 What in the world is a match? What's a rank list? How does it even all work? And as somebody that's eventually going to be applying to residency, what do you need to know? Guys, in this video, as somebody who just submitted their rank list yesterday and now is officially 22 days in the making of this video away from figuring out where I go to residency, I'm going to finally help you make understanding of how the match works, what it is, and how to make the match work for you. At the very end, I'm going to be announcing a nice giveaway. So hopefully you guys are excited. Stay tuned before we get to any of the video We're going to hit that intro. All right guys, what is going on? Luxury from the MD journey, helping you succeed on your medical journey with less stress. If you're new to this channel, my whole mission is to help as many students get into this mentality of thriving in their medical journey instead of surviving. And I give you weekly videos to teach you just how to do that. So if you want to learn how, make sure you hit that subscribe button down below. In this video guys, we're going to be talking about everything match. What is it? How does it work and how do you make it work for you? So let's talk about first what the match is. To understand what it is, it's best to kind of explain to something you're probably familiar with, which is like applying to college or medical school. When you are going through either of those processes, you've submitted multiple applications and you got over time some acceptances and some rejections. But ultimately the decision of where you went allows you to pick out of your yeses and you get to pick where you're going to go. That process doesn't work the same when you're applying a residency. That's called a match. What the match is instead is that it uses a computer and the computer takes your preference in the form of a list. It takes the preference of the institutions that everyone is applying to and the program comes together and matches you with the one program. And sometime in March, you're going to be getting an envelope with your name on it and it's going to have your name and the program, the only program that you've been selected to be a part of for the next three to seven years. So there's no multiple offers. You get one name. That's what it spits out and that's where you're going to be for the next couple of years of your life. So that sounds anxiety-provoking. It can be, but once you understand how the process works, it can calm your nerves down because this process is actually looking out for you. So let's talk about how the match works. How does this algorithm spit out this name? So I'm going to give you a quick overview and then we're going to give you an example. So the quick overview is you are going to be applying to different programs and you're going to get some interviews over the fall semester of your fourth year. Now, once you're done with your interviews, you're going to have an idea of which programs you prefer and in which order. So let's say you apply to ten programs, then you can rank them one to ten. The institutions that everyone interviews at also does the same. They may be of different sizes. They may just have two spots. They may have five. They may have 50, depending on the program, the specialty. But they're going to rank every single person that they could consider being a part of their residency program. So they interviewed 300 people. They could rank each student from one to 300, but they may just have 20 spots. OK, so now the way that the algorithm works is going to look at your top choice and it's going to take that and compare it to the preference list of that institution. So if you happen to be in the top X amount of spots that the program has available, then you automatically match there because your top choice also considered you to be a top candidate. But if you're not in their top 20 or 30 spots that they have available, then the system is going to continue to work down until it can find one program which preferred you as much as you preferred them. So let me give you an example to help all of this kind of make sense. So we're going to use a student. We're going to call him John. So John, for the simplicity of this example, is going to apply to three residency programs. We're going to say program A, B and C in that order. So just as I mentioned, the system is going to look at his first choice, program A. And we're going to say program A for simplicity reasons has 20 spots. So now the algorithm is going to see in that 20 spots, can we find John's name? Does the program consider him to be a top 20 applicant? Now, if he's not, and for this example, we're going to say he isn't, then the algorithm is going to move away from program A and is going to move to the next institution on his list, which is going to be program B. Again, we're going to look at the spots available at program B. We're going to say that 10 spots and it's going to see is John's name in the top 10 of their list. And if it's not, we take program B away and we go to number three, which is going to be program C. And we're going to say program C also has 10 spots. And this time when algorithm looks, they do find John's name somewhere in their top 10. So perfect. John has now found a program that considers him a top candidate and they have found a match. So John, at least for now, is matched to program C. So we're going to move that right here. And that's going to be where John is currently