CaRMS snapshot

[indefatigable]

CaRMS has released some snapshot data.

• 110 total unfilled positions with 100 in FM (with 67 in QC).  [Compared to 115 and 99 in FM last year]
• 22 unfilled FM spots in AB including 15 CMG spots at UofA
• 110 total unmatched current-year CMGs including 54 that participated in the second round [vs 35 last year]- 56 only first round [vs 48 last year].
• A record number of 555 IMGs matched - especially previous year graduates without prior post-graduate training.

I find it a little perplexing comparing some of the unfilled positions as well as the number of unmatched CMGs.  I understand that  some CMGs are supposedly gaming the system by loosely participating the second round with no intention of matching, in order to get more electives, but I wouldn't be surprised if the number of unmatched continues goes up next year.

However, I also find the narrative in media like the G&M has shifted into advocacy for IMGs - unmatched CMGs seem to be more of an afterthought.  For instance, AB, was the only province which didn't have IMGs compete in the second round (Ontario switched this year).  AB policies apparently may change next year.  Despite the quote below, digging into the data from last year suggests  that matching in the second round is a bit of a zero sum game - i.e. more IMG matches is partly at the expense of less CMG matches.  It makes me wonder how much of Ontario residency backlog clearing was in reaction to tragic death of R Chu and whether today it would mean anything.

So my take is:

• Something's happening with FM residency in AB especially 
• Expect more IMGs in the futures
• Unmatched CMGs are considered less of a concern and will likely increase in the future.

https://www.carms.ca/pdfs/2023-R-1-data-snapshot.pdf

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-organization-for-medical-residency-placements-reveals-100-family/

https://www.carms.ca/pdfs/3kue3632yvW_R1_2_OverviewByDiscipline_EN.pdf

"Alberta stands out as the province where family medicine vacancies increased the most, doubling to 22 from 11 vacancies last year.

Rosemary Pawliuk, the president of the Society for Canadians Studying Medicine Abroad, attributed the increase to Alberta’s decision not to follow every other province in allowing international medical graduates – a group that includes Canadians who study at overseas medical schools – to participate in the second round of matching this year.

If those provinces hadn’t allowed international graduates to participate in the second round, Ms. Pawliuk said, “we would have had a horrendous increase in unfilled positions.”
“If you really want to maximize you make the competition open,” she added. 

International graduates were allowed to apply for positions that went unfilled in the first round until a few years ago, when provinces changed their policies in an effort to ensure that as many graduates of Canadian medical schools as possible secured crucial residency posts.

The policy change reduced the number of unmatched graduates of Canadian medical schools, but contributed to an increase in the number of vacancies, particularly in family medicine. This year, with international graduates allowed into the second round, 555 graduates trained abroad nabbed residency slots – the highest number in at least a decade.

But 847 international medical graduates still went unmatched, according to CaRMS data. The number of students who graduated from Canadian medical schools this year and went unmatched was 54, up from 35 last year.

Scott Johnston, press secretary for Alberta Minister of Health Jason Copping, said in an e-mail that the province is considering allowing international medical graduates into the second round next year. In the meantime, the universities of Calgary and Edmonton will be filling as many of the unfilled seats as possible “through a post-matching process with Alberta-based international medical graduates,” Mr. Johnston said."

[dragoncat]

speaking as an Albertan and someone who did med school in AB, FM here is amazing. the docs love what they do, they're good at it, the schools are good at promoting it and have lots of exposure to it. systems like Netcare and Connect care work and are for the most part effective at reaching the goal of having open communication across AB regarding a patient's care and info. and between calgary and edmonton, most people will pick calgary to live in as its a more youth friendly and urban city. (I say this as an Edmontonian)

our government seems to think FM is the devils spawn and its because of their decisions that FM docs (and other docs) are leaving and med students interested in FM would rather do residency in another province. and I'm not talking about any one party in particular, its been a shitshow with all of them. the public's mistrust and anger is often directed at family docs too unfortunately and they take on the brunt of it. the govt is turning to quick and dirty solutions like having more NPs (who are doing FM doc work instead of NP work, rural towns are seeing this happen at alarming rates), more private healthcare and some shady stuff imo, without considering how to fix the actual issues in AB's healthcare system. Remember when they fired a bunch of RNs (and public school teachers) at the height of COVID? yea...those were *fun* times

I applied to a non-family med specialty and still aimed to match out of province for this exact reason (and luckily I did) 

[dooogs]

seems like the IMG spot for ENT in alberta was not filled? 

