Preliminary 2021 CaRMS data

[bearded frog]

CaRMS has posted their 2021 data forum presentation. Some highlights below:

Highlights below:

I don't know if this has been posted before but interesting to see that a) Australia has the highest match rate, followed by europe and b) the Australian numbers are way lower than I would have expected. Second, Caribbean is really low. IMG numbers overall are decreasing it seems as shown below:

This chart is interesting:

We can add ER to the short list of most compeditive specialties, there were 1.75 applicants for every spot. Also this is the first time if I recall where ENT was the most competitive. When they post the spreadsheets eventually I will do some year over year comparisons. IM was the most competitive its been since 2017.

The proportion of applicants who are matching to their top ranks are going down over time:

Just over half matched to their first choice program.

Here is a set of really interesting graphs:

A lot of people wonder about re-entering the 2nd round of the match as an option for transfer, and this is the first time I've seen data about how many actually do and success rates. It seems to regularly be around 40-50 with a bit of a jump this year. Other than 2018, it seems just over half are successful. By far the most popular destination is FM (because of availability? - FM consistently has the most 2nd round spots) It also seems that people are bailing on their specialty more than program, as although 14 people have switched FM programs through this method, none have switched within IM or surgery. 3 swapped non-surgical disciplines but we can't know if that's the same or different specialty. We can't know based on these results if people generally only go through the effort to switch disciplines or are those trying to switch programs within the same discipline less successful at matching.

Another frequent discussion is what to do if you go unmatched. Do you try for whatever is open in 2nd round or do you not apply and try again for your first choice next year? [Edit: this gives absolute numbers who did not participate, but we will have to wait for the full carms data to find out what proportion of each first-round first-choice specialty applicants chose not to participate by discipline]

Here is this data in chart form. Those not listed had no first choice applicants that went unmatched (they matched to their first choice or a back-up). Blue is absolute numbers of unmatched applicants with that first choice (FM is cut off, the total is 54) (don't have total applicants yet so can't do proportion which would be more appropriate). Orange is the number from that group that did not apply in second round, so for instance, all FM unmatched applied in 2nd round, and no IM unmatched applied in second round:

It seems that the not applying in second round is very popular, in fact if you ignore FM, half of unmatched applicants do not apply in the 2nd round. And it seems that its especially common in the most compeditive specialties - ENT, Ortho, Urology, derm, plastics, optho - none had anyone apply in second round. I guess that people feel comfortable doing a 5th year and trying again if their gunning, these days. Based on the following chart it seems like that may be a good strategy:

It seems that taking a 5th year does increase your matching chances relative to finishing and doing something else.

And then, finally, the data everyone has been waiting for! Current year graduate match rate in first round by school:

Wish CaRMS would do a first-choice discipline match rate! Congrats again to NOSM, apologies to Western and U de M.

[Haribo7173]

Don’t think McGill’s ever done better 

[chateau22]

Yikes what happened to Western? Maybe just a function of the class wanting more competitive specialties than usual or Western didn't favor their own applicants - who knows 

[indefatigable]

22 hours ago, bearded frog said:

CaRMS has posted their 2021 data forum presentation. Some highlights below:

Another frequent discussion is what to do if you go unmatched. Do you try for whatever is open in 2nd round or do you not apply and try again for your first choice next year?

Here is this data in chart form. Those not listed had no first choice applicants that went unmatched (they matched to their first choice or a back-up). Blue is absolute numbers of unmatched applicants with that first choice (FM is cut off, the total is 54) (don't have total applicants yet so can't do proportion which would be more appropriate). Orange is the number from that group that did not apply in second round, so for instance, all FM unmatched applied in 2nd round, and no IM unmatched applied in second round:

Unfortunately, we don't have the data for the blue bar.

• e.g. 11 CMGs were unmatched for IM & chose not participate in 2nd round (orange column) - this doesn't tell us the total number of CMGs that were unmatched and had IM as 1st choice discipline in the first iteration.  Some unmatched IM CMGs may have participated in the 2nd round and chose to match/rank a different discipline (e.g. IM->Rad Onc or IM->FM).  [we know that no CMGs had 1st choice of IM in the 2nd iteration which makes sense given there were no spots] 

As the first two columns are for the second iteration - so inferring 1st choice conflates both iterations which are inherently very distinct (sort of blending apples and oranges).

• e.g. 9 CMGs ranked Rad Onc first in 2nd iteration (including 3 that went unmatched through 2 iterations) - we have no idea if they ranked Rad Onc in the 1st iteration at all (maybe they were 2nd round converts and initially were unmatched IM) 
• vs the 9 unmatched CMGs that chose to sit out the 2nd iteration after ranking ophthal first in the 1st iteration.

