in a program or recent graduates can give you insight that is not going to be available in your online research. It’s especially valuable for evaluating programs when you don’t have strong geographic or institutional ties to a program.
“Talk to people who went there, either from your medical school or people that you know personally,” said Rini Ratan, MD, an ob-gyn residency program director in New York. “If you don’t have those connections, ask your faculty.”
Dive deeper:
- Four tips for residency applicants to wisely use program signals
- When it comes to submitting residency applications, cast a wide net
- The top questions to ask before you submit your residency application
- Application do’s and don’ts from doctor who oversees the Match
Look at grad outcomes
One way to assess program alignment is by learning where recent graduates have gone. You might be able to get some of that information by looking through your network, but it’s also a good question to ask in interviews.
“You want to know what happens to people after the program,” Dr. Ratan said. “Where do they go? Do they go to fellowships that you’re interested in?”
Understanding a program’s clinical and academic orientation is another key factor to consider.
“If you want to go into academic medicine, is this a program that supports that?” Dr. Ratan said. “If you want to go into private practice or community practice, does it support that?”
