Tips on Selecting a Good Residency Match Consultant

Denise Kulawik, DENISE-K | CREATIVE
Getting into the best, most appropriate residency program possible can have a huge effect on a physician’s career. Chances are good you already know that, or you wouldn’t be reading this article.
Now that the 2025 ERAS Residency Match season is upon us, with the starting gate having opened on June 5, applicants are free to access ERAS and upload their materials. Most applicants are newly minted MDs hailing from LCME-accredited US or Canadian medical schools; however, there will also be plenty of ECFMG-certified IMGs and experienced physicians already licensed in other countries around the world who want to continue their medical training in a US hospital who will be throwing their hats into the ring.
The season’s “climax” is set for September 25, 2024, at 9:00 am when residency programs around the country will be able to download the first batch of applications. Technically, the ERAS application season continues through May 31, 2025. While there are differences of opinion as to whether you must make sure that your application is in the initial upload, the wisest approach is to assume that you should meet that September 25th deadline. Why leave anything to chance? Why risk sending a message that you couldn’t find the will to meet one of the most important deadlines of your professional life?
That said, anecdotal evidence suggests that plenty of physicians submit their applications later and they succeed in matching — including into the residency programs of their choice. Unfortunately, you have no way of knowing if your circumstances are remotely similar to theirs.
The Residency Consulting Marketplace
Given how anxiety-provoking the residency match process can be, it’s not surprising that a major industry has emerged that provides residency match consulting services to medical students and physicians. These services can be expensive, ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars. Why wouldn’t they be? Most MDs seeking to match in the US have already invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in their education and plenty of money in testing, transcripts, and application fees. More to the point, if a great consultant can help you secure the perfect residency, then the return on investment is well worth it.
Even if you’re a top student coming from a top medical school where you earned top grades, have no red flags, and scored highly on Step 2 CK, the nature of the match process and the sheer number of applicants (around 50,000 each year) can provoke anxiety. This is especially the case for those seeking residencies in competitive specialties and for the most elite physicians such as physician-scientists with legitimate aspirations for a career in academic medicine. The more accomplished and ambitious the physician, the fewer the appropriate positions and the tougher the competition.
On the other end of the spectrum, IMGs, especially those coming from Caribbean schools or MDs who have red flags such as past USMLE test failures, relatively low Step 2 CK test scores, or significant time gaps in training have a different set of challenges to overcome, making the match process even tougher. Around 80 percent of applicants coming from LCME-accredited schools succeed in matching. That leaves 20 percent with the disheartening experience of not matching at all. Among those 80 percent who do match, how many get into their top choice? It’s impossible to say; however, your goal should be to match to your top choice. For IMGs, the road is far tougher. Around 50 percent match each year.
In this context, working with the right advisor can get you over all sorts of confusion and hesitation that can undermine your efforts and wear away your confidence. They’ll be able to help you improve the quality of your application materials and leave you feeling self-assured when all-important interviews come around.
How to Recognize a Reputable Residency Consulting Firm
The question is: Do you have the right advisor? The quality of residency consulting services ranges wildly. Some organizations provide outstanding, sophisticated, client-centered services intended to help you prioritize and successfully target the most appropriate and achievable prospects. There are others that, while they may be able to provide some useful assistance, don’t necessarily have a high level of expertise and aren’t necessarily committed to your success. They figure that, statistically speaking, you’re likely to match somewhere, anyway. On some level, your success and their own is already baked in. And if you’re struggling with red flags or other impediments to matching, then they’re covered by your own diminished expectations.
Calling Balls and Strikes
I expect you’re waiting for my own pitch to serve as your consultant. Either that, or you’re waiting for a listicle of “Top Five Residency Consultants” that has been generously paid for by one or more of the firms on the list. Nope and nope. Not gonna happen.
I’m not a residency match consultant. I would never represent myself as a credible alternative to a qualified residency consultant. That said, I’ve either drafted or helped edit personal statements for hundreds of physicians in North America and around the globe seeking residencies in the US and Canada. I’ve worked with major residency match services and admissions consultants. Residency consulting as a field has grown and evolved markedly over the past five years. Although I know some firms either by experience or reputation, I wouldn’t hazard a guess on the top residency consultants. That said, I do have some suggestions on what you should be looking for.
Based on my experience, the following are some qualities I recommend you seek out in a consulting service as well as signs that you would be better off spending your money elsewhere.
The Mark of Good Residency Consultants
- Qualified Leadership. The consulting organization’s leaders and directors should be physicians and have past experience working in a medical school admissions office or as a residency program director. Just being a physician isn’t enough. The right experience includes admissions.
- Qualified Consultants. Their consultants — specifically your consultant — should be both a physician and have past experience working in a medical school admissions office or in a residency program.
- Qualified Interview Coaches. Good consulting organizations should provide you with interview coaching. In the end, while a residency continues your training, it is also your first big job in the US. You should see the process as, at least in part, a job search. That interview is key. A strong application can open a door, but it’s the interview that will either “close the deal” or close that door right in your face. Once again, look at the qualifications of your coach(es). They should have a background in one of three fields: medical school admissions, residency program leadership or management, or at least human resources in a hospital setting.