The orange column is useful and gives an indication who is "sitting out" - except for Hem Path and maybe Pediatrics (given open spots), not a huge surprise.  

btw - you must have a increased storage limit for your posts?

[Anonymous2021]

This is a silly question but I have always wondered, when they talk about "top 3" programs, do they mean for example Toronto family, UBC family, Ottawa family or would top three be if you match within say UBC family - surrey site, UBC family - chilliwack site, UBC family - victoria site (which you rank separately)

[indefatigable]

2 minutes ago, Anonymous2021 said:

This is a silly question but I have always wondered, when they talk about "top 3" programs, do they mean for example Toronto family, UBC family, Ottawa family or would top three be if you match within say UBC family - surrey site, UBC family - chilliwack site, UBC family - victoria site (which you rank separately)

It would be the programs that are available through CaRMS: i.e. UBC has many different CaRMS programs/sites within FM.  So the top three could be as you suggest for UBC.  UofT has much fewer programs/sites through CaRMS for FM.  

You can mix the two if you like - e.g. UBC FM - chilliwack then UofT FM rural. then UBC FM Victoria etc..

[Anonymous2021]

2 minutes ago, indefatigable said:

It would be the programs that are available through CaRMS: i.e. UBC has many different CaRMS programs/sites within FM.  So the top three could be as you suggest for UBC.  UofT has much fewer programs/sites through CaRMS for FM.  

You can mix the two if you like - e.g. UBC FM - chilliwack then UofT FM rural. then UBC FM Victoria etc..

Ooo okay so specific rank-able sites do count as "programs" when they say top 3 programs. Interesting! Thank you

[bearded frog]

51 minutes ago, indefatigable said:

Unfortunately, we don't have the data for the blue bar.

It seems you are correct! Once again I have to thank you for catching a mistake of mine. I assumed the chart meant the first choice discipline in the first iteration for all three columns, and got a total for adding them up. As you say, when I cross reference the list of 2nd round spots, it's much more likely that the first two columns are first choice discipline for the second round, as you say. Once the full stats are out and we can get proper quotas then we can actually see what proportion of each first round first-choice chooses not to apply to the second round. In the meantime I will strike-through my commentary on the matter.

57 minutes ago, indefatigable said:

btw - you must have a increased storage limit for your posts?

I upload my pictures to imgur and embed them to get around the storage limit which is embarrassingly small.

[aray623]

13 hours ago, chateau22 said:

Yikes what happened to Western? Maybe just a function of the class wanting more competitive specialties than usual or Western didn't favor their own applicants - who knows 

Western here. From some of the people that I know who didn't match, most are all wanting super competitive specialties and deciding not to go into round 2. We have a debrief tomorrow I think with admin to go over the unmatched data. There were quite a few people who matched into the most competitive specialties too (a friend group in my class had a derm, an optho, an ENT, and ER all match haha), so it might just be that our class was super gung ho from the get go

[indefatigable]

On 5/31/2021 at 8:10 PM, bearded frog said:

Another frequent discussion is what to do if you go unmatched. Do you try for whatever is open in 2nd round or do you not apply and try again for your first choice next year? [Edit: this gives absolute numbers who did not participate, but we will have to wait for the full carms data to find out what proportion of each first-round first-choice specialty applicants chose not to participate by discipline]

 

Understanding the unmatched phenomenon is an important question and I've tried to dig a little deeper.

1st iteration Unmatched CMG  can be divided into those that 1) "sit out" the 2nd iteration and  2)those that participate in the 2nd iteration 

Those that "sit out" tend to be from QC (33/53) and generally disproportionately ranking first more competitive disciplines.  While IM has the most CMGs that decided to sit out, its quota is an order of magnitude higher than ophthalmology (#2).  

Within QC, French-speaking schools do not offer a fifth-year and tuition in notably lower for IP which may partly explain the trend.  I am not sure what the division is between English-speaking McGill and the rest of Quebec.

[Aside: the CaRMS graphic below is somewhat deceptive, since most of the the unfilled positions after the second iteration were either French-speaking positions or military - i.e. the graph may give the impression that there are 10 unmatched current year CMGs in ON with 10 unfilled positions that they are eligible for. ] 

 

 

Unfortunately, it does seem as if there were quite a few CMGs that did go  unmatched through both iterations.  Previously it has been considered that some may be trying to "game" their school by gaining electives for going  completely unmatched.  However, the graphic below shows that only 6% of the 33 current-year unmatched CMGs could have matched by ranking more programs.  The majority of these 33 were either ranked too low or not ranked.

