Failing to join the educational program causes students to blame themselves, leads to frustration and what is worst losing determination to become who they want to be. The stressful experience is worsened by the fact that the acceptance at times depends on unpredictable factors like overwhelming demand and very limited availability for the program.
What Is SOAP?
If to put it simple, the SOAP residency program allows the students who didn’t match other residency programs look for opportunities in unmatched residency places that for some reason are not taken and are still available. In the most convenient way SOAP enables to browse through the applications and cast ERAS applications in the more quick and organized way. The both parts – the applicant and the program are competing on the rating list of the rivaling competitors so the selection process is difficult.
There are several matching rounds taken during several months until all residency slots get occupied. It is quite predictable that those slots are always limited and the number of applicants is always huge so it is important to know what to do to increase your little chances for success. If there’s a chance each applicant can ask for support and hire a residency LoR service to cover all the paperwork.
How Does SOAP Work?
SOAP program lasts for several months and involves several rounds of selection until all available residency positions are taken. The selection process operates on the definite algorithm that determines the best match for each program. If interested you can familiarize yourself more closely with the selection scheme from the video.
Supplement Offer and Acceptance program is a series of offers where:
- Applicant states the interest in particular programs.
- Programs express their interests by submitting lists of applicants.
- The R3 system displays the preference for particular candidates defined by the program’s preferences.
- Applicant receives 0 to multiple offers in each round.
- The positions offered and accepted by the participants establish the commitment by the Match Participation Agreement.
Eligibility for SOAP
- 12.00 PM ET Friday before the Match Week, the NRMP is sending emails to applicants indicating their eligibility.
- Eligibility for FREE application available if you have the fully paid account and you paid for at least one ACGME accredited program.
- The usage of your ERAS id by the third party is illegal.
In general, each applicant must be:
- Registered with the NRMP for the Main Residency Match.
- Eligible to enter graduate medical education on July 1 in the year of the Match.
- Partially matched or fully unmatched on Monday of Match Week.
The 2016 Main Residency Match was the largest on record, encompassing 42,370 registered applicants and 30,750 positions. The number of United States allopathic medical school senior students grew by 221 to 18,668, and the number of available first-year (PGY-1) positions rose to 27,860, 567 more than last year.
image credit: nrmp.org
How to Apply for NRMP SOAP
Be ready that as an applicant you will receive 0 to multiple offers within each SOAP round.
- SOAP starts at 11 a.m Monday at assigned matching week.
- Check the unfilled programs on Match day list of programs with NRMP registration.
- Ranking and Results (R3) system starts at 12 p.m EST Monday of matching week.
- Start submitting the application via ERAS at 2 p.m. EST. During the process, you will be able to apply for the categorical, preliminary and advanced positions you’re eligible for.
- The Same day, 3 p.m EST the programs begin downloading applications via ERAS.
- Rounds begin at 12 p.m EST on Wednesday. At the same time, the programs are getting displayed to the applicants in the order of the most preferential ones defined by the candidates.
- Each round takes 2 hours, during that time span the applicants take or reject the received offers.
- The offers are sent again: the same day at 3 p.m, Wednesday at 9 a.m, 12 p.m., and 3 p.m, Thursday at 9 a.m, 12 p.m., and 3 p.m.
- If the match is found get ready for the interview. The applicant is usually notified via email and then goes through the shirt phone interviews.
In some cases, the video interviews are arranged but if the candidate is locally reachable he or she may be appointed to the actual office interview.
The fact that you didn’t go through for any program might be quite depressing but you can also approximately evaluate your chances looking into table stats representing the detailed picture of the SOAP summary for 2016. The table summarizes the 2016 Main Residency Match and shows the numbers of participating programs, offered positions, and unfilled programs. It also provides a ranking and matching data for U.S. seniors and all applicants.
What Are Your SOAP Match Chances?
There are no particular indicators that can show your chances of getting more offers by the programs, with the following data from 2016 research we can know this for sure, SOAP match criteria’s are not that easy to predict.
- For U.S. seniors who preferred the highly competitive specialties USMLE Step 2 scores were significant, but USMLE Step 1 scores were a better predictor of match success.
- The statistical data shows that MD graduates who re-enter the Match a year or more after graduation have less than a 50% chance of joining.
- For the U.S. seniors who preferred either a highly competitive or other specialty the success was not determined neither by the number of research experiences nor by the number of publications.
- Another graduate degree type didn’t correlate with match success for U.S. Seniors too.
- IMGs face even deeper challenges while matching.
So as you see there are no particular indicators determining your chances to get accepted on the program. If you’re striving to apply for the highly competitive position be ready that applying on the other specialty may even decrease your chances of getting accepted by SOAP program you wanted initially. It is somehow right to say that your competitive scores increase your overall chances but it won’t be enough to say that they will be decisive.
If you’re thinking of adjusting your SOAP personal statement to the right format and look you should keep in mind that because the application is processed via ERAS it means that only certain parts of your application can be modified for SOAP selection process. So that when you apply you can’t change MyEras application parts but it’s possible for you to update your Letters of Recommendations (LoRs) and personal statement.
