• The MyERAS application can be viewed as a PDF by selecting “View/Print MyERAS Application” in the Application tile on the Dashboard and in the top right area of every page under the Application section. The PDF will open in a new tab. 
• This PDF shows you how the contents of the MyERAS application will be displayed to programs. 
• The PDF of the MyERAS applications is displayed in American Psychological Association style to programs.  

The Curriculum Vitae (CV) populates the information you entered in the Application section of the MyERAS portal. The CV is nothing more than the MyERAS application formatted differently for the benefit of programs that prefer to view applications in a CV format. It can be accessed by selecting “View/Print CV” in the same location as the View/Print MyERAS Application button. 

Note: This section of the application should be kept up to date throughout the application season. 

In This Section:

• AAMC Account Information
• Basic Information
• Address
• Work Authorization Information
• Match Information
• Additional Information

AAMC Account Information

You can edit any contact information, such as names, gender, email, and birth date. It may take a few minutes for an updated email to be reflected in the MyERAS application. 

• Note: You may opt to release your birth date to programs you have applied to. You may redact the birth date by unchecking the box and saving the Personal Information section. Although the birth date can be redacted after applying, programs may have already seen it. The AAMC account information is shared across all AAMC services. 

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Basic Information

You may enter contact information, such as your preferred name and preferred phone numbers, so that programs may reach out to you. 

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Address

Current Mailing Address should be used to provide your most current address to programs throughout the application season. 

• Permanent Address should be used to provide your most reliable address to programs throughout the application season. 

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Work Authorization Information

You should make these selections based on your current work authorization status. 

• Selections that are not marked as required (not denoted with an *) in this section are collected in accordance with the AAMC Self-Identification of Citizenship Data Collection Standard. 

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Match Information

You should make these selections to indicate your intentions to participate individually or as a couple, with all matching services applicable to you for the current season. 

• Match information is collected for the NRMP® Match and the Urology Match. 

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Additional Information

• Exam transcript IDs — You must enter your USMLE ID and NBOME ID (DO applicants only) to send your USMLE and/or COMLEX-USA exam scores to programs. 
• American Osteopathic Association (AOA) Member Number (DO applicants only) — You may enter this information, if applicable. 
• Life Support Certifications — If applicable, you should indicate your current status and expiration date for: 
  • Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS). 
  • Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS). 
  • Basic Life Support (BLS). 
• Honor Societies — If applicable, you should indicate your current status in: 
  • Sigma Phi (SSP) (DO applicants only). 
  • Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) (MD applicants only). 
  • Gold Humanism Honor Society (GHHS).

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In this Section:

• Self-Identification
• Language Fluency
• Military Information
• Geographic Preferences
• Setting Preferences
• Hometowns

Self-Identification

You may indicate to programs how you self-identify. If you prefer not to self-identify, you may skip this section. 

• Applicants who reside in the European Union are not to answer this question. 

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Language Fluency

You must enter the languages you speak, including English. You must also indicate your proficiency for each language. 

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Military Information

You must indicate any U.S. military active duty service obligations or deferments, including the branch and number of years remaining, if applicable. 

• Any other service obligations (e.g., military reserves, public health/state programs) should also be indicated and described in the associated text field. 

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Geographic Preferences

The Geographic Preferences section of the MyERAS application gives you the opportunity to communicate your preference or lack of preference for geographic divisions and urban, suburban, or rural settings.  

The Geographic Preferences section, which includes setting preferences, has two parts: 

1. Geographic Preferences. You will be asked to indicate your preferences (or lack of preference) by selecting up to three U.S. Census divisions and then to describe your preferences or lack of preference.  
2. Setting Preferences. You will be asked to indicate your preferences (or lack of preference) for an urban, suburban, or rural setting and then to describe your setting preferences or lack of preference.  