Im curious can CMG's apply for IMG spots in second iteration? Can those be converted to CMG?

[Pakoon]

3 minutes ago, dooogs said:

seems like the IMG spot for ENT in alberta was not filled? 

Im curious can CMG's apply for IMG spots in second iteration? Can those be converted to CMG?

Yes

[dooogs]

So how come it was still unfilled after second interation?

[bearded frog]

1 hour ago, dooogs said:

So how come it was still unfilled after second interation?

The program chose not to fill it with the available candidates... either they would rather leave the spot open or perhaps they had a candidate in mind.

[1D7]

16 hours ago, indefatigable said:

However, I also find the narrative in media like the G&M has shifted into advocacy for IMGs - unmatched CMGs seem to be more of an afterthought.  For instance, AB, was the only province which didn't have IMGs compete in the second round (Ontario switched this year).  AB policies apparently may change next year.  Despite the quote below, digging into the data from last year suggests  that matching in the second round is a bit of a zero sum game - i.e. more IMG matches is partly at the expense of less CMG matches.  It makes me wonder how much of Ontario residency backlog clearing was in reaction to tragic death of R Chu and whether today it would mean anything.

I don't want to politicize it too much but I do think that the string of tragedies in the mid-late 201X has begun to fade from memory. Back then many schools had unpublicized similar situations to Dr. Chu, sadly.

Is there any evidence that this is due to program preference though? In the late 201X most students would apply to FM as a backup regardless of how they felt about the specialty. A good number of students were happy just to match because of how tight the overall applicant:positions ratio was.

Nowadays when I talk to medical students, I feel there has been an upturn in students choosing IM as a backup or "parallel planning" with moderate competitive specialties like anesthesia, radiology, and general surgery. To a large extent I feel this cultural shift has been because of the elective limits placed. "Back in the day" you easily revealed what you wanted when you did most of your free electives in that specialty, so your backup options were very limited.

[indefatigable]

1 hour ago, 1D7 said:

I don't want to politicize it too much but I do think that the string of tragedies in the mid-late 201X has begun to fade from memory. Back then many schools had unpublicized similar situations to Dr. Chu, sadly.

Is there any evidence that this is due to program preference though? In the late 201X most students would apply to FM as a backup regardless of how they felt about the specialty. A good number of students were happy just to match because of how tight the overall applicant:positions ratio was.

Nowadays when I talk to medical students, I feel there has been an upturn in students choosing IM as a backup or "parallel planning" with moderate competitive specialties like anesthesia, radiology, and general surgery. To a large extent I feel this cultural shift has been because of the elective limits placed. "Back in the day" you easily revealed what you wanted when you did most of your free electives in that specialty, so your backup options were very limited.

Program preference of unmatched grads is also partly what I'm wondering especially when it comes to seeing unfilled FM positions in AB with a number of unmatched CMGs.  In the past, as you point out, having FM as an obvious backup or "parallel plan" didn't seem to matter for matching results for CMGs who were given considerable leeway.

 However, I'm not sure if we're also entering a new stage in terms of priorities  - for example, maybe the AB FM program had less interest in such CMGs?    Maybe given the public primary care demand that we've entered a "tough luck" era for CMGs that might have prioritized more competitive unsuccessful parallel plans i.e. filling the most seats is the biggest priority?  Yet, could it also be that that the AB FM program is acting more selectively towards unmatched CMGs even at the risk even of not filling (perhaps it's an outlier program?)?  Clearly, given the large pool of IMGs there are going to be many more such applicants that have focused on FM and these applicants appear to be sometimes prioritized over unmatched CMGs from a cursory exam of the data at least in the second round as compared to last year.

