San Francisco Match (SF Match)

The SF Match provides residency and fellowship matching services to specialties and subspecialties across the spectrum of medicine. The Matching Process was developed to allow applicants to Residency and Fellowship training to visit and evaluate various training programs in a systematic fashion without the pressure of being asked for a commitment before the evaluation process is completed.  At the conclusion of their evaluation process, applicants can rank programs in a confidential fashion with the opportunity to match to the best available program.

The key to understanding the matching process is the concept of 'tentative acceptance'. The process is an 'applicant-proposing' one; this means that it is driven by the applicants' requests for placement. At first, all acceptances are tentative. As programs receive more requests, they will retain only those applicants they consider most desirable.

The Matching Program's role is that of an intermediary, executing binding instructions. The outcome is predetermined by the rank lists of programs and applicants. At no point can this outcome be modified by a judgment or bias on the part of the intermediary, nor is there any element of chance.