Ranking

Starting during the CaRMS interview period, we are able to rank our programs but CaRMS doesn't lock in our choices until February 22nd. We can stew in our choices and make changes until then.

This is where the voodoo really starts.

CaRMS insists that the student is always the one who comes out on top and that they are able to match most students with their number one choice. Last year, 64.6% got their top choice, 2.9% got their 7th or lower.


Here’s how I see it happening for my friends applying to urban family.
Friend 1 wants to rank Mac - Hamilton, Mac - Brampton, UofT - urban, UWO - London, UWO - Regional (that’s it, he’s ballsy and only applied to 3 schools).

He is a good applicant, not stellar though, and will likely show up on each of the school’s rank lists unless he told one of his jokes in the interview, then God have mercy on his soul...
For this friend, having a pool of potential partners is more important than the program. Fair enough given that most family programs are essentially the same, it’s just the location that is remarkably different.
He will rank 1 - UofT, 2 - MH, 3. UL, 4. MB, 5. UR

When CaRMS goes to match him, they will first put him in the pool of people who picked UofT urban. There are 106 spots available for Canadian Medical Grads, so his odds are good. But if more than 106 people ranked UofT Urban first, my friend needs for UofT to have ranked him higher than a bunch of the others applying. If he is ranked 120 and UofT gets to their 150 spot of applicants, he’s in. If UofT only gets to 110, my friend goes to his second choice instead.

Here’s how it happens with me applying to my many (many) rural programs. Because the rural programs are so small, it may be easier to understand. Also because they are so small, it’s absolutely terrifying for me.

I’m ranking 24 programs all together (at 6 different schools). My top 5 programs have 22 spots total. Very different from my friend’s top 5 which has almost 300.
A - 2 spots
B - 1 spot
C - 5 spots
D - 1 spot
E - 13 spots
So my top 5 programs span 2 schools who have ranked me. At the risk of sounding conceited, I’m a strong candidate. I’ve been to the conferences, done the FM research, sat on every FM committee I could plus all my usual extracurriculars. On the whole, not a sucky candidate. I’m hoping it’s good enough to make it into their top ten.

Program A has 4 people who, like me, are gunning for it and will definitely rank A as their #1. There may be more but my sources weren’t clear. If any 2 of the 4 rank higher than me, CaRMS will look at my number 2 spot. If I’m lucky, no one else will want B as number one and it will still be in the running. Then I’m competing against all others who have B as #2. If that school ranks me above all others with it as #2, I get B. If not, I’m moved on to C. And so on.

It’s easy to see that if this continues, given how small the rural programs are, I could potentially end up at my 24th choice.

The trick with the ranking though, is to ignore what the schools are going to do and rank the programs according to what you want. Easier with the big programs than the small in my opinion... The other trick is to only rank the programs you can honestly see yourself in. Even though I have a program ranked 24, it would still be a good program for me. It’s clearly not my favourite, but if sent there by my binding CaRMS contract, I’m OK with it.

There are some programs I’m just not ranking because I don’t want to be sent to them. Worst case scenario I’m sent to the 2nd iteration and start over again.