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What happens on Match Day? How many residency programs are there in the U.S.? How many medical students matched in 2025? What happens if you don't match?
Jeanette Calli, chief of match operations at the National Resident Matching Program, discusses the latest main residency match results, including Match Day participation rates and trends in the residency match process. Also covering Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program (SOAP) results for residency placements. AMA Chief Experience Officer Todd Unger hosts.
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Speaker
- Jeanette Calli, chief of match operations, National Resident Matching Program
Transcript
Calli: When you look at it, at the conclusion of Match and SOAP, when everything was said and done, 99.4% of the positions were filled. And that's actually the same as last year, but with 1,700 more additional positions in the Match.
Unger: Hello and welcome to the AMA Update video and podcast. Today, we're talking about the results of the latest Match with Jeanette Calli, chief of match operations at the National Resident Matching Program, or NRMP, in Washington, DC. And I'm Todd Unger, AMA's chief experience officer in Chicago. Jeanette, we're glad to have you back.
Calli: Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Unger: Could it have been an entire year since we last talked about this? It really flew by. So let's just start by talking about the level of participation in Match this year. What did you observe and how did it compare to last year?
Calli: Yeah, it was another record-setting year for the Match. I'm always happy when we can say that. The number of registered applicants was up by 4.1% over last year, so that's an increase of just over 2,000 applicants.
And when we look at active applicants, meaning those who certify to rank order list of programs to participate in the Match, they were up by 5.3% to 47,208, so both record highs.
Unger: That's great news. Thank you for that overview. What about the match rate for applicants this year and the fill rate for programs this year, as well?
Calli: Yeah. I mean, when you look even just on the position side, there were 43,237 positions in the Match. So that was an increase of 4.2% over 2024, so that was also a record high. And what all that translated into was match rates for applicants remaining steady, even with the continued growth in both applicants and positions.
When you look at the applicants, 93.5% of US-MD seniors matched to post graduate year one positions, and that's the same as last year, followed closely by DO seniors, who achieved a 92.6% match rate. That's an all-time high, and 0.3 percentage points up from last year.
Unger: So either consistent or better with prior year. Any insight into what is driving results?
Calli: Yeah. I mean, really, it's all about participation levels. While there was a decent increase of 1,734 positions in the Match, we saw a steeper increase of 2,355 active applicants. So the increase in applicants this year outnumbered the increase in positions, but everything still remained pretty steady.
And as always, the Match is extremely successful in filling almost all of the positions. The fill rate rose slightly, moving from 93.8% to 94.3%, and that's an increase of 0.5 percentage points.
Unger: When we talked last year, you mentioned that pediatrics had a bit of a steeper decline in its match rate, and family medicine saw yet another decrease. Are those trends things that continued into this year, and if so, what would be driving that?
Calli: Last year was really interesting for pediatrics. The pediatrics fill rate dropped last year from 97.1% to 91.8%. But this year, pediatrics offered 3,193 positions, and that's an increase of 54% over 2024. And they filled 95.3%, so not completely back to previous levels, but a modest rebound.
Unfortunately, family medicine did see another decrease, filling 85% of their 5,357 positions, compared to almost 88% last year. And that's largely due to an increase of 144 positions.
So when you look at it, the number of positions in family medicine has increased by 534 over the last five years. But the number of applicants preferring the specialty just isn't keeping pace, and has decreased over that same time period.
Unger: Well, in addition to that, have you seen any other noticeable trends or surprises among the other specialties?
Calli: Not a ton of surprises. I mean, we did see a few things. The increase in the number of positions offered in primary care specialties was up by almost 800 this year—over 800, really—and that was led by an increase of almost 700 positions in internal medicine. So those numbers are really going up.
The number of positions in thoracic surgery, neurological surgery and interventional radiology all increased by more than 10%, but all either filled completely or filled all but a handful of their positions. And happy to see that emergency medicine has almost returned to their pre-COVID fill rate of 98%, even with the modest increase in the number of positions that they offered.
Unger: That is good. It must be The Pitt that's driving all of that.
Calli: I was wondering. Yeah.
Unger: I also wanted to ask you about the results of the SOAP process. That stands for, of course, Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program. And this is when unmatched or partially unmatched applicants can obtain an unfilled residency position. How did that go this year?
Calli: Yeah. It went really well, certainly on the position side. I mean, there were always a lot more applicants in SOAP than there are positions.
This year, there were 2,521 positions in SOAP. That's down 54 positions from last year or 2.1% lower. And we filled 8,231 positions in a series of those four offer rounds.
And when you look at the actual rounds themselves, those happened on Thursday, all four rounds happened in one day, 56% of the positions filled in the first round, and 24% in the second round. So 80% of the positions filled in those first two rounds.
Unger: That's good news. Well, thank you so much for sharing these insights, Jeanette.
Before we wrap up, do you have any final thoughts on the Match this year, or how this year's Match may impact medicine in future years?
Calli: Yeah. I mean, I think the biggest piece of it—I mean, when you look at it, at the conclusion of Match and SOAP, when everything was said and done, 99.4% of the positions were filled. And that's actually the same as last year, but with 1,700 more additional positions in the Match.
And I think that's really remarkable, particularly since there were so many changes this year in the application and interview process. There were new application services in the space. More specialties are using things like signaling, and some of them are going back to in-person interviews.
But really, even with all of these changes and shifts in the transition, I'm just always thankful when I'm able to say that the matching process itself was kind of completely unremarkable, to be honest with you. The Match really remains consistent and frankly, outstanding at what it is intended to do, which is match as many applicants and programs to their preferred options as possible.
Unger: That is good news. And seeing all those matches on Instagram and Facebook, they never get old. So, what an exciting—
Calli: Always so much fun.
Unger: —exciting time of year. Well, thank you so much again for joining us, and we look forward to talking with you again next year. Although, I'm not wishing a year to go by that fast again, but it will be here soon enough.
And congratulations to everybody out there who matched. It's an incredible accomplishment and we look forward to your future as physicians.
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That wraps up today's episode. We'll be back soon with another AMA Update. Be sure to subscribe for new episodes and find all our videos and podcasts at ama-assn.org/podcasts. Thanks for joining us today. Please take care.
Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed in this podcast are those of the participants and/or do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the AMA.
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