Appendix F
National Residency Matching Program
The following description of the program used to place applicants for graduate medical schools through the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) is taken from National Resident Matching Program, 2002. Applicants send their ranked list of program to NRMP, and programs send their ranked list of applicants to NRMP.
The NRMP matching algorithm begins with an attempt to place an applicant into the program indicated as most preferred on that applicant’s list. If the applicant cannot be matched to his or her first-choice program, an attempt is then made to place the applicant into the second-choice program, and so on, until there is a tentative match or all the applicant’s choices have been exhausted. See http://www.nrmp.org for more information.
If the program also ranks an applicant on its rank order list, the applicant can be tentatively matched to a program in one of two ways:
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If the program has an unfilled position, a tentative match is made between the applicant and program.
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If the program does not have an unfilled position, but the applicant is more attractive to the program than another applicant who is already tentatively matched to the program, the applicant who is the less preferred current match in the program is removed from the program to make room for a tentative match with the more preferred applicant.
Matches are tentative because an applicant who is matched to a program at one point in the matching process may later be removed from the program to make room for an applicant more preferred by the program. When an applicant is removed from a previously made tentative match, an attempt is made to rematch the applicant, starting from the top of his or her list. This process is carried out for all applicants until each applicant has either been tentatively matched to the most preferred choice possible or all choices submitted by the applicant have been exhausted. When all applicants have been considered, the process is complete and all tentative matches become final.