An innovative approach to preparing medical students for residency application season

The residency application process has become increasingly complex, with constant updates to the Electronic Residency Application Service (MyERAS), the introduction of the Residency Common Application Service (RCAS), and changes to specialty-specific processes like the Urology and Plastic Surgery Matches. Even advisors struggle to provide consistent guidance, leaving students overwhelmed by program signaling, application customization, and other challenges. To address this, we developed and integrated into our curriculum a Residency Application Bootcamp, providing students with a standardized, structured approach to confidently navigate this high-stakes and ever-evolving process.

We integrated a Residency Application Bootcamp into a 2-week Intersessions course at the end of core clerkships. The workshop began with a 2-h didactic covering essential application topics, followed by 1 day of interactive breakout sessions. Students rotated through interactive breakout sessions led by Student Affairs Deans, focusing on key application components such as personal statements, curriculum vitaes (CVs), noteworthy characteristics (NWCs), and an overview of residency application platforms. This structured format emphasized personalized guidance and iterative feedback to prepare students for residency applications.

Two hundred forty-two students participated in three iterations of the workshop. Groups of 21-22 students rotated through the interactive breakout sessions. Students felt it was "the best part of Intersessions," "super helpful," and made other positive comments. Averaging the 3 years' scores together, the breakout sessions scored 4.27 out of 5. In addition, Student Affairs Deans who led the session felt it was an effective way to gain more personal exposure to students, provide individualized advising, and plant the seeds for upcoming MSPE meetings. Student Affairs Deans also reported that NWCs showed notable improvement after this session compared to last year.

The Residency Application Bootcamp was successfully implemented at our institution. The flexible format of this workshop allows for improvement and incorporation of student feedback. Although developed within a single institution, the Bootcamp's structure is readily adaptable to other medical schools. Further innovation and research should be pursued to better support students during this critical phase of medical school.