Residency match interview scheduling: quantifying the applicant experience

The process of offering and scheduling residency interviews varies widely among programmes. Applicants report distress and have advocated for reform. However, there is a paucity of quantitative data to characterise applicant concerns.

We quantified the interview scheduling experience for US allopathic medical students in the 2020 main residency match.

An anonymous, 13 question survey was sent to student representatives from each Association of American Medical Colleges member institution. Recipients were asked to forward the survey to their entire fourth-year class.

Of 4314 applicants to whom the survey was sent, 786 (18.2%) responded. Overall, 20.4% reported missing the opportunity to interview at a programme because they did not have adequate time to respond to an invitation; applicants into surgical specialties were significantly more likely than their non-surgical peers to report this experience (26.4% vs 18.4%, p<0.05). Most (57.4%) respondents scheduled an interview knowing they would likely cancel it in the future. The most commonly cited reason for this behaviour was concern that applicants would not receive invitations from other programmes (85.6%). A majority (56.4%) of respondents did not believe the match interview process functions based on equity and merit.

About one in five respondents missed the opportunity to interview at a programme because they did not respond to an invitation in time. Most respondents scheduled interviews knowing that they were likely to cancel them in the future. Standardisation of the interview invitation timeline would address these concerns.