AUC Residency Match Results 2026: What the Numbers Show

How many residency placements did AUC graduates receive in the 2026 Match?

The American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine reported 295 residency placements from the 2026 Main Residency Match, spread across 20 specialties and 35 US states and territories, with 56 percent of those placements in a primary care specialty. The school also reported a first-time residency attainment rate of over 98 percent for the 2025-26 year, and above 97 percent as a three-year weighted figure covering 2023-24 through 2025-26.

Match Day 2026 fell on Friday, 20 March 2026. The 295 placements cover both PGY-1 and PGY-2 entry points, which matters because some US specialties begin at PGY-2 and require a separate first year. Preliminary surgery, preliminary internal medicine and transitional year positions appear on the 2026 list alongside categorical ones. A one-year preliminary post and a categorical internal medicine post are different commitments.

The pre-clinical campus sits in Sint Maarten, with a UK track in Preston, England, and the school is accredited by the Accreditation Commission on Colleges of Medicine. What decides a career is the far side of graduation.

What did the 2026 Main Residency Match look like nationally?

The National Resident Matching Program offered 44,344 positions in the 2026 Main Residency Match and filled 41,482 of them, a fill rate of 93.5 percent. A total of 53,373 applicants registered and 48,050 submitted a certified rank order list, and 38,354 of those matched to a first-year position. Programs offered 6,809 tracks, 183 more than in 2025.

Growth was steady. Active applicants rose 1.8 percent over 2025, an increase of 842 people, and first-year matches rose 1.8 percent, an increase of 687 positions. Supply and demand moved together.

Internal medicine remained the largest specialty in 2026 with 11,632 positions offered and a 95.2 percent fill rate. Family medicine offered 5,491 and filled 83.6 percent, emergency medicine offered 3,198 and filled 95.6 percent, pediatrics offered 3,185 and filled 94.4 percent, psychiatry offered 2,516 and filled 97.4 percent. Unfilled capacity is where international graduates find room.

What is the difference between a residency attainment rate and an NRMP match rate?

They count different populations. A school's residency attainment rate is self-reported and counts its own graduates who obtained a position by any route. An NRMP match rate counts one applicant category and only positions awarded by the matching algorithm. The NRMP's separate placement rate adds positions found afterwards in SOAP.

The American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine states its definition on its own statistics page: the first-time residency attainment rate is "the percent of students attaining a 2026-27 residency position out of all graduates or expected graduates in 2025-26 who were active applicants in the 2026 NRMP match or who attained a residency position outside the NRMP match." Two things follow from that wording. The denominator is graduates who were active applicants, so a graduate who did not apply that year is outside the count. And the numerator includes positions obtained outside the NRMP, which in practice means SOAP and post-Match placements.

The National Resident Matching Program builds its rates differently. Its denominator is active applicants who certified a rank order list, its numerator is matches produced by the algorithm, and it splits applicants by category. In 2026 it reported a match rate and an overall placement rate for each group: US MD seniors at 93.5 and 97.8 percent, US DO seniors at 93.2 and 98.5 percent, US citizen international medical graduates at 70.0 and 77.8 percent, and non-US citizen international medical graduates at 56.4 and 59.9 percent.

So a school reporting "over 98 percent" and the NRMP reporting "70.0 percent" are not in conflict. One is a school-level attainment figure with an all-routes numerator; the other is a national algorithm-only rate for a citizenship category pooling graduates of hundreds of schools worldwide.

Which specialties do graduates of the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine enter?

The 2026 placement list runs to 20 specialties, and 56 percent of the 295 placements were in primary care. Internal medicine, family medicine and emergency medicine account for the largest blocks. Smaller numbers appear in psychiatry, pediatrics, anesthesiology, general surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, neurology, pathology, physical medicine and rehabilitation, diagnostic radiology, nuclear medicine, child neurology and dermatology.

That distribution follows the national capacity picture closely. Internal medicine and family medicine together offered 17,123 positions in the 2026 Match, and family medicine was the large specialty with the most unfilled capacity at an 83.6 percent fill rate. Where a specialty has many positions and fills below the national average, international graduates place in numbers.