Unfortunately, the snapshot doesn't give a full picture of positions:applicant ratio which has also always failed to account for language differences despite being an important component of the effective ratio - likewise, I'm not sure how well previous year graduates are accounted for just like what happened in the past.  However, assuming that most of the unmatched are not comfortable in French, like in previous iterations, simple math does show that the number of those unmatched CMGs (even restricting to those that participated only in the second round) is considerably greater than the effective number of available positions.

But, yes I do agree that what happened 5-10 years ago has faded from memory and also that the outlook/perception for FM has changed considerably.  Still, I think that we probably have much tighter matching ratios than many applicants may realize and that public priorities/support for residents may be fading given the family medicine shortage situation.  Sure 110 total unmatched CMGs seems small relative to total number of grads, IMGs, .. but that's the size of a small med school class that obviously is hard to create, get into, etc.. and likely will keep growing given that if anything, re-allocation of dedicated CMG residency positions, rather than creating new ones seems to be more of a priority.  There are obvious significant personal and system-wide costs in dealing with unmatched CMGs.   

 

[Synth1]

If it is indeed the case that the number of unmatched CMGs is due to speciality preference it's a bit of a stretch to say they are an "afterthought" in favor of IMGs. The reality is that residency spots are driven by demand of a given specialty, and not everyone can do what they want. If today's med students refuse to match to FM that's their choice but it may result in not matching at all, and if there are tons of FM left over spots because of that why not open them up to IMGs in the second round. It is a bit entitled to complain about not matching when you only apply to competitive specialities. 

[1D7]

2 hours ago, indefatigable said:

Program preference of unmatched grads is also partly what I'm wondering especially when it comes to seeing unfilled FM positions in AB with a number of unmatched CMGs.  In the past, as you point out, having FM as an obvious backup or "parallel plan" didn't seem to matter for matching results for CMGs who were given considerable leeway.

Unfortunately, the snapshot doesn't give a full picture of positions:applicant ratio which has also always failed to account for language differences despite being an important component of the effective ratio - likewise, I'm not sure how well previous year graduates are accounted for just like what happened in the past.  However, assuming that most of the unmatched are not comfortable in French, like in previous iterations, simple math does show that the number of those unmatched CMGs (even restricting to those that participated only in the second round) is considerably greater than the effective number of available positions.

I agree it has become very tight again like the late 201X era. We can hope for another Hail Mary like after 2018 when a bunch of military spots were added to relieve the backlog of applicants. Ultimately this will be a perpetually recurrent issue as long as we have no mechanism tying medical school spots to residency positions. And even residency positions may not correlate to demand... one could argue we are over training certain surgical specialties only for them to leave for the U.S. to find a job.

2 hours ago, indefatigable said:

However, I'm not sure if we're also entering a new stage in terms of priorities  - for example, maybe the AB FM program had less interest in such CMGs?    Maybe given the public primary care demand that we've entered a "tough luck" era for CMGs that might have prioritized more competitive unsuccessful parallel plans i.e. filling the most seats is the biggest priority?  Yet, could it also be that that the AB FM program is acting more selectively towards unmatched CMGs even at the risk even of not filling (perhaps it's an outlier program?)?  Clearly, given the large pool of IMGs there are going to be many more such applicants that have focused on FM and these applicants appear to be sometimes prioritized over unmatched CMGs from a cursory exam of the data at least in the second round as compared to last year.

It is possible, but I wouldn't draw that conclusion from just this year alone. There are a few reasons I say this.

1. My general experience is that the deans of the medical schools want to keep the unmatched rate low, and most of them have good relationships/communication with the FM programs (who try to help to whatever reasonable extent, at least in Ontario).

2. Looking at many of the anglophone open FM spots, many are military spots AND/or rural. Applicants may feel that they have a good shot at a non-military/non-rural position the next year around.

Unless you are worried about being perpetually unmatched, you actually save more time and have better QOL if you reapply and match the next year to a non-rural/non-military FM position (this is presuming an average applicant who probably doesn't want military/rural).

