The "NRMP MATCH TRICK" - or is it ?

The problem with my digitaldoc2002@gmail.com inbox is that I am finding it next to impossible to reply to, and at times even read, each one of the daily 30-50 emails and/or blog comments I receive. But hell - who am I to complain, at least the situation ain't as bad as God's Inbox...;-) Not that I am comparing myself to God - and surely not claiming legal status as God - as this dude from Mumbai did !

Recently, too many emails had a subject line asking me about the so called "NRMP MATCH trick" - and like true men of science, let us see what comes out of this one.

Note: This post was written during the 2007 Match season and results survey undertaken after the match results were out then showed that this 'trick' did not have any predictive value. I shall hold another survey this year too as a final nail on the coffin ! So, read if you want for amusement purposes - and while some candidates do not want to to try this during the match wait time, to avoid any unnecessary anxiety, I must disclaim any responsibility for stress-induced sicknesses ;-)


The hypothesis of the trick is that it is possible to determine a candidate's match status BEFORE the official match release date using these steps:

1. Login to the NRMP account
2. After you logged in, you should see two links that say "Unfilled programs" - one on the left vertical menu and another small text link at the bottom of the main page area.
3. Now click on the link at the bottom - if you get logged out after you click on that bottom link, then as per the claimers of this trick, it implies you have matched at some residency program.

Now, that almost seems plausible, coz' if a person is already matched, there is no need why that person should have a list of Unfilled places in the first place. A justified rumor always spreads faster than a hollow one right ? ;-).

Here are some facts that make me 99% sure this so called trick carries no water at all and is false:

1. Clicking on the link on the bottom is BOUND TO LOG YOU OUT - as long as the link points to a folder on the System Administrators account (which would need a separate login) while the one on the top points to a link on the candidates web-folder itself, and would not need a separate login process)

Comparing the link URL pointers -

Specifically, the bottom link points to :
services.nrmp.org/R3/Sysadmin/MyReports/blah-blah-blah

WHile the link of the left menu points to:
services.nrmp.org/R3/Applicant/MyReports/blah-blah-blah

So, as long as you clicking to links that point to the same Applicant folder, you will naturally NOT be logged out, that's how the Internet works. To know Where to look for the pointing URL of those links on your NRMP account, on the status bar of your Internet Browsers, Click here for a Screenshot.

2. Some people with no interviews at all and were registered with the NRMP get logged out too !

3. A email I got on this issue was that the link to the unfilled program list might have a code specific to the candidate - for example the link code for the unfilled program list looks like this:

"https://services.nrmp.org/R3/Applicant/MyReports/Unfilled_Pgm.cfm?
CFID=1&CFTOKEN=1D0E9DC1-3228-4CAE-BFA86A605061A28E"

i.e he meant the last garbled looking suffix : "1D0E9DC1-3228-4CAE-BFA86A605061A28E"

Which again is incorrect. Notice the "CFID" and "CFTOKEN" combination used for the link - these codes are dynamically generated by the program ColdFusion MX which is used to directly and dynamically generate the PDF format of a report online everytime the query is run from the NRMP Database, and that is what the folks at NRMP.org are using. This is evident from the .cmf extension being used for the link instead of the .html or .htm extensions you see for regular web-pages

That 'code' is to identify a active online session and is unique to a user for a given logged-in session. In Other words, if you login again after 30-40 minutes, you are bound to see another 'id' code. This ID-TOKEN combination is basically a security feature to prevent any hacking possibility or prevent public search engines like Google to access the web-server files that are not meant to be public.


Now, Despite being 99% sure that this trick is a made-up hoax, the reasons why I still did have a 1% lingering doubt about the verity of this trick claim:

1. Some people did claim that did not get logged out after clicking on that now infamous bottom link. In such cases I would encourage having a look at the URL target for that link as explained on the screenshot above.

2. I wonder why have NRMP would have two different link URL targets for the same "Unfilled Programs" Link

3. We don't have enough evidence to disprove the hypothesis. In fact, to solve this mystery, I will be rolling out an online survey to folks on my Orkut, Facebook and Myspace communities to gather information to compare real match outcome versus predicted match outcomes and then, just for fun, run something like a Pearman's correlational analysis using SPSS to see the statistical strength of such an association!

4. If BOTH matched and unmatched applicants were given access to the unmatched program list by NRMP, this rumor would go flat out of window as inconsequential, but since only unmatched applicants will be granted access to the list.....hmm..gotta hold on till confirmatory proof pours in after the match.






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