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Medical School Welcome Newsletter

Dear Medical School Officials and Administrators,

The National Resident Matching Program® (NRMP®) is pleased to welcome you to the 2027 Main Residency Match®! Registration opens at 12 p.m. ET on Tuesday, September 15. Below is information on getting started as well as links to important resources. 

The NRMP is looking forward to a great Match!

Match Calendars and Resources

Review the 2027 Main Residency Match Calendar to keep track of Match deadlines for you and your students throughout the process.

Match Week and the Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program® (SOAP®) will be March 15-19, with Match Day on March 19, 2027. The Match Week and SOAP schedule can be found on the website along with FAQs, step-by-step support guides, and Match checklists to help you navigate the Match process.

Learning Resources

The NRMP is hosting a 2027 Main Residency Match Overview for Medical Schools webinar on Thursday, September 10, at 1 p.m. ET. The webinar will provide school officials and administrators an overview of the Match process, important policies, responsibilities, and resources available as you move through the Match process. Registration is required.

The NRMP also released an Introduction to the 2027 Main Residency Match for Applicants webinar. The webinar provides an overview of Match processes and policies to assist your students as they prepare to register for the Match along with important information on applicant eligibility requirements, various application services, and NRMP’s program directory. Please share the webinar with your students.

Registration and Enrolling in Multi-Factor Authentication

On September 15, school officials and administrators will receive an email with instructions for Match registration. The NRMP’s Registration, Ranking, and Results® (R3®) system is used by school officials to verify students’ and graduates’ credentials, monitor Match participation status, and obtain Match results and statistics. 

NEW THIS YEAR! NRMP has implemented multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all R3 system users. MFA strengthens account security by requiring a second form of verification in addition to a password each time you log in, helping prevent unauthorized access even if login credentials are compromised. It also enhances protection of sensitive Match data including rank order lists, results, and reports for all users.  

How Does MFA Work? When you next log into the R3 system or register a new user account, you will be prompted to enroll in MFA by entering your U.S. mobile phone number or your email address. You will receive a 6-digit verification code by text or email, and you will enter that verification code to prevent unauthorized users accessing your account. View our support guide for step-by-step enrollment instructions and screenshots. 

Getting Started

Once registered, school officials should get started on the Medical School Match Checklist. 

Below are links to other resources to prepare you for the Match.

IMPORTANT! Remind students to enter their application service ID (e.g. AAMC and/or ResidencyCAS) into their NRMP profile to assist programs in ranking them.

Program Directory for Applicants

The NRMP maintains a program directory for applicants, displaying participating program information and the application service programs are using, where provided, for over 6,600 PGY-1 and PGY-2 programs. The directory has been updated since May 1, when residency programs began updating their application service and program information in the R3 system. We encourage you to share the program directory with your students.

IMPORTANT! NRMP and the different application service providers (AAMC’s ERAS® and ResidencyCAS) are separate organizations and applicants must register for both the NRMP and the application service required by the program(s).

Voluntary ROL Lock Pilot for Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, and Vascular Surgery

The NRMP will continue the Voluntary Program Rank Order List (ROL) Lock Pilot initiative in partnership with the Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, and Vascular Surgery specialties for the 2027 Main Residency Match.

This pilot will make it possible for a participating program to voluntarily lock its ROL before the certification deadline. After interviews are completed and the program ROL is locked, applicants will have the opportunity to attend—or not—post-interview visits, helping them make more informed ranking decisions without impacting their position on a program’s ROL. Applicants will be able to search R3 to see if programs signed up for the pilot in the fall of 2026 and if programs locked their rank order lists in February 2027. 

Policies

During registration, medical school officials and administrators will be asked to read and electronically sign the Match Participation Agreement (MPA) for Medical Schools. The MPA outlines the rights and responsibilities of medical schools that participate in the Main Residency Match.

Every medical school official and administrator should read the MPA thoroughly because it is binding. That said, here are some important considerations:

Communicate With Clarity. Medical school officials must be transparent with programs and convey all information related to an applicant’s medical school experience. Accurate information must be maintained and communicated, verbally and in writing, throughout the application, interview, ranking, matching, and onboarding processes.