3. Regarding the few remaining non-FM spots, they are mostly pathology/various lab specialties and public health located mostly in the Prarie Provinces. I don't think people want to spend 5-6 years doing a residency they aren't very interested in, in a province outside their home. Again it is probably both a time saving & improvement in QOL to just apply the next year to FM and try to match to your home province.

4. It is still possible this is in part statistical noise/general negative press regarding Alberta. Advocacy for IMG (in particular CSA) has always been fairly strong so I don't think that's new. Overall definitely something for the deans of the schools to keep an eye on.

[indefatigable]

9 hours ago, Synth1 said:

If it is indeed the case that the number of unmatched CMGs is due to speciality preference it's a bit of a stretch to say they are an "afterthought" in favor of IMGs. The reality is that residency spots are driven by demand of a given specialty, and not everyone can do what they want. If today's med students refuse to match to FM that's their choice but it may result in not matching at all, and if there are tons of FM left over spots because of that why not open them up to IMGs in the second round. It is a bit entitled to complain about not matching when you only apply to competitive specialities. 

Superficially, unfilled CMG FM spots are a bad look for unmatched CMGs with the implication being there is a lack of interest for these spots from them.  Unfortunately these are some "known unknowns" with respect to this  - we actually don't really know the preference of the unmatched CMGs, whether they applied to those spots, were granted interviews, ranked etc., nor the internal workings of the FM programs in AB which account for the bulk of these left over English-speaking spots (in terms of their own decision making with respect to CMGs and IMGs).  

However, I think it would be fair to say that even if AB changed its policy (the only province apparently not to allow cross-overs in second round) it would neither significantly impact the number of unmatched IMGs nor the supply of FPs.   The passage I quoted above certainly makes little mention of unmatched CMGs and much of the narrative above around IMGs seems to be a bit of a false flag - I don't think a divisive approach will change much on the ground.  The reality is there is only a limited number of residency positions - maybe, at best, +20 more positions gets filled, partially at the expense of more unmatched CMGs (like with what happened in other provinces in the second round), but that doesn't really solve the underlying issues.  

8 hours ago, 1D7 said:

It is possible, but I wouldn't draw that conclusion from just this year alone. There are a few reasons I say this.

1. My general experience is that the deans of the medical schools want to keep the unmatched rate low, and most of them have good relationships/communication with the FM programs (who try to help to whatever reasonable extent).

2. Looking at many of the anglophone open FM spots, many are military spots or rural. Applicants may feel that they have a good shot at a non-military/non-rural position the next year around.

3. Regarding the few remaining non-FM spots, I don't think people want to spend 5 years doing a residency they aren't very interested in. Pathology/various lab specialties, public health, and psychiatry located mostly in the Prarie Provinces are a tough sell to non-Prarie province applicants who think they could match the next year to the same province doing FM (i.e. both time saving & improved QOL).

 

1. I certainly think there has been known "soft pressure" on home school programs in the past, in terms of taking unmatched CMGs which is something that IMG advocates have strongly spoken out against.  Whether this has changed anything on the ground is hard to tell.

2-3. Of course - most of the unfilled spots are effectively unavailable or considered unappealing in terms of being French or military or consisting of a handful of path/public health spots.  The exception is the high number of unfilled FM positions in AB in Edmonton especially (CMG) and Calgary - certainly it does create public pressure to uniformly change these to competitive stream positions in the future in terms of perception as mentioned above.  However, it's true that there may indeed be IMGs more willing to accept what is available rather than being picky given the high competition and thus providing a needed supply of labour.     

8 hours ago, 1D7 said:

I agree it has become very tight again like the late 201X era. We can hope for another Hail Mary like after 2018 when a bunch of military spots were added to relieve the backlog of applicants, but ultimately will be a perpetually recurrent issue as long as we have no mechanism tying medical school spots to residency positions.