Geographic Preference Divisions Map

• New England: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont. 
• Middle Atlantic: New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania. 
• East North Central: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin. 
• West North Central: Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota. 
• South Atlantic: Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia. 
• East South Central: Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee. 
• West South Central: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas. 
• Mountain: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming. 
• Pacific: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington.  

How are geographic and setting preferences shared with programs

For geographic division preferences: 

• If you select a particular geographic division, then only the programs you apply to in that division will see your response. All other programs you apply to outside your preferred divisions will not see any information about your geographic preferences. 

• If you select “I do not have a division preference,” then all programs to which you apply will see your response.  

• If you do not respond to or skip this question, no information will be provided to any program. 

For setting preferences: 

• If you indicate a preference or lack of preference for setting, your preference (or lack of preference) and corresponding explanation will be shared with all programs to which you apply. 

• If you do not respond to or skip the question, no setting preference information will be shared with any programs. 

How will programs use geographic and setting preferences? 

Programs are instructed to use geographic and setting preferences as pieces of information to consider during the application review and interview selection process only, because applicants may change their preferences throughout the interview season. To assist with application evaluation, programs can filter applicants based on geographic division and/or setting preferences. Although programs have been advised that preferences are not to be used in isolation as a screening tool, some programs may use them during screening  

The following data on programs’ use of geographic division and setting preferences are based on answers to survey questions aimed at understanding programs’ use of the geographic and setting preference data collected during the ERAS 2023 season: 

• Some programs may give priority to applicants with a preference for their division, and some (47% of respondents) may feel that applicants who show a preference for their region are more likely to accept an offer to interview at their programs.  
• Most program directors (82% of respondents) used the Geographic Preferences section during their admissions process and reported that it helped them identify applicants whom they would have otherwise overlooked (59% of respondents). 
• Program directors using applicants’ geographic preferences during various stages of the application process:  
• As a screening tool before a more thorough application review (86% of respondents).  
• To send interview invitations to every applicant who selected their region (58% of respondents).  
• To include in a composite filter to conduct holistic review (74% of respondents). 
• As part of a holistic application review to decide whom to interview (94% of respondents). 
• As a tiebreaker to help decide whom to interview (88% of respondents).  
• To prepare for the interview (70% of respondents). 

For more detailed information on how programs and specialties used geographic and setting preferences in the ERAS 2023 season, refer to Supplemental ERAS 2022-2023 Application Season: Results of the Program Director Reaction Survey. 

If you have questions about how a program you are applying to is using these data in the upcoming ERAS season, please contact the program directly. 

Tips for Completing the Geographic Preferences Section

• Both program directors and applicants report that geographic location is one of the most important factors in residency program selection.^1,2 The Geographic Preferences section of the MyERAS application offers you a structured process for expressing your preferences to complete residency or fellowship training in particular areas of the country and/or in an urban, suburban, or rural setting. Think about where your support systems are located and where you can build a strong support system as you complete your residency and/or fellowship training. Programs emphasize the importance of a social support system throughout residency training and look for evidence of a social support system through the geographic information and geographic preferences an applicant shares. 
• Be honest when sharing your geographic preferences. Before geographic preferences, programs were left to make inferences about where you may want to live or work in the future. Geographic preferences allow you to clearly communicate exactly where you want to be and why you want to be there. Alternatively, it offers you the opportunity to share with programs that you have no geographic preference and are willing and able to go anywhere.  
• If you have no preference about where you receive residency or fellowship training geographically, you should select “I do not have a division preference” and explain why you do not have a preference. In the ERAS 2023 season, most participating programs reported interpreting “I do not have a division preference” to mean that you are willing to go anywhere. However, it is important to note when an applicant’s geographic preference aligned with the program’s location, the likelihood of an interview invitation was higher than when selecting no preference for all specialties that participated in geographic preferences except orthopedic surgery. In orthopedic surgery, the likelihood of an interview invitation was similar for applicants who indicated no geographic preference or indicated a geographic preference within the program’s region.

