How well did our students match? A peer-validated quantitative assessment of medical school match success: the match quality score

Figures & data

Table 1. Competitiveness of different medical specialties used in the study according to the ratio of US senior applicants who successfully matched into their preferred specialty to the number of total positions available in the specialty.

High	Medium	Low
Orthopedic surgery	General Surgery	Psychiatry
Otorhinolaryngology	Obstetrics/gynecology	Neurology
Neurosurgery	Emergency Medicine	Physical Medicine
Dermatology	Pediatrics	Internal Medicine
Ophthalmology	Anesthesiology	Family Medicine
Plastic Surgery	Diagnostic radiology	Pathology
Urology
Radiation Oncology

Table 2. Description of 24 artificial match lists delivered in a randomized fashion to be scored by survey respondents.

Fictitious Match	Reputation^a	Competitiveness^b	Matched^c
Set 1	0	0	0
Set 2	0	0	1
Set 3	0	0	2
Set 4	0	0	3
Set 5	0	1	0
Set 6	0	1	1
Set 7	0	1	2
Set 8	0	1	3
Set 9	0	2	0
Set 10	0	2	1
Set 11	0	2	2
Set 12	0	2	3
Set 13	1	0	0
Set 14	1	0	1
Set 15	1	0	2
Set 16	1	0	3
Set 17	1	1	0
Set 18	1	1	1
Set 19	1	1	2
Set 20	1	1	3
Set 21	1	2	0
Set 22	1	2	1
Set 23	1	2	2
Set 24	1	2	3

^a Reputation: 0 = not Top-10 NIH funding; 1 = Top-10 NIH funding

^b Competitiveness: 0 = Low; 1 = Medium; 2 = High

^c Matching Status: 0 = failing to match; 1 = SOAP into different specialty; 2 = SOAP into same specialty; 3 = successful initial match

Table 3. Weight estimates based upon repeated-measures ANOVA model.

Variable	Level	Weight	95% confidence interval	p
Matching	Matching^a	3.74	(3.21, 4.26)	<0.001
	SOAP match, same specialty^a	2.34	(1.91, 2.78)	<0.001
	SOAP match, different specialty^a	1.77	(1.41, 2.13)	<0.001
Specialty	Competitiveness High^b	0.26	(0.11, 0.41)	0.002
Institution	Top 10 institution^c	0.05	(−0.07, 0.18)	0.406

^a Compared to unmatched

^b Compared to medium/low competitiveness

^c Compared to institutions not in top 10 of NIH funding

Figure 1. Average survey responses (left axis) and corresponding model results (right axis) by the matching status of factitious medical students. Ratings are from 27 student affairs experts employed by US medical colleges, 2016.