How to Navigate ERAS/NRMP

General Advice for Approaching ERAS

This is GENERAL advice, please remember that details may vary based on your specialty.

How to Fill Out ERAS

• General Information:

  • Demographics 

• Geographic and Setting Preferences:

  • Geographic Region Signals

    • You have the option to write a 300 character paragraph for each of your selected regions explaining your preference. If you preference the West North Central region, for example, all schools in this region will see that you preferenced the area. Schools outside of this region will not see anything for this section. If you select NO geographic preferences, ALL programs will see that you selected no preference. 

  • Setting Preferences (Rural, Suburban, Urban)

    • You have the option to write a 300 character paragraph explaining your preference. This selection will be seen by ALL programs you apply to. 

  • Hometowns

    • You can select up to 3 hometowns.

• Background Information

  • Felonies

  • Licensing and Certification Information

• Education

  • Undergraduate 

  • Medical 

    • Any unplanned interruptions (due to academic or professional issues) or extensions in medical training?

  • Post-graduate Training

• Honors and Awards

  • MCASOM does not do AUA. We do have GHHS.

• Professional Memberships

• Experiences 

  • 10 total experiences, up to 3 can be listed as “most meaningful,” for which you have extra characters to discuss experience. 

  • Please note that different application platforms (ie Central App, ResidencyCAS) will have different character limits so be sure to know which you are writing for!

  • For each experience, you will be asked for the following information:

    • Name of Experience

    • Organization

    • Location

    • Setting 

    • Primary Focus (Multiple Choice)

    • Dates

    • Participation Frequency

    • Experience Type (Multiple Choice)

    • Key Characteristic (Multiple Choice)

    • Context, Roles, and Responsibilities - 750 characters (with spaces)

    • Most Meaningful (if selected as a most meaningful experience) - 300 characters (with spaces)

    • You are NOT required to fill out participation frequency/setting

  • There is a separate section for hobbies and interests with a 300 character limit (with spaces). You can also include a hobby or interest as an experience. 

• Impactful Experience

  • You have the option to describe any influences or hardships that impacted your journey to residency. This could include experiences related to family background, financial background, community setting, educational experiences, and/or general life experiences (maximum of 750 characters with spaces).

• Publications

• These include PUBLISHED peer reviewed journal articles/abstracts from conferences, “OTHER THAN PUBLISHED” peer reviewed journal articles/abstracts, oral and poster presentations, non-peer reviewed online publications 

• Organized within the application by alphabetical order of author name: for example, my last name is Wu and all my first author publications are at the bottom of each section.

• Articles or abstracts MUST be published or ACTIVELY under review with a journal in order to be listed on ERAS, for the latter only include under the “other than published” section.

• You can list future presentations if you have confirmation that your project will be presented at a future conference. 

• Several applicants have questions about repeating entries (ie. what do you do if you have the same project that was presented at a conference, that was published as an abstract, and also is under review as a manuscript). 

  • It is the belief of these authors that if you have a manuscript under review/published for a project that was previously published as an abstract, it may be “double dipping” to list both the abstract and manuscript. These authors elected to include only their manuscript in such cases. If the same project was also presented at a conference, we do suggest including the presentation as a separate entry as this is a completely separate experience than the publication itself.

  • You can list presentations, abstracts, and manuscripts where you are not the presenting author or first author. 

• The order in which the publications appear is as below:

• When entering published manuscripts, you may find that there are components of the citation that you are missing (e.g. issue number, volume). These are required fields. These authors placed a space in those boxes, which comes out looking like this in the finished application:

• Proficient Languages

  • List only languages that you would feel comfortable busting out in an interview, as this does occur sometimes (anecdotally)!

• Personal Statement

  • The personal statement is NOT a part of your application; it is a separate entity in ERAS. You have the option to upload more than one personal statement and can assign specific personal statements to specific programs. If you are dual applying or applying to pre-lims/transitional years, this is also an opportunity to personalize the personal statement.

  • It is STRONGLY recommended to keep your personal statement to approximately 1 page, single-spaced. Be sure to check how it uploads into ERAS, as the page margins are slightly different than Word or Google Docs. 

  • There is no standard or suggested structure for the personal statement. It should discuss why you are applying to your specialty and any meaningful experiences that led you to that decision. You may choose to highlight traits or characteristics about yourself that would be appealing to residency programs.

  • Deciding whether to personalize a personal statement to a program is dependent on your specialty. The vast majority of applicants do not write a personalized essay for specific programs, but you may choose to do so if you have a compelling reason for applying to a specific program. 

  • Check out this page for some tips on writing a personal statement.

• LORs:

  • You will have to manually assign your LORs to your programs. This allows for flexibility if you have a LOR from an attending with connections to a certain program of interest. Pay attention to how many LORs each program asks for - you may want to look at their website as some programs can be pretty strict about # of letters. 