In other words there appear to be two sub-groups of unmatched CMGs - those that at least self-select as competitive (53/86) and those that are uncompetitive and getting ranked out (~33/86).

For the second uncompetitive group, to some extent it is simply a quota issue - there are simply too few spots for the effective number of applicants for all CMGs to match including CMGs attempting to transfer (51 in 2021) and IMGs.  It's disappointing that CaRMS doesn't break quota down by English vs French/bilingual - this would help get a sense of what the real numbers are.  It should similarly exclude non-surge military positions since it's misleading.  

Finally, it should also include participating USMGs in its quota numbers - which are unusually low due to COVID and the later match application dates - USMGs are equivalent for participation purposes and so their numbers should be there.  

For instance, summing up the non-QC unmatched CMGs through 2 iterations gives 13+10+2=25.  However, there were only 5 unfilled positions after the second round that were available to English-speaking, non-military and non-rurally connected CMGs (including 3 path and 2 FM/FM-PH).  

In Ontario alone, for instance, summing up all current- (10+10) and previous- (5) year unmatched gives 25 with actually only 2 non-military, non-rurally connected FM/FM-PM position. 

It's a little hard to tell the long-term consequences -  it's unclear whether the 19 previous-year CMGs that were unmatched in the Western region were CMGs without any PG training or failed transfer attempts.  There's one additional graphic that suggest most do match eventually  although definitely some that don't.  

tl;dr

unmatched CMGs fall into two camps:

• self-selected "gunners" more often from QC that forego the 2nd round (unknown breakdown of McGill vs French-speaking schools)
• unmatched through 2 iterations due to being less competitive/uncompetitive and very limited quota

It's hard to know the eventual success rate for the unmatched gunners - they may also reason that they will have globally better chances in the following first round and that the extra year isn't an issue.

It's frustrating that CaRMS won't take into account English vs French/bilingual quota, or exclude non-surge military or account for USMGs in its graphics.

full disclosure:  As an English-speaking CMG in a French-speaking medical program I think I was almost road-kill to the CaRMS process and so the plight of unmatched CMGs has personal meaning to me.

 While I had excellent/stellar English-speaking electives and strong letters, strong research background..  I had significant difficulty in a French-speaking environment (exacerbated by grades) - I eventually negotiated for a language note on the front of the  Dean's letter which mentioned linguistic adversity - otherwise I'm not sure if I would have ever matched.  PDs were unlikely to look at language as a "confounding variable".    

Unfortunately, I don't believe language is an easily modifiable factor - i.e. doing UWorld questions was much easier to me than dealing with French environment.  But, everyone's experience may differ.

[anbessa21]

59 minutes ago, aray623 said:

Western here. From some of the people that I know who didn't match, most are all wanting super competitive specialties and deciding not to go into round 2. We have a debrief tomorrow I think with admin to go over the unmatched data. There were quite a few people who matched into the most competitive specialties too (a friend group in my class had a derm, an optho, an ENT, and ER all match haha), so it might just be that our class was super gung ho from the get go

With a possible trend towards pursuing 5th years amongst those going unmatched in the first round in English Canada (particularly in select highly competitive disciplines), it’s only a matter of time before this pathway becomes supersaturated and non-viable.  

[shikimate]

1 hour ago, aray623 said:

Western here. From some of the people that I know who didn't match, most are all wanting super competitive specialties and deciding not to go into round 2. We have a debrief tomorrow I think with admin to go over the unmatched data. There were quite a few people who matched into the most competitive specialties too (a friend group in my class had a derm, an optho, an ENT, and ER all match haha), so it might just be that our class was super gung ho from the get go

Do you know if they were going for surgery? Western usually has quite a group of surgery gunners in the past. 

[aray623]

Just now, shikimate said:

Do you know if they were going for surgery? Western usually has quite a group of surgery gunners in the past. 

Yes, the ones that I know of were wanting surgical specialties

[MedicineLCS]

2 hours ago, indefatigable said:

Snip

This. The rise in unmatched is being driven by a combo of hypercompetitive disciplines and people falling through the cracks. I came across this paper and thought it was very illuminating in showing this (only up until 2019 so not really affected by the cap unfortunately):

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7378143/?fbclid=IwAR3QX3FY4kEw87eV3Xi9FHW4Ur0_zp3Zt-B7QTj095-RKuZeFtejBqVVPQU

^Check out that figure. The unmatched rate is still, regrettably, not 0%, but CMGs in Cluster A or B disciplines don't have the same worries as those in Cluster C (although I wonder if the pattern has changed since 2019 for fields like EM and they're now Cluster B/C hybrids). I would imagine if you separated out EM, maybe Psych now, from Cluster B the unmatched number for that cluster would be even lower. 

