NRMP® Celebrates Match Day for the 2024 Main Residency Match®, Releases Results for Over 44,000 Applicants and Almost 6,400 Residency Programs

WASHINGTON, March 15, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the National Resident Matching Program^® (NRMP) is excited to recognize Match Day for its 2024 Main Residency Match and release key results for educators, stakeholders, and policymakers focused on graduate medical education. Match Day, a time-honored tradition, signifies a pivotal moment in an aspiring physician's medical education journey. After months of applications and interviews, applicants across the world learned today where and in what specialties they will train. This year's Match included 44,853 applicants who certified a rank order list ("active applicants") and 41,503 certified positions in 6,395 residency training programs.

"The NRMP is proud to deliver the results of another successful Main Residency Match, and we congratulate all future physicians and training programs on this momentous occasion," says NRMP President and CEO Donna L. Lamb, DHSc, MBA, BSN. "We are especially proud of applicants this year, many of whom began medical school the fall before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and had to quickly adapt to and thrive in a radically changed academic and training landscape. Their experiences and success speak to a remarkable resilience and dedication they will carry with them into practice."

Record High Applicant Participation. A total of 50,413 applicants registered in the 2024 Main Residency Match, an all-time high and increase of 2,257 or 4.7 percent over last year. The rise in applicants was driven largely by an increase of 1,986 non-U.S. citizen international medical graduates (IMGs) and 623 osteopathic (DO) seniors over last year.

Among all registrants, 44,853 certified a rank order list of training preferences, the highest number on record and an increase of 1,901 or 4.4 percent over last year. Of the applicants who certified a rank order list, 35,984 matched to a post-graduate year 1 (PGY-1) position, an increase of 1,162 applicants from last year. The PGY-1 match rate was 80.2 percent.

U.S. MD seniors remain the largest applicant group participating in the Match, and in 2024 numbered 20,296. This represents a decrease of 21 applicants compared to the 2023 Match; however, the number of U.S. MD seniors certifying a rank order list increased slightly to 19,755, seven more than last year. 

Applicant Match Rates Remain Steady. Match rates remained steady among each of the four main applicant types with less than a one percentage point difference compared to the 2023 Main Residency Match.

• U.S. DO seniors achieved a 92.3 percent match rate, an all-time high and an increase of 0.7 percentage points over last year. Since 2019, the DO senior match rate has increased 4.2 percentage points.
• U.S. MD seniors realized a 93.5 percent match rate, a decrease of 0.2 percentage points from last year. The U.S. MD senior match rate remains within the historic 92 – 95 percent range that has been steady since 1982.
• U.S. citizen IMGs realized a 67.0 percent match rate, a decrease of 0.6 percentage points from last year.
• Non-U.S. citizen IMGs realized a 58.5 percent match rate, a decrease of 0.9 percentage points since last year.

Increased Program and Position Participation. The 2024 Main Residency Match included 6,395 certified programs offering 41,503 PGY-1 and PGY-2 training positions, the largest number in the NRMP's 72-year history. Increases afforded applicants access to 125 more programs and 1,128 positions which is 2.8 percent more than the 2023 Main Residency Match.

"Upward trends in participating program rates and positions offered and filled demonstrate the success with which the NRMP ably and consistently grows to meet the needs of the undergraduate and graduate medical education communities," said Dr. Lamb. "To support that growth, the NRMP is committed not only to expanding its data analyses and offerings for those in our community but also to leveraging Match data as a critical bellwether of the future physician workforce, informing national conversations about specialty and physician geographic distribution to improve population health outcomes."

• Of all positions offered, 38,941 filled for a rate of 93.8 percent, a 0.5 percentage point increase over last year.
• Of the 6,395 total certified programs, 5,608 filled at a rate of 87.7 percent, an increase of 1.1 percentage points over last year.

Fluctuation in Primary Care. Concerns remain about a shortage of primary care physicians across the U.S., and NRMP data offer insights into trends.

