<p>Yes. Presumably some of them will pass it on a second try, but presumably some of them will also fail Steps 2 and 3.</p>
<p>"Of the 2,169 U.S. citizen graduates of foreign medical schools (U.S. IMGs) who participated in the Match this year, 1,114 students or 51.4 percent, matched."</p>
<p>This statistic is for a one year period. It could be possible that some of those that didn't receive a residency match in the first year they applied, got one the following year, or two or three years later.</p>
<p>... is the flaw in that reasoning not obvious?</p>
<p>Okay, of the 49% who didn't get in, maybe 25% will get in next year, right? But then, what about last year's 25%? Well, they got in their "next year" -- that is, this year. So that means the 51.4% who matched is really 51.4-25%, or 26.4%. So 26% get in this year, and 25% get in next year, and all of a sudden we're back to...</p>
<p>50%.</p>
<p>So the running total is always the same. And the overall chance remains about 50%.</p>
<p>"This is an increase from 47.4 percent last year."</p>
<p>The percentage has been steadily increasing by a little each year if you look at the statistics over the course of some years.</p>
<p>"... is the flaw in that reasoning not obvious?"</p>
<p>no, but maybe because I'm doing something wrong.</p>
<p>well I was thinking of it this way:</p>
<p>lets say out of 100 students, 50 got matched the first year. and like you said, let's say 25% got accepted the next year out of the 50 left over from last year. so that's about 12 more people. </p>
<p>so over two years, 62 students got accepted out of the orignial 100.</p>
<p>No, you can't say that. If you assume that a large percentage of people get accepted on their 2nd and 3rd tries, then you will have to concede that much fewer than 50% get in on their first try. That's what BDM was saying. Or else the numbers won't match up.</p>
<p>oh I see. I'm not really good at math lol. I was just trying to figure it out in my head. we don't have the exact percentage that get 2nd year matches to be sure but I get what you're saying.</p>
<p>Thank you both!</p>
<p>is 25% really that high? what if it was percentage was only 10% then for second year? would that be 55 out of the original 100 then? but I guess that doesn't matter in the way you explained it.</p>