[indefatigable]

49 minutes ago, MedicineLCS said:

This. The rise in unmatched is being driven by a combo of hypercompetitive disciplines and people falling through the cracks. I came across this paper and thought it was very illuminating in showing this (only up until 2019 so not really affected by the cap unfortunately):

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7378143/?fbclid=IwAR3QX3FY4kEw87eV3Xi9FHW4Ur0_zp3Zt-B7QTj095-RKuZeFtejBqVVPQU

^Check out that figure. The unmatched rate is still, regrettably, not 0%, but CMGs in Cluster A or B disciplines don't have the same worries as those in Cluster C (although I wonder if the pattern has changed since 2019 for fields like EM and they're now Cluster B/C hybrids). I would imagine if you separated out EM, maybe Psych now, from Cluster B the unmatched number for that cluster would be even lower. 

Thanks for pointing this out - it's an interesting way of looking at the data (despite the rule change).

Based on this year's data, the unmatched CMG "sitting out" are split between Clusters A/B/C as 12/21/20.  This underestimates the "true number" as the remainder may simply have decided to participate in the 2nd iteration anyways and possibly change disciplines/clusters.  The "gunners" were mostly from QC possibly due to other factors too (better debt ratio, younger age,..) - not sure if they are qualitatively different than the unmatched CMGs that did participate in the 2nd round beyond that.   

However, it doesn't change the fundamentals of the CMGs to quota though - looking through the Ontario alone there was effectively 25 unmatched CMGs with 2 non-military, non-rurally connected unfilled positions after the second round.

I believe that if the matching ratio accounted for all important factors i.e. USMGs, transfers, English vs French/bilingual quota that the English-speaking CMG quota wouldn't be enough to account for all participating non French-speaking CMGs and USMGs (complicated due to 1st vs 2nd iteration split too).

btw - Not sure I am properly quoted as saying "Snip" though haha.

[bearded frog]

7 hours ago, anbessa21 said:

With a possible trend towards pursuing 5th years amongst those going unmatched in the first round in English Canada (particularly in select highly competitive disciplines), it’s only a matter of time before this pathway becomes supersaturated and non-viable.  

Why would it not become saturated. I think giving people another shot at matching their desired specialty is reasonable. You can back up on first attempt or you can risk it all at the expense delaying residency and a year of staff pay, increasing your risk of not matching at all, and end up matching to your backup anyway. It's a reasonable risk reward IMHO. (Full disclosure, there isn't any other specialty I would do so didn't back up and was prepared to reapply to peds, but I would have backed up with something the second time around). At some point you reach a steady state of X final year applicants and Y +1 applicants applying for each compeditive specialty. The unmatched X's go on to form Y, and the unmatched from Y basically should have backed up in their attempt or need to take whatever they can get if they reapply because I think your chances of matching competitively essentially fall off a cliff after 2 attempts.

[anbessa21]

1 hour ago, bearded frog said:

Why would it not become saturated. I think giving people another shot at matching their desired specialty is reasonable. You can back up on first attempt or you can risk it all at the expense delaying residency and a year of staff pay, increasing your risk of not matching at all, and end up matching to your backup anyway. It's a reasonable risk reward IMHO. (Full disclosure, there isn't any other specialty I would do so didn't back up and was prepared to reapply to peds, but I would have backed up with something the second time around). At some point you reach a steady state of X final year applicants and Y +1 applicants applying for each compeditive specialty. The unmatched X's go on to form Y, and the unmatched from Y basically should have backed up in their attempt or need to take whatever they can get if they reapply because I think your chances of matching competitively essentially fall off a cliff after 2 attempts.

