I was wondering if Dr. Levine or others can explain the best they understand how the match works. I have reviewed the NRMP website and asked school deans but everyone has a different understanding.
The match algorithm is designed to favor the applicant, not the program. In other words if you rank Columbia #1 and we have 6 spots and rank you 1-6 it's an easy automatic match. If we ranked you #7, however, you still would match at Columbia if 1 of our top 6 did not match with us and so on, and so on...
So, the computer doesn't go down your match list until it has no choice (meaning that people ranked higher than you have already filled those spots).
