Odds of matching to less popular program vs popular program

[anon5678]

For mid-highly competitive specialties, are the odds of matching to a program in a less popular location (eg. Manitoba, sask) a lot higher than programs in a popular location (eg. UofT, UBC). Do the former tend to go a lot further down their ROL than the latter?

[bearded frog]

People want to work and live more in certain cities than others. Often, regardless of the program, people will rank desirable cities higher (and this actually can mean that these programs have significant issues - they always fill up with desirable applicants and there is no incentive to make improvements). So yes, these programs are more "compeditive" with them being top ranked by many applicants, and they generally get their top applicants on their list. It's harder to talk about odds of matching, since if in theory everyone ranks the same order, then your odds of matching to a specific spot depend on where you stack up in the school's rank orders.

[Pakoon]

It's also important to consider that a program like Manitoba for example, will have applicants from that school who will be familiar to the faculty, and will want to stay and work there. This is especially seen in smaller competitive specialities that only have 1-3 spots. They often know who they are hoping to rank, hence making them even more competitive than a popular location that may take more applicants. Of course CARMs remains a black box and people will apply widely regardless. 

[carmsinoid]

2 hours ago, bearded frog said:

Often, regardless of the program, people will rank desirable cities higher (and this actually can mean that these programs have significant issues - they always fill up with desirable applicants and there is no incentive to make improvements). 

This times a million.

[shikimate]

Would be a big gamble to count on that. If a program has 3 seats, and by coincidence 1 or 2 extra students from that home program that year has interest in the field, then you bet they'll likely take their home students first.

The big black box with CaRMS is that you don't know your competitors until the competition is over. 

[Edict]

17 hours ago, anon5678 said:

For mid-highly competitive specialties, are the odds of matching to a program in a less popular location (eg. Manitoba, sask) a lot higher than programs in a popular location (eg. UofT, UBC). Do the former tend to go a lot further down their ROL than the latter?

Generally speaking, yes. More desirable locations/programs that have a reasonably good rep (i.e. aren't like known to be in probation or trouble or toxic), tend to not go down their rank lists much. My experience is very anecdotal, but from what I've seen, this is the case. With that being said, none of this matters to you as an applicant. Rank exactly what you desire.

 

This is little known but you technically can rank a program you applied to and didn't even get an interview for. In theory, if that program ranked you and you ranked them, you could match there. 

Remember that the applicant will exhaust all possibilities that you can match to a specific location before moving down your rank list, so if you rank program A first, and you match to program B which was second on your list, there was no way you could've matched to program A. Once the algorithm determines that you can't match to program A, it will make program B your new "first choice", trying to match you there and so on and so forth. So you can safely rank programs you have 0.001% chance of matching to higher, feel free to reach for the stars in the match process. Your job as an applicant is to try to convince every program in the country to rank you as high as humanly possible, and if you don't have time to do that, just try to ensure your own personal top programs rank you as high as humanly possible. Thats all you should worry about in the match process, theres no need to overthink or try to game the algorithm.