Applying for residency and awaiting matching results is probably the most stressful part of medical student’s life up to date, and we’ll probably add more pressure to some of them by compiling the list of 10 most competitive residency programs in US. Residency might not be med school graduate’s first true medical experience, but it’s definitely a start of one’s medical career. Most competitive residencies can be tough to get into – especially if candidate’s GPA and MCAT scores aren’t exactly strong. If med school graduates want to get a perfect match in highly sought after residency program of their choosing, they have to excel at both the Medical College Admission Test and throughout their med school education. This table will show you what happens if, for instance, a med student messes up the test. Even if his/hers GPA was as high as it could have been, it’s highly unlikely that they’ll find any type of match – let alone the intended one.
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Some people are moved by potential earnings and this list of 13 highest paid medical residency programs in US should come in handy if you’re wondering how much do the residents get paid overall. Of course, resident’s salary changes every year, and the more years to the residency, the more a resident will eventually earn. Respective residencies themselves offer different payment conditions as you can see, and so do different programs and even regions inside the US. But I digress. Salary isn’t the only criterion that determines respective residency’s competitiveness rating. Some residencies are more competitive than others simply because there are less available programs and open positions for them. This means that more than one med school graduate vies for a single spot in a respective residency program. This further means that most competitive residencies require better USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 scores. All these criteria are important when trying to establish which of medical residency programs is the most competitive, and neither of them will be neglected.
In order to compile the list with such diverse inputs, however, we’ve had to apply our own points to all three of the given categories (physician’s average annual salary, mean USMLE tests score and a number of open positions per US senior candidate). First we have pinpointed the maximum and minimum values across all three criterions. Then, we have calculated the difference between these two points and divided it with 10 in order to get ten scoring segments. Those residencies with scores in lowest of these segments have received a single point while those ending up in highest have been assigned with the maximum 10 points. With this done for all three criterions, it’s easy to figure out that point range spans between 3 and 30. More competitive residencies, naturally, have the higher overall score. Finally, if more than one residency ends up with a higher score, a number of positions per US senior is used to determine the more competitive of the two (or more). Let’s see which are the 10 most competitive residency programs in US.
