How Many Residency Programs Should I apply to?

The numbers of applications to submit to the residency programs during the initial ERAS season per specialty will differ if you are an American medical graduate AMG or and International medical graduate IMG. Typically, the IMG will apply to far higher number of programs to get an acceptable number of interviews to help him or her get a successful residency match outcome.

The number of programs to apply to will vary from an applicant to another based on many factors which include in addition to the site of graduation and the type of specialty: financial ability, USMLE scores and attempts, number of USCE, year of graduation, need for visa and the amount of competition per that specialty. Except for the financial reasons which limit a lot and affect the number drastically in many cases, the remainder factors are played less often in the selection decision by the applicants. The reason for that is a lot of applicants started since 2009 with a new trend by applying to whatever they can afford to get the highest number of interviews possible. This creates a low pool of applicants getting interviews initially but eventually many will cancel and another bout of interviews are send again around November to fill the open interview spots.

In this post we are attaching here the median/range number of programs AMGs and IMGs usually apply to earn decent amount of interviews. Keep in mind that some financially able people has no limits on to how many residency programs or even specialties they are applying to, as long as they meet these Selection Criteria.

Specialty	Average Range of number of applications per AMG	Average Range of number of applications per IMG
Anesthesiology	20-40	50-80
Dermatology	50-90	70-100
Radiology	40-80	60-110
Emergency Medicine	20-40	50-90
Family Medicine	10-25	100-220
General Surgery	30-60	120-250
Internal Medicine	15-30	150-270
Med/Peds	10-20	30-50
Neurology	15-40	60-90
OB/Gyn	20-50	100-180
Orthopedics	40-70	100-130
Otolaryngology	45-80	60-100
Pathology	15-25	70-100
Pediatrics	20-30	100-140
PMR	15-40	40-60
Plastic Surgery	30-50	40-55
Psychiatry	10-30	70-140
Radiation Oncology	35-60	50-70
Transitional Year	15-30	40-70

Is internship a requirement before applying to residency in the US?

It is not a requirement to have completed a foreign internship to join a residency in the US if this what you mean by your question.

Medical residencies in the US are of 2 types in general depending on the specialty:

1- Either it includes internship integrated with the program so you match into PGY1 and continue residency in the same program

2- Or the program start with PGY2 but has a requirement of doing a US PGY1 hence you have to apply to both positions through the match in the same season where you will match to 2 different programs PGY1 and PGY2 simultaneously one staring same year and the PGY2 starting the next year.

If you match to a PGY1 only you can complete that year as hands on 1 year paid USCE and apply the next year to PGY2 positions. If you match to PGY2 only then you have either to find a PGY1 outside the match or forfeit your position and apply again from scratch the next season.