How well did our students match? A peer-validated quantitative assessment of medical school match success: the match quality score

Abstract

Background: Assessment of an individual medical school’s performance in the match is an important outcome of the educational program. Unfortunately, student rank lists are not public. A method to objectively gauge the quality of an institution’s match regardless of student preference has not been described in the literature. Objective: This manuscript serves to determine the relative weights of included variables and derive a statistically valid Match Quality Score (MQS). Design: Between 2016 and 2018, student affairs experts derived from a national cohort validated the MQS by scoring factitious mini-match lists that covered three variables: student’s Match Status, specialty Competitiveness, and residency program Reputation. Results: Of the variables assessed, only Match Status and Competitiveness were found to be significant. We derived the resulting coefficients for the Match Quality Score (MQS) as: [3.74A (# students successfully matched) + 2.34B (# students matching into their initial specialty in the SOAP process) + 1.77C (# students who secured a SOAP position in another specialty) + 0.26D (# students matching into a specialty where there are more applicants than spots)]/Total # students. Conclusions: The MQS is a potentially useful educational outcome measurement for US medical schools and may be considered as an outcome measure for continuous quality improvement to tailor future institutional changes to training, mentoring, and student-advising programs.