Senior students at more than 130 medical schools across the United States learned where they would spend the next three to seven years of their career Friday.

With red envelopes in hand, seniors at the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center joined more than 35,000 of their fellow medical students from all corners of the nation at 11 a.m. to learn their fate a time known as Match Day.

Its always a great celebration because they spend all this time working on their applications and they finally find out where theyve been accepted, said Dr. Steven Berk, dean of the Health Sciences Centers School of Medicine.

According to the National Resident Matching Program, more than 95 percent of U.S. medical school seniors the highest rate in 30 years were matched to residency positions.

These individuals make up the nearly 16,000 U.S. medical students who learned where they will spend their years in residency training.The number of applicants in this years Main Residency Match rose by 642, for a total of 38,377 participants, according to the NRMP.

There are currently 129 students at Tech waiting to graduate from medical school, Berk said, and will continue their residencies at their selected destinations.

He said students had to have their application materials submitted by November and they spend months visiting hospitals across the country. Applicants submit a list of their desired workplaces in order of preference, and each institution submits a list of medical students they are interested in hiring.

Afterward, Berk said a computer matches the students with their medical residencies.

According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the National Residency Match Program uses a computer algorithm, which is designed to produce results for students in order to fill the thousands of training positions available at teaching hospitals in the United States.

Read more from the original source:
TTUHSC students matched to various residency programs