  • Be sure that the Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE) contains complete and accurate information about an applicant’s journey, highlighting all academic and personal events that could bear on a program’s consideration of the applicant’s candidacy.
  • Create and upload an addendum to an MSPE if the school has confirmed knowledge the MSPE, as written, is no longer accurate.
  • Contact a program, even after a student has matched, if there is something about the student’s status (e.g., delayed graduation, transfer) that will impact the student entering the program. 

Respect Boundaries. Medical school officials may not request, require, or pressure an applicant to disclose their rank order lists or SOAP preferences. School officials may offer to review rank order lists or SOAP preferences to support the applicant in the matching process.

Accelerated Three-Year Students Use the Match. Medical schools offering a 3-year medical education curriculum track must ensure that the school and any affiliated Match-participating programs are not entering into agreements with students regarding training positions outside the Match.

To foster and provide clarity on Match etiquette, the NRMP has a Match Code of Conduct for Medical Schools. In addition to language codified in the Match Agreement, the NRMP expects every medical school official, staff, and faculty member to:  

  • Refrain from inappropriate Match Week communication – Do not share the List of Unfilled Programs with ineligible applicants and do not engage unfilled programs until programs initiate contact with eligible, unmatched applicants.
  • Respect the binding nature of the Match commitment – Encourage applicants to honor their commitments and do not support their seeking alternate training without first obtaining a waiver from NRMP.

Don’t hesitate to reach out to policy@nrmp.org with any questions. We are here to help you throughout the transition! 

Access Match Data and Your Customized Medical School Report

The NRMP has a variety of data and research reports available to assist Main Residency Match participants. The Match Data section features curated, timely content and offers a filter option to help you find current and previously archived data reports by various reports, topics, themes, and years.

CUSTOM REPORT! Charting Outcomes™: Medical School Report for the 2026 Main Residency Match® is a report uniquely tailored to each Match-participating medical school and is designed to improve transparency and foster deeper insights about senior students as they navigate the transition to residency. Tables in the report provide school-specific profiles of seniors’ Match and SOAP outcomes, specialty preferences, demographic characteristics, and ranking preferences as well as benchmarks comparing each school’s senior students’ outcomes against national data. 

How to view your custom report? To view your Charting Outcomes™: Medical School Report, log in to NRMP’s R3 system with your username and password, select “Reports” under the Options menu, and click on the report name.  

UPDATED REPORTS! Looking for data-driven insights to guide specialty advising? Explore the newest Charting Outcomes™: Characteristics of Applicants Who Match to Their Preferred Specialty reports, now updated with the 2026 Main Residency Match data. Available in both PDF and interactive formats, these reports allow users to examine how a variety of applicant attributes affect Match outcomes and matching to a preferred specialty. Two versions of the interactive Charting Outcomes™: Characteristics of Applicants who Match to Their Preferred Specialty are available, offering flexible ways to explore the data based on type and step/level of licensure examination.

Applicant Advising Videos

NRMP’s series of short advising videos provide timely guidance to help applicants navigate every stage of the transition to residency, from applying, and interviewing to ranking, and matching. We encourage you to watch the videos and share them with your students throughout the season.

Medical School Match Fees

The tiered, flat fee structure is based on the number of senior students from each school/campus who register to participate in the Match. At the conclusion of the Match Residency Match, the school official and billing contact, if one has been designated, will receive an invoice through the R3 system.

IMPORTANT! It is requested that you enter billing contact information when you log in to the R3 system to ensure receipt of the invoice. To enter a billing contact, log in to the R3 system with your username and password and click the “My School” option in the “School” dropdown menu. Billing contact information can be added under the resulting “Billing Contact” tab.

Visit the Match Fees page to view current fees and learn more about preferred payment methods.

Support Services

Medical school users can find all the resources they need to navigate the matching process in the Medical Schools section of nrmp.org.

Assistance is available from the NRMP support staff Monday – Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. ET by emailing support@nrmp.org or calling 866-653-NRMP (6767).