Exactly - this is the bottom line.  Unfortunately, I think the unfilled FM positions in urban AB do create a negative perception towards CMG which makes advocacy more difficult.  By positively linking IMGs with FM in contrast to CMGs in the public consciousness, within a context of multiple strains within FM, CMGs may be losing public sympathy many who simply want a family doctor.  I do wonder how much worse things will get before they break or turn into something else - there is certainly the implication in the passage quoted that at a certain point filling seats is more of a priority than matching CMGs.  

However, the underlying ratio problem isn't simply going to disappear and will likely continue to get worse without any systemic changes.  Future backlog clearing may be harder - for example, from what I understand, the military has made policy changes towards its training of medical officers to favour internal rather external recruitment.  While all provinces seem to be concerned about the lack of FPs, it's unclear to what extent this is translating to more residency positions.  

[indefatigable]

On 4/28/2023 at 5:19 PM, dragoncat said:

speaking as an Albertan and someone who did med school in AB, FM here is amazing. the docs love what they do, they're good at it, the schools are good at promoting it and have lots of exposure to it. systems like Netcare and Connect care work and are for the most part effective at reaching the goal of having open communication across AB regarding a patient's care and info. and between calgary and edmonton, most people will pick calgary to live in as its a more youth friendly and urban city. (I say this as an Edmontonian)

our government seems to think FM is the devils spawn and its because of their decisions that FM docs (and other docs) are leaving and med students interested in FM would rather do residency in another province. and I'm not talking about any one party in particular, its been a shitshow with all of them. the public's mistrust and anger is often directed at family docs too unfortunately and they take on the brunt of it. the govt is turning to quick and dirty solutions like having more NPs (who are doing FM doc work instead of NP work, rural towns are seeing this happen at alarming rates), more private healthcare and some shady stuff imo, without considering how to fix the actual issues in AB's healthcare system. Remember when they fired a bunch of RNs (and public school teachers) at the height of COVID? yea...those were *fun* times

I applied to a non-family med specialty and still aimed to match out of province for this exact reason (and luckily I did) 

Yeah it seems that the government is try to steamroll the existing FPs within the province - it seems as if part of the goal with IMGs may simply be a "CMG busting" strategy as they are less likely to push-back.

https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/unfilled-residency-spots-suggest-there-is-no-alberta-advantage-says-ama-president-1.6376456?fbclid=IwAR3Yv3ts0xcGRXDNDmee3fD-5Mn9eNP819dWurk-J_o9bVRQeeGlZvUkDVQ

AB seems to have the greatest US alignment out of all Canadian provinces and so I'm not surprised on some level that some of the problems that are happening in the US are getting imported there.  

[frenchpress]

I think the negative perception towards the unfilled positions (med students worry there’s something ‘wrong’ with the program)  + the negative perception of AB across the rest of Canada is a big part of the remaining spots. And I agree with what others have said that medical students also seem less willing to apply for or take family medicine spots compared to a few years ago. This is evident from the seemingly low interest in the program even in the first round.

I am a resident in the FM Urban program. When we were doing CaRMS open houses and information sessions, we had very little attendance or interest from anyone outside of Alberta. And from talking to medical students who I work with on the wards, very few who actually applied to us were even seriously considering FM. I was not at all surprised the first round match numbers were low - there are very few medical students out there who are interested in both 1) family medicine and 2) living Alberta, especially Edmonton.

It’s too bad, because it’s a great program and Alberta is actually a very good place to practice FM. Despite the governments stance towards FM in early COVID (which they’ve back peddled from substantially), Alberta remains one of the highest paid places to do FM in Canada, with two big urban centres to choose from. Overall most of the FPs I work with seem happy here. A lot of them do complain about the current government for legitimate reasons, while simultaneously recognizing they’d be worse off doing FM in most other provinces. 

The second round filling has a lot to do with the limits on the ability to match IMGs, as was mentioned. Our PD emailed us all last week and said the program will likely fill a majority of those spots with a combination of transfers + Albertan IMGs originally ranked in round 1. There are a lot of IMGs here who have been working in Alberta for a long time, and who already work in the medical system in positions like CA, who know the system, are very skilled clinicians, and want to be family doctors - and so honestly I think they are preferred to CMGs who are overall uninterested in family medicine and/or uninterested in living in Alberta.
 

