Most physicians and medical students view medicine as a calling. You don’t choose it. It chooses you. As far as which residency programs physicians train in, that comes down to a rank-order list.
What factors do medical students consider most—and least—when choosing residency programs? Data recently released by the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) sheds some light on that question.
Among the data, reports and research produced by the NRMP is a survey that aims to weigh the factors to which applicants give strongest consideration when applying to and ranking residency programs. The 2025 version of the survey featured responses from about 14,000 applicants, representing roughly 25% of the applicant pool in the most recent residency-selection cycle.
NRMP asked survey respondents to list the factors that influenced both application and ranking choices and the relative importance of each of those factors on a scale of one to five. These factors may be worth keeping on a medical student’s radar in advance of the March 4 deadline for fourth-year medical students to submit their Match rank-order list.
Most important Match rank-list factors
Among active U.S. allopathic senior medical students ranking residency programs across all specialties, these were the top five considerations:
- Overall goodness of fit—cited by 91%.
- Desired geographic location—89%.
- Interview day experience—89%.
- Reputation of program—84%.
- Quality of residents in program—83%.
The top five factors listed by applicants who were active U.S. osteopathic senior medical students ranking programs on their final Match rank-order list were:
- Overall goodness of fit—90%.
- Desired geographic location—87%.
- Interview day experience—87%.
- Quality of residents in program—81%.
- Work-life balance—77%.
For both MD and DO applicants, the top five factors listed in selecting which programs to rank were the same in 2025 as they were the previous year.
As residency applicants prepare to finalize their rank-order lists, they should consult FREIDA™, the AMA’s comprehensive residency and fellowship database. FREIDA includes more than 13,000 Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education-accredited residency programs and offers a streamlined user experience.
Residency interview and Match ranking data
The median number of applications submitted by matched applicants from MD-granting medical schools who matched in their preferred specialty was 32, while the median total of applications for unmatched MD seniors was 42. For DO senior applicants who matched in their preferred specialty the median number of applications submitted was 42; it was 54 for unmatched DO seniors.
For all other applicant types—a group that consists of nonsenior U.S. medical students, U.S.-citizen IMGs and non-U.S. citizen IMGs—the median number of applications submitted for applicants who matched in their preferred specialty was 100. For unmatched applicants in that group, the median number of applications was 108.
Senior applicants from DO-granting medical schools who matched in their preferred specialty received a median of 16 interview invites. Unmatched DO applicants had a median interview invitation figure of 13. For U.S.-MD applicants who matched in in their preferred specialty, the median interview invite total was 15; it was 13 for unmatched MD applicants.
The median number of interviews attended for matched DO and MD seniors who matched in their preferred specialty was 14, and applicants in those groups ranked a median of 13 residency programs. DO and MD applicants who did not match in their preferred specialty attended a median number of 12 interviews and ranked a median number of 12 programs.
The NRMP data indicates that the largest median numbers of applications were submitted by applicants preferring internal medicine, plastic surgery, general surgery and psychiatry. In the postapplication submission phases of the Match process, the largest numbers of interviews offered, interviews attended, and median programs ranked were among applicants preferring emergency medicine, radiation oncology, and interventional radiology.
With the AMA Road to Residency Guide, you can successfully plan your path to residency—from researching programs and excelling at interviews to navigating Match Day and more.
Common Match rank-order list strategies
The NRMP data sheds some light on how applicants approach the Match process. U.S. MD seniors most commonly ranked the programs in order of their preference, with 95% citing that as a strategy for ranking programs, compared with 93% for U.S. DO seniors (also the most common strategy among that applicant type).
Of U.S. MD seniors, 77% ranked all the programs they were willing to attend (75% for DOs), and 75% ranked all programs with which they interviewed. A smaller share of DO applicants, 63%, ranked all the programs with which they interviewed.
Some applicants also made sure to include a contingency plan in their Match rank-order list. Over 40% of U.S. MD seniors and 34% of DO seniors indicated that they “ranked one or more less competitive programs” in their preferred specialty as a “safety net.”
These ranking strategies tend to align with general guidance that encourages students to rank residency programs by preference because the Match algorithm weighs student preferences before it weighs programs’ preferences.