Teaching institutions named on the 2026 list include HCA Healthcare East Florida Division graduate medical education programmes, BayCare Health System, Broward Health Medical Center, Nassau University Medical Center, Henry Ford Hospital, the University at Buffalo School of Medicine, SUNY Health Science Center Brooklyn and AdventHealth Orlando. Community teaching hospitals and large health systems dominate, and that is where a great deal of American clinical medicine is taught.

How have placement numbers changed since 2024?

Placement volume has risen each year while the primary care share has fallen slightly. The school reported 228 placements in 2024, 277 in 2025 and 295 in 2026. Primary care accounted for 61 percent in 2024, 60 percent in 2025 and 56 percent in 2026.

A rising count with a falling primary care share means the growth came from outside primary care. It says nothing about cohort size, because the school publishes placements rather than enrolment. Volume and rate are separate questions.

What does a match list tell a prospective student, and what does it leave out?

A match list tells you where a school's graduates went in one year: the institutions, the specialties, the geographic spread. It is a roster of outcomes rather than a rate, because it carries no published denominator. Read alongside the school's stated attainment rate, it becomes far more informative.

Four things a list does not carry on its face. It does not show how many students entered the programme in the first place, so attrition before graduation is invisible. It does not separate first-time applicants from those applying in a later cycle. It does not distinguish a categorical position, which carries a resident through to board eligibility, from a preliminary or transitional year, which is one year and then another application. And it does not say how many placements came through the algorithm rather than through SOAP.

That makes a match list one document rather than a weak one. The questions to put alongside it are ones a school can answer directly: cohort size at entry, first-time versus repeat applicants, the categorical share, and USMLE first-time pass rates. The American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine publishes the last of those, reporting a 79 percent first-time Step 1 pass rate and a 92 percent first-time Step 2 CK pass rate across 2021 to 2025, alongside more than 9,000 graduates to date.

Whether a school's outcome profile fits a particular applicant depends on the individual file rather than on any published average. Medschool Experts assesses each case directly and says where a place is achievable across its partner network of medical faculties worldwide, in a free individual consultation. You can also compare the schools we place into on our universities overview.

Why do US citizen and non-US citizen IMG match rates differ so much?

Because the National Resident Matching Program classifies applicants by citizenship, not by where the medical school sits. A US citizen who graduates from a Caribbean school is counted as a US citizen international medical graduate. A non-US citizen graduating from the same lecture hall in the same year is counted in the non-US citizen group. Same school, same curriculum, different NRMP category.

In 2026 that produced a 13.6 percentage point gap: 70.0 percent for US citizen international medical graduates against 56.4 percent for non-US citizen international medical graduates. Visa sponsorship explains a large part of the remainder. The NRMP reported that within the non-US citizen group in 2026, those requiring visa sponsorship matched at 54.4 percent while those not requiring sponsorship matched at 67.9 percent. That is a 13.5 point spread inside a single citizenship category, driven by whether a programme has to sponsor.

The two categories have moved in opposite directions over five years. Between 2022 and 2026 the non-US citizen rate rose from 48.6 to 56.4 percent, while the US citizen rate drifted down from 72.9 to 70.0 percent. Both trends are gradual and national, covering every international school at once.

Which ECFMG and USMLE steps come before the Match?

Certification by the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates is the gate. An international graduate must hold it, or be on track to hold it, to enter an accredited US residency programme. There are four parts, set out in the ECFMG Information Booklet, and they run in parallel rather than strictly in sequence.

The medical school must be listed in the World Directory of Medical Schools carrying an ECFMG Sponsor Note that confirms eligibility and covers the applicant's graduation year. The applicant submits an Application for ECFMG Certification. The examination requirement is a pass in USMLE Step 1 and USMLE Step 2 Clinical Knowledge. The clinical and communication skills requirement is met by completing an ECFMG Pathway, which includes a satisfactory Occupational English Test score, or by a previous passing performance on the former USMLE Step 2 Clinical Skills component.