Edit: We can’t force unmatched CMGs to come here, and I don’t think any program wants to match residents who don’t want to be there - no one wants to work with miserable residents.

Edited April 30, 2023 by frenchpress

[indefatigable]

Sounds like a few different narratives with respect to FM in AB

• It’s fine, as good as anywhere else 
• It’s on a downward spiral - avoid at all costs

With respect to unmatched CMGs and AB

• Uninterested in FM and AB
• Unable to match even in the second round 

Broadly speaking  two trends seem to hardening/appearing 

• CMG generally preferred but no longer CMG first (ie some unmatched CMGs may just be seen as too unsuitable as compared to alternatives and borne out by the data).  Unmatched first round  IMGs  for FM may be considered a better alternative for instance in AB 
• anything but FM for many med students 

I think these trends are going to continue in the future and will have some downstream consequences.  I would expect number of unmatched CMGs to climb to 150-200 per year  in the next couple of years

I don’t think there’s an easy answer because it’s a complex issue.  

i know of a FM colleague who was unmatched from a small surgical specialty and matched to FM.   This resident compromised with respect to FM and the program compromised with respect to the obvious lack of demonstrates interest in FM. This resident has since actively tried to transfer out with the knowledge and even help of their own preceptor.  They have not been successful, but in the meantime has been a stellar resident and could likely choose any +1 that they are interested in despite having a clear interest in a different type of work

some might argue that this resident is an inappropriate choice for FM. Indeed, I think in the future this type of resident will find it much more difficult to match to FM regardless of their obvious ability.  
 

However, where is the fault?  The resident for gunning for something they are/were interested in?  The med school for admitting someone who maybe was more likely to gravitate towards surgery?  The program for admitting the resident that has performed well?  The resident for accepting a program to continue  a medical career?    I think that’s part of the reasons why the whole issue is complex - obviously adding the IMG issues makes things even harder 

[indefatigable]

The CaRMS forum was published today, but didn't include most competitive programs,.. as it usually does

My takeaways:

• The overall CMG quota is the best it's been in 10 years at 1.08 positions to applicants (Slide 10).  Increases in specialty positions are proportionally greater than increases in FM (Slide 11).  Languages differences aren't accounted for however.  
• FM is filling a record number of positions (Slide 36), but with a decreasing number of CMGs (Slide 40) & fewer matched CMGs rank FM (Slide 39)
• IMGs are doing better and better in CaRMS with current year grads having an 80% match rate (Slides 25 and 26) and have had a slight increase in quota (Slide 9)
• Unmatched CMGs as a whole are less competitive in both uncompetitive and competitive disciplines (Slides 48 and 51) - but have increasingly less interest in uncompetitive disciplines and increasingly more interest in competitive disciplines while programs are slightly trending in the opposite direction (Slides 49-50 & 52-53).
• Unmatched CMGs that skip the second iteration (presumably have stronger applications) have about 40-45% chance of matching to their original first choice discipline the next year (Slide 61).  Unmatched CMGs unmatched in the second iteration struggle to get ranked at all or highly by programs (Slide 55) -i.e. are not close to matching.

https://www.carms.ca/pdfs/carms-forum-2023.pdf

[Pakoon]

5 hours ago, indefatigable said:

The CaRMS forum was published today, but didn't include most competitive programs,.. as it usually does

My takeaways:

• The overall CMG quota is the best it's been in 10 years at 1.08 positions to applicants (Slide 10).  Increases in specialty positions are proportionally greater than increases in FM (Slide 11).  Languages differences aren't accounted for however.  
• FM is filling a record number of positions (Slide 36), but with a decreasing number of CMGs (Slide 40) & fewer matched CMGs rank FM (Slide 39)
• IMGs are doing better and better in CaRMS with current year grads having an 80% match rate (Slides 25 and 26) and have had a slight increase in quota (Slide 9)
• Unmatched CMGs as a whole are less competitive in both uncompetitive and competitive disciplines (Slides 48 and 51) - but have increasingly less interest in uncompetitive disciplines and increasingly more interest in competitive disciplines while programs are slightly trending in the opposite direction (Slides 49-50 & 52-53).
• Unmatched CMGs that skip the second iteration (presumably have stronger applications) have about 40-45% chance of matching to their original first choice discipline the next year (Slide 61).  Unmatched CMGs that participate in the second iteration struggle to get ranked at all or highly by programs (Slide 55).

https://www.carms.ca/pdfs/carms-forum-2023.pdf

I wonder if it was done intentionally? Regardless it's upsetting they decided to hide this information as it goes against the principle of transparency...

