It's time to rank

Creating a rank list for your future residency can be exciting, nerve-wracking, daunting, confusing....name any emotion that you can think of when making an important life decision.

Is there a right way to do it? Of course not. Everyone has different factors to take into consideration and their "own methods" (if any). Some go by extensive excel spreadsheets with detailed scoring formulas. Some scribble things down on a piece of paper and ask around for opinions. Some listen to their hearts. Some do a combination of all.

The point is, do what works for you and what you think will be best for you.

That being said, I wanted to share some of the things I considered when ranking, or things I think would be helpful when coming up with a rank list, in case you need some ideas.

1. Come up with a system: as alluded above, it would probably be helpful to have some sort of system to help keep track of the programs you interview, be it an excel spreadsheet, a table, or hand written notes. This is also helpful to compare individual factors that you'd like to consider for residency.
   

2. What are some factors to consider? This really depends on you and your goals. Here are some examples I considered:

   1. location: proximity to home/family/friends, affordability, availability of public transport, safety, social life, restaurants, dating scene etc.

   2. type of program: academic vs community

   3. visa type: OPT, J1, H1B?

   4. schedule: this includes elective time, call schedule, patient load

   5. salary and affordability

   6. benefits: vacation time, insurance coverage, meal stipends, call rooms etc.

   7. the "vibe" of the program and its staff, residents: this is very important. What feeling did you get during the interview day? How were the residents? How were the faculty? can you imagine yourself in the program?

   8. doe the program offer _______ (diverse patient population, research, mentorship, flexibility in scheduling, maternity leave, child care benefits, wellness, etc etc).

   9. the ability to do ________ (this can be anything, a hobby, an interest, something you'd like to pursue in residency)

   10. along the same lines as the above point, will you get "good" training at this program? By good, I mean will you become the kind of doctor you imagine yourself to be if you go to this program?
       

3. Do your research-again! Yes, you've read all about the program pre-interview day. Now it's time to do it again, take out all of the interview folders you received and re-read the information, including all of the fineprint. For me, I took an afternoon with my folders, read through them and inputted them in a spreadsheet, then looked over my spreadsheet. You can also ask your friends, mentors, faculty, past graduates about any programs you are interested in. Do keep in mind though, everyone's opinions are different. Don't let others make decisions for you.
   

4. Draft a preliminary list and look it over. There's actually quite a bit of thought process that goes into writing a list down and looking it over to see if it fits your goals. You'll realize sometimes you get stuck with which program to rank higher out of the two, or sometimes you'll question yourself why a program was ranked so much higher than you expected. During this process you'll find out things you are looking for in a program that maybe you weren't aware of before.

   1. Need help? This is a tool that can be helpful to generate a rank list: http://residencymatchtools.com/index.html
      

5. Reminder: it's ok to have multiple favorite programs! If you think you would be happy matching at a multiple number of programs, there's nothing wrong with that. There's a lot of focus on matching to the "#1" program, but remember, nothing wrong with matching to #2, #3, #4, and so forth.
   

6. Don't submit last minute! This is carried over from application tips. NRMP can crash and you'll end up with no rank list submitted. At least submit a draft version the day before (but hopefully days-weeks before), you can always go back and change it.

That's it! Wishing you the best of luck