The table below displays the number and percentage of U.S. MD medical students who provided a specialty preference on the 2018 Graduation Questionnaire (GQ) and also participated in the Matriculating Student Questionnaire (MSQ), which matriculants are invited to complete during the summer before the first year of medical school. Data include 2018 GQ responses for those who indicated their specialty preferences, compared with their previous responses on the MSQ. For example, 12.1% of those who indicated a specialty preference of anesthesiology on the 2018 GQ had selected the same specialty on the MSQ when they started medical school; 59.4% had selected a different specialty on the MSQ; 17.2% were undecided; and 11.3% had not responded to the question on the MSQ. Please contact residentreport@aamc.org with any comments or questions.
Selected Finding: Over the course of medical school, most medical students change their preferred residency specialty. Specifically, just over a quarter (25.7%) of 2018 respondents to the GQ indicated the same specialty preference as they had indicated on the MSQ.