Welcome to the New World Order in which the % of unmatched DOs is creeping higher while AOA continues to approve school openings left and right...
The percentage this year of matched DOs is somewhere in the 80s, as its been for at least the last few years. I want to say based on the limited data we have, it's somewhere in the 80-88% range. Unless AACOM releases a report similar to the one they released last year, we can't really get much more specific than that.
Now that said, the number of DO graduates has increased, so obviously if the percentage is around the same and the number increased, then more DOs are going unmatched.
As for placement, it is likely around 99%, again as it's been. There's no real way to verify this unless an official report comes out, or someone with time on their hands makes up a full DO match list after getting official lists from all the schools.
Actually the percent of DOs matching is going up slightly. The overall number of unmatched is larger.
Source:
NMS data
NRMP outcomes
I'm not seeing how they've actually gone up. They're certainly close (looks practically the same to me over the last couple years), and I agree with the statement that the NRMP match rate has gone up, but the AOA one went down, so it seems to be a wash. We don't have sufficient data at this point, mainly because of the whole previous vs. current grad issue that always plagues these calculations.
If we're going back years, then yes, plotting it out does appear to show an overall increase in the potential range of total DO match rate by 1-2% over the last 4-5 yrs, but that's a .2-.3% change annually that we really can't verify without additional data. Too hard to say its for sure gone up. Its somewhere in the 80s.
Let's have this convo again after your Year 1. I also was drinking the cool aid similarly to you last year
How about after matching and graduating? I'm pretty sure I disagree with IP's and your statements on this and actually agree with AnatomyGrey12. There really is no reason to think DOs are going to have more trouble matching into those specialties after the merger, especially when a decent majority of DOs matching into those specialties are already doing so in the NRMP match.
There really are very few DO residencies in most specialties, save FM, IM, EM, Ortho, and maybe GenSurg or OB (depending on your definition of "very few"), as AlbinoHawk said above.
You don't have to drink the kool-aid, you just have to look at the numbers.
Now if you were to argue that overall competitiveness for all specialties will increase because of the sheer number of grads increasing or because of average board score creep that has been happening since the start of resources like Pathoma, then that's another issue (one that I'd probably agree with).
