Unofficial guide · not affiliated with the AAMC, NBME, USMLE, LCME, or NRMP Part of the SI MedEd family · SI MedEd portal →
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The residency match, by the numbers.

Enter a Step 2 CK score and pick a specialty — see the observed match rate for U.S. MD seniors in your score band, straight from the 2024 NRMP Charting Outcomes in the Match. No hunting through PDFs.

Unofficial guide. This site is independent — not affiliated with the NRMP, AAMC, NBME, USMLE, or LCME. This explorer presents the NRMP's own published public data, summarized with the NRMP's caveats. It is for advising and planning only.

Read this first — the caveats.

  • Population: U.S. MD seniors in the 2024 Main Residency Match who consented to research use (16,054 of 19,755 who submitted rank lists). Not DO seniors, not IMGs, not other match years.
  • "Match" means matched to the preferred specialty (the specialty of the first-ranked program) — not matched anywhere.
  • These are observed historical rates, not predicted probabilities for any individual. Research, AOA status, away rotations, geography, and interviews all matter — in competitive specialties, they matter a lot.
  • Bands with fewer than 20 seniors are noisy — flagged, treat as directional only.
  • Charting Outcomes is published biennially; the 2024 edition is the latest available. Ophthalmology isn't here — it matches through SF Match, not the NRMP.

Scores are grouped into the NRMP's published bands (211–220, 221–230, 231–240, 241–250, 251–260, 261+). Results update live as you type.

–% observed match
– · score band –
Observed match rate among – U.S. MD seniors in this band (2024 Match)
Specialty overall match rate: – · ∼90% odds reached at –
  • "Match" means matched to the preferred specialty (first-ranked program's specialty) — not matched anywhere.
  • These are observed historical rates, not a prediction of any individual's outcome. Research, AOA status, away rotations, geography, and interviews all matter.
  • Bands with fewer than 20 seniors are noisy — flagged in the chart.
  • Ophthalmology isn't here: it matches through SF Match, not NRMP.

Your score across every specialty

One score, sixteen specialties — ranked by observed match rate in your band.

SpecialtyYour bandMatch rateOverall

The big picture from the 2024 Match

U.S. MD seniors matched to PGY-1 positions at a 93.5% rate in 2024 (and 2025) — a rate that has held in the 92–95% range since 1982. But preferred-specialty match rates vary enormously: Emergency Medicine (98.0%), Family Medicine (98.8%), and Pediatrics (99.7%) are near-locks, while Dermatology (70.5%), Neurological Surgery (68.7%), and Orthopaedic Surgery (73.1%) turn away roughly a quarter to a third of the seniors who prefer them. In dermatology, neurosurgery, and plastic surgery, even scorers above 260 never reach 90% — competitiveness is structural, not just score-driven.

Methodology & sources

Data: Charting Outcomes in the Match: Characteristics of U.S. MD Seniors Who Matched to Their Preferred Specialty, 2024 Main Residency Match — 4th Edition (NRMP, August 2024). Population: 16,054 U.S. MD seniors who consented to research use; Step 2 CK available for 98.4%. Figures are observed match rates per score band (matched ÷ matched + unmatched within the band), extracted from the report's per-specialty Step 2 CK distribution charts. Matched U.S. MD seniors averaged Step 2 CK 250.4 (SD 13.2); the overall U.S. MD senior PGY-1 match rate was 93.5% in 2024 and 2025.

The NRMP also publishes an interactive Step 2 CK baseline explorer. This page is an unofficial re-presentation of the same public data with the report's own caveats — not NRMP-published guidance.