Consider these data from the ERAS 2023 season

Geographic preferences

• Most applicants indicated a geographic division preference.
• Approximately one third of applicants indicated no geographic preference, 90% of whom provided a description of their lack of preference.
• Approximately 96% of geographic preferences were paired with a description of their chosen geographic preferences.

Setting preferences

• Most applicants indicated a setting preference.
• Approximately 85% of setting preferences were paired with a short essay describing their setting preference.
• Of those applicants who reported no setting preference, about 80% wrote a short essay describing why they did not have a setting preference.

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Setting Preferences

• Please use the following definitions of urban, suburban, and rural as guidance for questions about setting preferences in the MyERAS application. 
• Urban: the central part of a city; high population density; high density of structures like houses, buildings, railways; public transportation more readily available for commuting; most jobs are nonagricultural.  
• Suburban: smaller urban area around a city; less populated than cities; serves mainly as residential area for cities’ workforce; mostly residential with single-family homes, stores, and services; more parks and open spaces than a city; limited public transportation; private vehicles needed for commuting.  
• Rural: large amounts of undeveloped land; low population density; open areas of land with few homes or buildings; no public transportation; private vehicles needed for commuting; main industries likely to be agriculture or natural resource extraction.  

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Hometowns

Hometown is an area where you currently or previously lived and feel strong ties or sense of belonging. You may enter up to five hometowns. 

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References

1. Kim JK, Morrison B, Bylund J, Rasper A, Dropkin BM. Influencing factors of preference signaling in the 2022 urology residency match. Urology. 2023;Feb. 18:S0090-4295(23)00158-9. doi:10.1016/j.urology.2022.12.050. Online ahead of print. PMID: 36805414. 
2. Luu Y, Gao W, Han J, Mihalic A, Vandergriff T. Personal connections and preference signaling: a cross-sectional analysis of the dermatology residency match during COVID-19. J Am Acad Dermatol. 2023;Feb. 4;S0190-9622(23)00168-8. doi:10.1016/j.jaad.2023.01.032. Online ahead of print. PMID: 36746275. 

Higher Education 

You can enter information about the institution, degree, and dates of attendance for each undergraduate and graduate school attended. If you do not have at least one entry, you must select “None.” 

Medical Education 

You must enter complete information about the institution, degree, and dates of attendance for each medical school you attended. At a minimum, you must complete one entry for the medical school you graduated from. 

Postgraduate Training

You must enter each current or previous AOA internship, AOA residency, AOA fellowship, ACGME residency, or ACGME/RCPSC/UCNS fellowship in which you have trained, regardless of the length of time spent in the training. If you do not have at least one entry, you must select “None.” 

Additional Information 

You may enter information about membership in honorary and/or professional societies. 

• Additional information about medical school and other awards/accomplishments can also be entered here. 

For the 2024 ERAS season, residency and fellowship applicants may share more about themselves with programs in a newly updated experiences section. You can select and categorize up to 10 experiences and describe up to three of these experiences as your most meaningful. If you have overcome major obstacles before or during medical school you may share them in the impactful experiences section.

In this Section:

• Selected Experiences
• Experience Type
• Frequency Type
• Primary Focus Area
• Key Characteristics
• Tips for Completing the Experiences Section

Selected Experiences

The Selected Experiences section of the MyERAS application helps you communicate who you are as an applicant. The information provided should convey to programs the qualities, skills, and interests you will bring to a graduate medical education program. Your responses will help programs get to know who you are, what motivates you, and what you are passionate about. Be authentic and honest to help ensure that program directors can effectively evaluate whether you will thrive in their programs. 