Yeah you’re right. It will inevitably reach a steady state. The point I was trying to make was that in the past, fewer opted for the fifth year (with stigma playing a significant role), and so with a relatively lower number of re-applicants there has been a reasonable rate of second-time success at a first-choice discipline, balancing with the opportunity cost of the additional year. But with 'X' mostly remaining constant (depending on the specialty), if more and more students funnel into pathway Y as opposed to matching to secondary specialties the year prior (change in perception, perhaps programs becoming somewhat more receptive), those chances reduce until said steady-state is reached. At that point, it may no longer be worth the opportunity cost to some. All this to say that for students on the fence re: going all in during their first cycle who are attracted by the current rate of success for re-applicants matching to their first-choice disciplines should not expect to see the same rate of success when it’s their turn at bat if in fact this pathway continues towards said steady-state. Of course, for individuals such as yourself who absolutely, positively cannot envision themselves outside a single discipline, it’s a different story. As you said, it all boils down to risk vs. reward. I guess the point is moot if you believe that the only people re-applying are those who feel as strongly about a singular specialty as you (given that the reward is so great); however, anecdotally I can't say I believe that all those opting for re-application feel as strongly (i.e. I know a few who had a clear preference but did truly enjoy a parallel specialty). For these individuals, the window of permissible risk vs reward will close with a rise in popularity of the fifth year. 

[CaRMS2021]

Which specialties are reapplicant-friendly? That might also play a role in the mentality of those going unmatched participating in the 2nd round or trying again next year. Other than Ophtho, I don't think any other specialty has the reputation of being kind to reapplicants (or at least no stigma). 

[indefatigable]

51 minutes ago, CaRMS2021 said:

Which specialties are reapplicant-friendly? That might also play a role in the mentality of those going unmatched participating in the 2nd round or trying again next year. Other than Ophtho, I don't think any other specialty has the reputation of being kind to reapplicants (or at least no stigma). 

Besides ophtho, I've heard of success success stories in disciplines  derm/plastics/IM/rads/anesthesia..  probably many.  It's just hard to quantify - how many out of the 9 ophtho unmatched gunners will match to the discipline?  

I've heard that ENT isn't particularly kind to re-applicants.  

1 hour ago, anbessa21 said:

But with 'X' mostly remaining constant (depending on the specialty), if more and more students funnel into pathway Y as opposed to matching to secondary specialties the year prior (change in perception, perhaps programs becoming somewhat more receptive), those chances reduce until said steady-state is reached. At that point, it may no longer be worth the opportunity cost to some. All this to say that for students on the fence re: going all in during their first cycle who are attracted by the current rate of success for re-applicants matching to their first-choice disciplines should not expect to see the same rate of success when it’s their turn at bat if in fact this pathway continues towards said steady-state. Of course, for individuals such as yourself who absolutely, positively cannot envision themselves outside a single discipline, it’s a different story. As you said, it all boils down to risk vs. reward.

This is exactly the issue - Y is trending up from the graph while the number of successful 5th year+ applicants is likely a small absolute number per specialty which will not increase with more re-applicants.    

Many however are QC applicants who tend to be younger and have less debt  which makes it easier to choose take an extra year (less opportunity or financial cost).  Plus, for French-speaking CMGs they are assured of having no issues of matching to FM should they so choose at any point given the relative surplus of  spots in QC.  

I also don't believe we're in a steady state with respect to unmatched applicants.  I don't think that the (53) unmatched CMGs that are sitting out are significantly more competitive than the CMGs that participate in the 2nd round (beyond the language factor - but this is counterbalanced by an absolute number of competitive stream IMGs and transfers).  

The match rate for second round CMGs is ~70% which suggests that about that the full unmatched number of current-year CMGs would be at least 33+17=50 CMGs and increasing each year.  

50 CMGs is small relative number but is still the half the class of a small med school - I can easily see it getting to 75 next year.  

The peak year in 2018 had 1.6% +2.4%= 4.0% total unmatched which was then partly cleared through government action.  This year it was 1.9%+1.2%=3.1% - although the completely unmatched form the smaller percentage.

[CaRMS2021]

Conclusion: I will be making my children francophones

[indefatigable]

On 6/1/2021 at 9:56 PM, CaRMS2021 said:

Conclusion: I will be making my children francophones

You can marry a francophone, have children in the US during a short-stay, raise them in your favourite other IP province (or region) and then live in QC for a year when they start CEGEP or undergrad.

They will then qualify as QC residents, both Canadian and US citizens and get additional IP benefits.  Plus, they will be bilingual and can go for the surplus of QC spots.

[futuredoc43]

On 6/1/2021 at 10:09 PM, indefatigable said:

You can marry a francophone, have children in the US over a short-stay, raise them in your favourite other IP province (or region) and then live in QC for a year when they start CEGEP or undergrad.

They will then qualify as QC residents, both Canadian and US citizens and get additional IP benefits.  Plus, they will be bilingual and can go for the surplus of QC spots.

-

[CaRMS2021]

Full data set for 2021 is up @bearded frog

[bearded frog]

10 hours ago, CaRMS2021 said:

Full data set for 2021 is up @bearded frog

Currently on vacation away from excel but will have a look when I can!