Each year, programs submit the number of positions that they
wish to have filled through the NRMP match process. ERAS, which
is a separate entity run by the American Association of Medical
Colleges, is set up to receive documents online from the
applicant, the ECFMG, US medical school Deans offices, and from
the USMLE. These documents are formatted, scanned, and assembled
into individual applicant packets, and are electronically sent to
as many programs as the applicant chooses. Programs receive the
applicant packets and begin their own internal process of
evaluating applications to determine which applicants they want
to invite to come for residency interviews during the months of
November, December, and January.
After residency interviews are completed, the
residency-training programs submit a list of applicants ordered
by their preferences (the program's rank order list) to the NRMP.
Simultaneously, and by the same deadline, residency applicants
submit a list of residency programs at which they have
interviewed ordered by their preferences (the applicant's rank
order list) to the NRMP. A giant computer program then aligns
(matches) applicants to the highest-ranked residency program on
their rank order lists that has offered a position to that
applicant. The software which matches applicants and programs is
designed to favor applicants and to make it impossible either for
an applicant to be matched to two different positions for the
PGY-1 year, or for a program to match with more applicants than
it has positions for a given year.