The updated Experiences section has two parts: 

1. Selected Experiences. Identify and describe up to 10 experiences that communicate who you are, what you are passionate about, and what is most important to you. For each experience, you will be asked to: 
   1. Provide descriptive information, including position title, organization name, approximate start and end dates, frequency of participation, location, and setting. 
   2. Select an experience type, primary focus area, and key characteristic, as applicable. 
   3. Briefly describe your major activities and responsibilities, and any important context using the 1,020-character limit. 
2. Most Meaningful Experiences. From your 10 selected experiences, you will identify up to three most meaningful experiences. For each of these three experiences, you will be asked to write a short 300-character description, reflecting on the experience, and explaining why it was meaningful and how it influenced you.  

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Experience Type

• Education/training (includes clinical training such as clerkships, away rotations, subinternships, structured observerships).  
• Military service.  
• Professional organization (includes societies, associations, etc., at the local, regional, national, or international levels).  
• Other extracurricular activity, club, hobby (includes sports, music, theater, student government, etc.).  
• Research.  
• Teaching/mentoring (includes paid teaching positions such as high school teacher as well as teaching assistant, tutor).  
• Volunteer/service/advocacy (includes unpaid experiences).  
• Work (includes paid clinical, nonclinical, business, or entrepreneurial experiences). 

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Frequency Type

• One time (not recurring).  
• Daily (recurring) — multiple days a week during the time frame noted (e.g., full-time work).  
• Weekly (recurring) — once or twice a week (e.g., volunteering at a soup kitchen each weekend, leading a weekly tutoring session).  
• Monthly (recurring) — once or twice a month (e.g., volunteering at a homeless shelter two Saturdays a month).  
• Quarterly (recurring) — three or four times a year (e.g., volunteering at a community center during holiday events).  
• Annually (recurring) — once a year (e.g., an annual half marathon for charity). 

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Primary Focus Area

Choose the one focus area that best describes the experience and was most important to you. Programs understand that an experience may relate to more than one focus area. If no focus areas apply, leave it blank.  

• Basic science (e.g., scientific disciplines such as biology, chemistry, physics, and also behavioral and social sciences such as psychology, cognitive science, economics, or political science).  
• Clinical/translational science (e.g., diagnostic and therapeutic interventions, development of drugs).  
• Community involvement/outreach (e.g., clothing or food drives, fundraising for public education, K-12 outreach, providing tutoring to homeless youth, and social work).  
• Customer service (e.g., positions in retail, restaurant, sales, hospitality, and technical support).  
• Health care administration (e.g., hospital administrators, clinical mangers, financial managers, and patient advocates).  
• Improving access to health care (e.g., clinic work in underserved communities, organizing vaccination or health screening for a community with limited access, providing medical or health care resources to homeless populations).  
• Medical education (e.g., formal instruction to others, tutoring medical students, developing health-related curriculum, conducting research in admissions, student affairs, or educational interventions).  
• Music/athletics/art (e.g., long-term commitments in playing musical instruments or singing, sports, theater/acting, painting or drawing, and computer graphics).  
• Promoting wellness (e.g., developing a wellness program, formal coaching, or mentoring others to promote well-being).  
• Public health (e.g., biostatistics, epidemiology, global health, and nutrition).  
• Quality improvement (e.g., patient safety, such as implementing a plan to reduce secondary infections in patients).  
• Social justice/advocacy (e.g., diversity, equity, and inclusion work; worker unions; combating biased beliefs or discriminatory policies; and increasing access to educational opportunities).  
• Technology (e.g., engineering or software innovations, biomedical devices, electronic health records, and mobile or other software applications). 

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Key Characteristics

Choose the most important characteristic that best reflects what you demonstrated or developed during the experience. Programs understand that more than one key characteristic may apply to your experience. If no characteristics apply, leave it blank.  

• Communication.  
• Critical thinking and problem solving.  
• Cultural humility and awareness.  
• Empathy and compassion  
• Ethical responsibility.  
• Ingenuity and innovation.  
• Reliability and dependability.  
• Resilience and adaptability.  
• Self-Reflection and improvement.  
• Teamwork and leadership. 