Credentials are then verified at source. ECFMG requires at least four credit years of medical education from a World Directory-listed school, the final diploma and the final transcript, and it verifies the diploma directly with the officials of the school that issued it. Restrictions apply to transferred credit. Primary-source verification takes time.

Step 1 has been reported as pass or fail since January 2022, which moved weight onto Step 2 Clinical Knowledge as the numeric score programmes see. A three-digit Step 2 CK score is now the main standardised number on an international applicant's file.

What does the application year look like month by month?

The residency application year runs about twelve months from the opening of the Electronic Residency Application Service to Match Day. For the 2027 cycle the fixed dates are published by the Association of American Medical Colleges and the National Resident Matching Program, and they are the same for every applicant in the United States.

• 4 June 2026 — the 2027 ERAS season begins, 9 a.m. Eastern Time. International graduates obtain their ERAS token through ECFMG.
• 2 September 2026 — applicants may begin submitting MyERAS applications to programmes, 9 a.m. Eastern Time.
• 15 September 2026 — NRMP registration opens, 12 noon Eastern Daylight Time.
• 23 September 2026 — programmes may begin reviewing applications and Medical Student Performance Evaluations, 9 a.m. Eastern Time.
• October 2026 to January 2027 — interview season, on each programme's own schedule.
• 29 January 2027 — NRMP standard registration deadline, 11.59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Later registration carries a 50 US dollar fee.
• 1 February 2027 — rank order list entry opens, 12 noon Eastern Standard Time.
• 3 March 2027 — rank order list certification deadline, 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. An uncertified list does not enter the algorithm.
• 15 March 2027 — Match Week begins, 10 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time; SOAP opens at 11 a.m.
• 18 March 2027 — SOAP offer rounds one and two.
• 19 March 2027 — Match Day, 12 noon Eastern Daylight Time, by email and in the R3 system.
• 31 May 2027 — the 2027 ERAS season closes, 5 p.m. Eastern Time.

Two dates deserve a marker. The 3 March 2027 certification deadline is absolute, and 23 September 2026 is when programmes start reading, so documents that depend on third parties should be complete before then.

What does the match process cost an international medical graduate?

The regulator and organisation fees for one full cycle run to several thousand US dollars before travel. The figures below are published fees of ECFMG, the USMLE programme through the Federation of State Medical Boards, and the NRMP, fixed charges rather than estimates.

A worked example. Take one graduate of the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine sitting both Steps outside the United States and ranking 60 programme codes in the 2027 Main Residency Match.

Three costs sit outside that table. The AAMC charges separately for ERAS applications to programmes, on a scale that rises with the number applied to. Interview travel and accommodation vary with how many interviews are held in person. A repeated Step attempt is charged again at full registration price.

The NRMP applies additional length-of-list fees to applicants ranking 100 or more programmes, and caps ranks at 300 programme codes. Registering after 29 January 2027 adds 50 US dollars. These arrive in a predictable order.

How should a prospective student read an outcomes page?

Start with the definition, not the headline. Every school publishing an attainment rate defines its denominator somewhere, usually in a footnote, and that definition sets what the percentage can support. Then read the national figures for the same year as a benchmark: in 2026 the NRMP filled 93.5 percent of positions, and 99.3 percent once SOAP closed.

Look next at the specialty and institution mix, and ask whether it contains the specialty you want. A list weighted towards internal medicine, family medicine and emergency medicine reflects where American training capacity actually is. Marcel Kloos, who studied dentistry in Sofia between 2015 and 2021 and now practises as a licensed dentist in Bern, sees the same pattern from the applicant side: the route runs through the specialties with capacity, and graduates who plan for that early tend to place well. Our team at Medschool Experts has placed over 500 study places.

Read the licensing sequence last, as a calendar. ECFMG certification, two USMLE Steps, an ERAS submission in September and a rank list certified in early March are all datable events. See how we support each stage on our services page, or read what graduates say in our student stories.