The 2024 Match offered 19,423 primary care positions, the largest number on record and 46.8 percent of all the positions offered in the Match. Primary care specialties are defined as categorical PGY-1 positions that provide the full training required for board certification in Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Internal Medicine-Pediatrics, and Pediatrics. There were 719 more primary care positions offered in 2024, and the fill rate for the specialties combined was 92.9 percent.

While strong, the primary care fill rated fell slightly in 2024 by 1.4 percentage points, largely due to changes in Pediatrics.

In the 2024 Match, Pediatrics offered 3,139 categorical and primary positions, an increase of 93 over 2023, and filled 2,887 resulting in a fill rate of 92 percent compared to 97.1 percent in 2023. After the algorithm was processed, 252 Pediatrics positions were unfilled, an increase of 164 over last year. Notably, the percentage of U.S. MD seniors that matched to Pediatrics categorical positions in 2024 was 47.6 percent, a decrease of 7.2 percentage points from last year.

Rebound in Emergency Medicine. After a two-year decline, Match data reflect a resurgence in Emergency Medicine fill rates. Emergency Medicine achieved its historically high fill rate of 98 - 99 percent in the 2017 – 2021 Matches. By 2023, the fill rate had dropped by 17.9 percentage points, driven in part by the strain the specialty experienced during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2024, Emergency Medicine offered 3,026 positions, an increase of 16 positions from 2023 and filled 2,891 to earn a 95.5 percent fill rate, an increase of 13.9 percentage points. There were 135 positions unfilled after the matching algorithm was processed compared to 554 unfilled positions in 2023.

Continued Strength in Obstetrics and Gynecology. The specialty had another very strong Match, even with the two-year anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization Supreme Court decision approaching this summer. Only six categorical positions remained unfilled after the matching algorithm was processed. OB/GYN achieved a 99.6 percent fill rate in the 2024 Match, continuing a strong trend of filling over 99 percent of positions offered every year for the past five years and filling at least 90 percent of positions with U.S. MD and DO seniors.

Specialty Highlights and Competitiveness. The results of the Match can indicate the competitiveness of specialties as measured by the percentage of positions filled overall and the percentage of positions filled by U.S. MD and DO seniors.

• The specialties with 30 positions or more that filled with the highest percentage of U.S. MD and DO seniors were Internal Medicine/Emergency Medicine (96.8 percent), Thoracic Surgery (95.8 percent), Otolaryngology (95.8 percent), Internal Medicine/Pediatrics (94.6 percent), Orthopedic Surgery (92.1 percent), Interventional Radiology – Integrated (91.4 percent), and Obstetrics and Gynecology (90.7 percent).
• The specialties with 30 positions or more that filled with the highest percentage of U.S. citizen IMGs and non-U.S. citizen IMGs were Internal Medicine (38.6 percent), Pathology – Anatomic and Clinical (37.4 percent), Family Medicine (31.8 percent), and Neurology (28.3 percent).

Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program^® (SOAP^®). Eligible applicants who did not match to a residency position participated in the NRMP's Match Week Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program (SOAP) to try to obtain the 2,562 positions in 787 programs that went unfilled after the matching algorithm was processed, 123 fewer positions than last year's Match. A total of 2,575 positions were placed in SOAP, including positions in programs that did not participate in the algorithm phase of the process. There were 83 fewer positions in SOAP in 2024, a decrease of 3.1 percent compared to last year's Match. Detailed SOAP results will be available in the 2024 Main Residency Match Results and Data Book, which is published in the Spring.

View the Advance Data Tables, Match by the Numbers, and Match infographic for additional data and information.

About NRMP

The National Resident Matching Program^® (NRMP^®) is a private, non-profit organization established in 1952 to oversee The Match^®_. The Match was established at the request of medical students to provide an orderly and fair mechanism for matching the preferences of applicants for U.S. residency positions with the preferences of residency program directors. In addition to the annual Main Residency Match^® for more than 48,000 registrants, the NRMP also conducts Fellowship Matches for more than 70 subspecialties through its Specialties Matching Service^® (SMS^®).

To schedule an interview with NRMP President and CEO Donna L. Lamb, DHSc, contact [email protected].

SOURCE National Resident Matching Program