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Tips for Completing the Experiences Section

• Reflect and identify experiences that communicate who you are, what you are passionate about, and what is most important to you. Programs are not interested in one type of applicant. Most programs are seeking a diverse group of applicants who have varied experiences, are passionate about different areas, and have complementary characteristics to create a well-rounded team.  
• Consider your experiences as a complete set. Use them to paint a picture of yourself. You may tag an experience type, primary focus area, and key characteristic to each experience. You do not need to tag every experience to a primary focus area and key characteristic. As a set, your experiences should communicate what is most important or has most affected you and the qualities you will bring to a residency or fellowship program. For instance, if you have a hobby or extracurricular activity that you have dedicated significant time and effort to, you may want to include it as one of your experiences.  
• Focus descriptions of your three most meaningful experiences on why they were meaningful and how they affected you. Programs are looking for you to show introspection in your most meaningful experiences descriptions. If you tag a characteristic and/or focus area to a most meaningful experience, your description should explain why you chose the characteristic and/or focus area. For each experience, programs will see the most meaningful experiences descriptions alongside all the information in the Selected Experiences section, so you should describe what you did as part of the roles, responsibilities, and context in your description. 
• Use the Experiences section to complement the other parts of your application. Ideally, your most meaningful experiences descriptions should not repeat the information from your MSPE Noteworthy Characteristics and/or personal statement. While there may be overlap in the experiences mentioned across the application, consider how to provide additional insight or emphasize how these experiences have shaped who you are and what is important to you. 

Consider these data from the ERAS 2023 season

• Seventy percent of respondents to the 2023 Program Director Survey reported that meaningful experiences responses helped them get a better picture of each applicant.
• More than 80% of respondents to the 2023 Program Director Survey used the key characteristics and primary focus areas.

*These data are from one or more of the six reports available to applicants and advisors on the Supplemental ERAS Application Data and Reports page.

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State Medical Licenses 

You must enter each state medical license. If you do not have a license to enter, select “None.” 

Additional Questions 

You must answer questions concerning medical license status, malpractice cases, and misdemeanor or felony convictions. Board certification and Drug Enforcement Administration Registration information can be entered here as well. (Board certification is a voluntary process that a physician undergoes to assure the public that they have successfully completed an approved educational program and the appropriate examinations to practice in a particular specialty or subspecialty.) 

You must enter each publication under the predetermined publication types designated by the programs. Publication types available are:

• Peer-reviewed journal articles/abstracts. 
• Peer-reviewed journal articles/abstracts (other than published). 
• Peer-reviewed book chapter. 
• Scientific monograph. 
• Poster presentation. 
• Oral presentation. 
• Peer-reviewed online publication. 
• Non-peer-reviewed online publication. 
• Other articles. 
  • Publications follow APA format and are ordered by type of publication according to the order above and then by the author last name in ascending alphabetical order. 
  • If you do not have an entry, you must select “None.” 

You will be required to acknowledge the certification statement and enter your account password to complete the submission process. 

• Certifying and submitting the MyERAS application is a one-time action that cannot be reversed. It will cause the application to lock, which ensures that all programs receive the same copy of the application. 

Keep in mind: 

• All required fields denoted by a red asterisk (*) must be completed and saved. 

• It is important to carefully review the entire MyERAS application before certifying and submitting to ensure it is complete and correct. 

• Use the Application section on the Dashboard to find sections that were not saved. 

• The MyERAS application does not include a spell or grammar check feature. 

• You cannot apply to programs until your application has been certified and submitted. 

• Once you have certified and submitted your MyERAS application, you will not be able to make any changes or updates outside the information provided under the Personal Information section. There are no exceptions. 

Note: When you select “Submit” on the final screen of the certify and submit process, a message will appear that reads: 

“Once you have certified and submitted your application, it will be irrevocably locked, and no changes will be permitted. Your application, once certified and submitted, is provided to all programs to which you apply during this ERAS season. Please take the additional time to proofread your application for any errors or omissions.”