- The Right Approach to Personal Statements (Part 1). Good consultants will work with you to create personal statements tailored to at least your top 5-10 targets. For any given prospect, the tailored statement should answer the question: Why that specific residency program? Your personal statement should indicate that you’ve truly investigated and carefully considered the residency, its structure, its leadership, its programmatic strengths, and its medical staff. If you can apply this same level of care to all of your applications, then even better. I realize that this may be difficult to do. According to the AMA, physicians will apply to roughly 20 to 60 residency programs. Just remember that if you take a generic approach toward your prospects, the less likely it is that you’ll stand out as a memorable candidate in a good way.
- The Right Approach to Personal Statements (Part 2). The consultant should be adamant that your personal statement meets the one-page rule and should pushback — hard — if you imagine that this rule doesn’t apply to you. Everyone knows that residency directors won’t read past the first page of your personal statement. That page is generally between 500-600 words, tops. While the actual ERAS limit is 28,000 characters (roughly five pages), no sane individual imagines that a busy residency director is going to read five pages of your biographical material and thoughts on life and medicine. The general rule of thumb is that directors expect to see and will read one page only. Respect their time. Be disciplined and make sure your statements meet professional expectations. If this means a process of testing the length of the statement in your ERAS application until you get it right, then so be it. Even if you have red flags that you feel need to be addressed — especially if you have red flags you feel need to be addressed, make sure that you don’t compound your problems by presenting an overlong statement. If you have red flags, then take a minimal amount of space to refer to them and how you responded. Otherwise, confine your discussion of red flags to the ERAS application section reserved for that purpose.
- The Right Approach to Personal Statements (Part 3). If the consultant employs additional writers and editors, then this staff should have a strong knowledge of the medical field and match process, take time to ask you probing questions, and be able to understand your answers, especially if your responses to any of the company’s pro forma questionnaires aren’t fully articulated or are unclear. They should also be open to hearing the advice you’ve received from your consultant or other advisors. Smart writers will subordinate their own opinions when you’ve received advice that comes from an authoritative source. That said, smart writers will also know when an opinion is not authoritative and should be ignored.
Marks of a Poor Residency Consulting Services Organization
- Extremely high volume: Do they work with thousands or even tens of thousands of applicants each year? If so, then question the appropriateness of that operating model unless they happen to have hundreds of qualified consultants and hundreds of excellent writers and editors who can spend real time assisting you. Remember, you’re a physician looking to match into a residency. You’re not a commodity. Don’t let them treat you like one.
- Questionable Leadership & Consultants: Do their leaders, directors, and consultants conspicuously lack medical degrees and/or experience either within admissions office or residency program management? Remember: they should have both.
- Unqualified Interview Coaches. Interview coaches should have a background in one of three areas: medical school admissions, residency program leadership or management, or human resources in a hospital setting. If their background doesn’t include one or more of these areas, then they shouldn’t be coaching you.
- Subpar Writing Standards (Part 1). Do they encourage you to use a one-size-fits-all personal residency statement — especially for your top 5-10 programs? Any service that suggests you can use a generic statement for all programs is setting you up to look like a second-rate professional.
- Subpar Writing Standards (Part 2). Do they suggest that any draft statements they provide you can be up to 800 words or even more? If so, then they’ve just sold you a bill of goods. If you make the decision to submit an unprofessional document, then that’s on you. The choice is ultimately yours. But, if the service suggests that a draft that is overlong by 30 to 40 percent or more is “fine” and doesn’t counsel you — strenuously — against using a statement that fails the “one page rule,” then they don’t care about the quality of your work or their own. Saying “that’s fine” to 800 words means that they want you to move along quickly so that they can move along quickly. Writing, ultimately, is a process of editing down, forcing you to make all sorts of difficult choices. The process can be time-consuming, especially with high-stakes documents such as a residency statement. If you take up too much of their time, then you’ve become a bottleneck for a firm that makes its money through volume. Real consultants do not make their money through volume.
- Subpar Writing Standards (Part 3). Do they suggest creating a section that merely outlines what you’re “generally looking for” in a residency program? Do they imply that such a generic expression of interest is fine for all of your prospects, including your top program targets? If so, once again, this betrays a lack of care and low standards.
- Subpar Writing Standards (Part 4). To draft your statement, do they merely rely on information you’ve provided them in a pro forma questionnaire? Or do they follow up for more detailed answers, especially on key sections such as why you’ve selected a given specialty and key information that you want to stress about a given prospect?
Key Takeaways
A good residency consulting service can be money well spent, easing your mind during the match process, and setting you up either for the residency of your dreams or at least the very best residency to which you can realistically aspire. Think of their fees as an investment rather than a “cost.”
At the same time, don’t throw hard-earned money away at services that aren’t going to improve your chances. Any of the tendencies of poor consulting firms listed above should have you looking elsewhere for qualified assistance.
Some consulting organizations that fly these kinds of red flags may be able to provide you with valuable but limited help. Just don’t look to them for anything more than access to their prospect database where you can input your baseline information and get a shortlist of targets. Even better, see if your medical school career office has resources that can help you with prospecting for free. In either case, make certain that you enlist the aid of truly qualified consultants when it comes time to prepare your applications.