Exactly one year ago today, March 16, 2015, I was in your shoes: "We are sorry, you did not match to any position." My heart sank.
Like many of you, I have wanted to be a doctor since I was a little child, and the last 45-ish months of med-school had only made me feel more confident in that decision. I love it, and cannot imagine myself doing something else as a career. It was who I was. So when I got that dreaded email Monday morning I felt like my dream was slipping away.
I looked with fear at the list of unfilled positions in my chosen specialty (Emergency Medicine). Seven is an awfully small number, I thought. So like you may be doing now, I had to broaden my approach and apply to other specialties, which only adds to the nail-biting stress of the SOAP, but I could at least imagine myself being happy in another specialty, or transferring out after a year.
The first two rounds of the 2016 SOAP happened today, the last 3 rounds of SOAP are tomorrow. I hope you were/will be successful. I, however, was not.
I remember where I was when the final SOAP round came and went: Sitting at the student call-room computer, unmatched and unSOAP-ed, staring down a healthy six-figure debt and wondering if I was ever going to be a doctor at all. It was not just my dream of a career that was shattering, but a piece of my very identity along with it. I was devastated.
If this happens to you, I won't tell you not to be sad. Go ahead and grieve. I will, however, urge you to start making plans now. This is a detour, not a dead end. Talk to your advisers for options. (If you already have a backup plan in place, good for you!). See what electives you can fit in before graduation to strengthen your application and potentially generate new letters. Some of the things I considered after graduation were research, a job and masters programs (Public Health and Ethics). Which of these is the right choice for you may depend on your desired specialty. Again, talk to your adviser. There isn't a long time between graduation and the start of the next application cycle, so you start thinking now about what will look best when you re-apply.
Though somewhat rare, there are also PGY1 openings that come up after
SOAP via the AAMC "Find a Resident" service, and you need to be quick to
react.
Most importantly, do not suffer alone in silence, use your support system! Friends and family will help you get through this. They will remind you that you are not alone, and that you are not a failure. You have achieved tremendous success just getting to this point. Every year excellent candidates fail to match for one reason or another. Just a week later I got some encouragement from a dermatology and an ophthalmology resident, both of whom had failed to match or SOAP their first year, and those are pretty darned competitive specialties.
If you are not comfortable sharing with friends, talk to your school's counselor if/while you still have access (and insurance) - you won't be the first person he/she has helped through this. Same goes for the financial planner/adviser - those loans can be made more manageable.
Finally, try to find a silver lining in what can be a flexible year: Between volunteering at free clinics until interview season started again, I was able to attend two weddings I might have missed because of residency. I made a crazy Halloween costume that somehow became a great topic of discussion during a few interviews this season. I started to brush up on some language skills. Whatever you do, make the most of this time, because people will ask you about it! After interviews I ended up working a pretty cool job in the medical-technology space, which made for a nice update letter.
TL;DR - Yeah, this sucks, but you aren't alone and it isn't the end of the world. Start planning now and you can still succeed in the match.
Some stats:
Out of 25,931 US Senior applicants in 2015, 2,142 were unmatched or partially matched.
I don't have stats yet on how many people didn't match this year, but the match rate for US allopathic seniors hovers around 93-95%, so I imagine it will be similar this year.
There are 141 MD programs, odds are you are not alone at your
institution, even if no one else is talking about not matching.