matched. But the process is not over. OK, as you can imagine, students are going to want to go to the same residency programs and residency programs are going to want similar students. But eventually everyone's going to get matched to one. So as this algorithm starts to work and as students get assigned to different programs, there's going to be spots that open up. So what the algorithm is going to do now is going to go basically back up the ladder from top to the bottom and it's going to see is there a spot open and is John's name now in that open spot. So let's look at the two programs that John initially didn't match to, which program A and B, program A had 20 spots, program B had 10. So the algorithm is first going to look at program A. It's going to say after all the shuffling of all the students after everyone's been initially assigned to a program is John's name now in their top 20. And for this example, we're going to say he's still not in their top 20. They have other students that fill the spot, but they're not John. So John still doesn't match to program A. But when you look at program B, they had 10 spots. And after all that shuffling, John's name does happen to be in their top 10. You know, he was probably in their 13th or 14th choice. And after some of the top students were selected to another program that they preferred more, John ended up being above that threshold. So now John is matched with program B. So instead of program C, which goes away, that spot is now open. John is matched to program B. And that is when he opens up his envelope in March. It's going to have his name and program B and it's going to be happy marriage is basically saying that John matched into his second preferred choice. Hopefully that process makes sense. Hopefully the animations were helpful. If so, before we kind of wrap up this video, make sure you comment down below and let me know if you enjoy this before we kind of close. I want to quickly talk about how to make this process work for you. And then one important thing you want to understand is that the system is set to favor the applicants. And just as you can see, John could have ranked his top choice, could have been way out of his league. And program C may just have been a program on a different tier, but he enjoyed it geographically or as better as family program A and B. He never even thought he had a shot at going to. But as you can see, the system works that if the program prefers you and you prefer them, it's going to match you. So it's designed to work for the applicant. And basically the way I like to explain it is when you're creating your rank list, your top choices can be shooting for the star, reach schools and institutions, because even if you don't match to them, if you're third spot considered to be a top candidate, you automatically get it. So another quick example to explain how this process works for you. Let's say, again, that I ranked 10 programs, okay, and I didn't match to my first nine because I kept picking Ivy League schools, schools way out of my league, but I would be dreaming of going to. And then finally, my 10 spot is still another school that I'm completely fine of going into, but maybe it's not as competitive. And when the process happens, they finally get down to the last program on my list and they see that that program considered me to be a top candidate. So I matched there. It doesn't matter if other students have ranked that program first because I was higher on a program's list than that other students, then I end up matching to that program. So hopefully that part makes sense. So just understand it's designed to work for you. Your top choices can be Harvard, Hopkins, Stanford, Penn, you know, you name it, but you don't even think you have a shot of going to those institutions and then you start listing some programs and maybe you think you have a better shot at it. If those programs considered you to be high up there, then you may end up going and making into one of your training programs. So when you're designing your rank list, again, do it in a way where some of the top programs are going to be of high reputation that you would love going to if you got the opportunity. And if you don't, no worries, you're going to continue to move down the list and get your best option. So guys, hopefully this whole video makes sense. If it did, let me know. Again, I am 22 days away from figuring out where I go to residency and said to kind of cap this video off and to make it more entertaining. I want to do a giveaway. Basically, guys, what the giveaway is going to be is one lucky winner is going to get any book or video course absolutely free. And if you want to see what those books or courses are and options, link will be in the description. But to win or to enter, you need to go ahead and first subscribe to this channel if you haven't and to comment down below anything you learned, any questions you have. And if you have nothing to say, then if this video is helpful, you can say hashtag match makes sense if the match finally makes sense to you. But I want to be picking one lucky winner from whenever this video goes live throughout the rest of my videos up to match day, which is March 15th to be a winner in this giveaway. But otherwise, guys, I'm going to be closing this video off. Hopefully you found it helpful. If you did, make sure you give this video a like, make sure you subscribe to that channel and I'm going to stop that link. I will see you guys in the next one.