[indefatigable]

2 hours ago, Pakoon said:

I wonder if it was done intentionally? Regardless it's upsetting they decided to hide this information as it goes against the principle of transparency...

it was definitely intentional - on a systems level, I suppose it doesn't matter too much.  The raw data needed to make those comparisons will be released later in the month, but means that someone will have to process that.

[bearded frog]

13 hours ago, indefatigable said:

• IMGs are doing better and better in CaRMS with current year grads having an 80% match rate (Slides 25 and 26) and have had a slight increase in quota (Slide 9)

Note they use final participants as their denominator, removing those that did not get any interviews (or matched to the US I guess?) so the actual current year grad match rate is between 59-80% extrapolating the ratio of final participant to applicants in slide 6.

[who_knows]

Can someone please explain slides 48 and 51? I don't get why matched percentage is 3.6 and 6.1 respectively. It looks very low. In slide 7, the match is 93.5%. And why is match better in demand>supply disciplines, slide 51, (3.6 vs 6.1)?

[1D7]

11 hours ago, who_knows said:

Can someone please explain slides 48 and 51? I don't get why matched percentage is 3.6 and 6.1 respectively. It looks very low. In slide 7, the match is 93.5%. And why is match better in demand>supply disciplines, slide 51, (3.6 vs 6.1)?

It is looking at matched vs unmatched per application. The match rate is 100% in for the matched cohort in both slides. The number doesn't matter to anyone except for deans/admin for planning.

Quote

Unmatched CMGs as a whole are less competitive in both uncompetitive and competitive disciplines (Slides 48 and 51) - but have increasingly less interest in uncompetitive disciplines and increasingly more interest in competitive disciplines while programs are slightly trending in the opposite direction (Slides 49-50 & 52-53).

I suspect this is going back to a relatively decreased fear of being unmatched. It was a hush hush topic and schools had no official avenue for these situations several years ago. Now most have some official pathway to delay graduation.

[indefatigable]

On 5/5/2023 at 9:31 PM, who_knows said:

Can someone please explain slides 48 and 51? I don't get why matched percentage is 3.6 and 6.1 respectively. It looks very low. In slide 7, the match is 93.5%. And why is match better in demand>supply disciplines, slide 51, (3.6 vs 6.1)?

On 5/6/2023 at 9:10 AM, 1D7 said:

It is looking at matched vs unmatched per application. The match rate is 100% in for the matched cohort in both slides. The number doesn't matter to anyone except for deans/admin for planning.

Basically the slides are comparing how well matching vs non-matching applicants do going through the CaRMS process - in uncompetitive (supply>demand) & competitive (demand>supply) disciplines.   Applicants who that end up being unmatched have less chances of getting interviewed or of being mutually ranked and ultimately matching.  In other words, being unmatched doesn't happen in isolation - it's the end point of a series of steps where such applicants are on average less successful than their matched colleagues.

The matched percentage being higher in competitive disciplines may be a reflection of the fact that competitive disciplines (demand>supply) may be more selective with interviews, but also likely will be higher on an applicant's rank list and so an interview may be more likely to end up in a match.    

On 5/6/2023 at 9:10 AM, 1D7 said:

I suspect this is going back to a relatively decreased fear of being unmatched. It was a hush hush topic and schools had no official avenue for these situations several years ago. Now most have some official pathway to delay graduation.

This could be part of the reason.  However, I think it's simply a reflection of the fact that CMGs as a whole are moving away from FM (both in terms of matching & ranking) including CMGs that are unmatched.