• USMLE/Transcript/MSPE/Photo:

  • These are listed under additional documents. You will have to manually assign your USMLE transcript and photo to your programs. The MSPE & medical school transcripts are automatically sent to programs.

  • USMLE Transcript: You have to authorize the release of the transcript. You also have to request the transcript to be uploaded through ERAS. Then, you will manually assign the transcript to each program. 

  • You need to authorize the release of your medical school transcript (the registrar will send the information about this in the late summer). You may want to wait to request that your transcript be uploaded if you are waiting on final rotation grades - however, please do not wait too long! It is pretty fast but not instantaneous to have the transcript uploaded (1-2 days, perhaps more if you are waiting til the last minute).

  • The school automatically uploads the MSPE. DO NOT panic if the MSPE is uploaded close to the deadline - the school does this to ensure that all MSPEs are accurate and updated prior to upload. Since the MSPE and transcript are automatically sent, you don’t need to do anything to make sure it’s sent to programs after it is in your ERAS portal.

  • Some applicants choose to retake a headshot for ERAS applications. Any professional headshot can be used for your application. The school may email about a free opportunity to retake your MCASOM headshot, but this often is during the summer when you may be gone for aways! 

    • I did mine at JCPenney because I wasn’t in AZ, which was a great option.

• Programs

• There are several sections within the programs tab. When you search programs, make sure you have the correct specialty selected. 

• Once you search programs, you can save the ones you are planning to apply to - these will show up in Saved Programs.

• Under Saved Programs, if your specialty participates in signaling, you can assign a signal to a program on the right-side drop down menu. 

• You can ASSIGN documents to each program under SAVED programs. Assignable documents include LORs, personal statement, USMLE transcript, and photo. 

• You CANNOT APPLY to programs until you have CERTIFIED (see below under Timeline). 

• Once you have APPLIED to a program, you CANNOT change the LORs assigned to that program. 

• You can withdraw from an applied program. If you choose to reinstate your application to that program, the program will be notified that you reinstated it.

Timeline

• Ideally, plan to begin your personal statement before VSLO is open/accepting applications, or before you begin your first sub-I/elective. This ensures that if/when you are extremely busy on your rotations, you have a good foundation to come back to and work from before ERAS is due. Obviously, you do not have to use this PS or its structure as your final version, but it is good to help you think about what you want to ultimately include/look for when you are on rotations. Beware, the personal statement process often takes longer than people expect it to!

• Ideally, plan to begin writing your experiences 1-2 months before ERAS is due. While these are much shorter than the personal statement, it can take time to refine and cut down to meet the character limit. 

• Be sure to ask for LORs WELL in advance of the ERAS deadline. Ideally, ask for letters at the end of a clinical rotation so the writer has gotten to know you as much as possible and your time with them is still fresh. Follow-up with your letter writers periodically and as the ERAS deadline gets closer to make sure they are working on it/submitting it. LOR writers frequently ask for your CV and/or personal statement when you ask them to write a letter! Be prepared to have a draft of these files to share with them!

• YOU MUST CERTIFY AND SUBMIT your APPLICATION (THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE YOUR PERSONAL STATEMENT, LORs, USMLE transcript, MSPE, photo, medical school transcript) BEFORE YOU CAN APPLY TO PROGRAMS.

  • ONCE YOU CERTIFY AND SUBMIT, YOU CAN NO LONGER CHANGE YOUR ACTIVITIES OR PUBLICATIONS

  • YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION BUT THAT IS IT.

• THEN, YOU WILL GO INTO YOUR PROGRAMS AND APPLY TO THE ONES YOU HAVE SAVED AND ASSIGNED ALL APPROPRIATE AND DESIRED DOCUMENTS TO. AT THIS POINT, YOU WILL BE ASKED FOR PAYMENT. THIS MEANS YOU HAVE APPLIED TO RESIDENCY. IF YOU HAVE NOT PAID YET, YOU HAVE NOT APPLIED.

• For Urology applicants: make sure you register for AUA and input your AUA ID into your ERAS application before the end of December!

• Make sure you register for NRMP and input your NRMP ID into your ERAS application by January 31st of your application cycle!

Here are some helpful YT videos for navigating ERAS as of Sept 2024:

• ERAS Application 2025 | Step-by-Step Guide | Tips on How to Fill the ERAS® Residency Application?

• The Applicant’s Guide to Strategic Preference Signaling

• Registering for the Match

• Complete ERAS Strategy: MyERAS, PS, LoRs, LoIs, Signals & Program Research

• Navigating Match Week and SOAP for Applicants Webinar

Congratulations on taking a huge step into your future - it may seem scary now, but it is an incredible time to celebrate all your accomplishments in medical school and look forward to spending some needed time with loved ones!!! Enjoy 4th year!!!!

written February 2025 by Renita Wilson, Sarah Wu, Jess Qu, and Lexi Winfrey