Match Day
Match Day 2025
March 21, 2025
2024 Match Day photos and story »
March 15, 2024
Match Day is an annual, nationwide event. On this day, graduating medical students across the country find out which specialties, and which hospitals or care centers, they have matched to for their residency training.
The Class of 2024 gathered with their loved ones to celebrate their residency matches. Video by Huy Mach and Kristina Sauerwein/Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. See the story and photos »
Match Day is the culmination of years of medical school and months of applications and interviews. At Washington University School of Medicine, students are supported and encouraged along their journeys, as each seeks to find their best match. Here, students get a world-class medical education that fully prepares them for the challenges and rigors of residency training.
Weeks before the Match, students across the country submit their preferred residency programs to the National Resident Matching Program, which uses an algorithm to make the assignments. When Match Day arrives, graduating medical students gather with classmates, family members and mentors to open the envelopes revealing where they will train to become surgeons, pediatricians, neurologists or physicians in other specialties.
Year after year, the Match process becomes more competitive as a greater number of medical students compete for a limited number of residency spots. And year after year, WashU Medicine students are highly successful in obtaining their chosen residency positions at top university-affiliated hospitals and medical centers across the country.
Finding the best fit
Career counseling dean Kathryn Diemer, MD, meets with students early and often to facilitate a successful match. Dr. Diemer notes that the Match is an increasingly involved process. She guides students toward necessary clinical, service and research experiences, and helps them network. “The better we are,” she says, “the better our match results and, importantly, the happier our students.”
Match Day photos and stories
For many medical students and their families, Match Day is an occasion as momentous as a wedding — a life event forever etched in their memories, shared with the classmates and loved ones who supported their journey to becoming doctors. Click below to see the celebration of past Match Day events.
Match Day coverage by year