Your Guide to the ERAS Application (2027 Cycle)

The Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) is the AAMC-run process that medical students and graduates use to apply to residency programs in the United States. Through MyERAS, applicants submit materials like their personal statement, experiences, letters of recommendation, MSPE, transcript, and scholarly work to the programs they choose.

The 2027 ERAS season opened June 4, 2026, and residency applicants could begin submitting applications to programs on September 2, 2026, at 9 a.m. ET. The season ends May 31, 2027.

This guide covers the major 2027 ERAS application components, including what to submit and how to approach each section. We'll also highlight important changes for the 2027 cycle and share what residency programs are looking for in applicants across ERAS sections.

Personal Information

Before completing your MyERAS application, you’ll need an ERAS token to register for the MyERAS portal. U.S. medical students and graduates receive their tokens through their Designated Dean’s Office, and IMGs obtain their tokens through ECFMG.

Once you’ve registered for MyERAS, the Personal Information section asks you to provide the following information:

• Basic personal information, including your preferred name, gender, and date of birth
• Mailing address, phone numbers, and email address
• Work authorization information
• Match information, including whether you plan to participate individually or as a couple
• Exam transcript IDs (USMLE ID and/or NBOME ID, for DO applicants)
• Life support certifications, including BLS, ACLS, and PALS
• Honor society membership, including Alpha Omega Alpha, Sigma Phi, and the Gold Humanism Honor Society

Be sure to keep your personal information up to date throughout the application season. You can also choose whether to release your birth date to residency programs.

If you’re participating in the Couples Match, your ERAS application will ask you to indicate that you’re applying as a couple. For more information about how the Couples Match works, including how to register and create a rank order list, see our guide to the Couples Match.

Biographical Information

This section asks for more basic personal information. Biographical Information requires you to report the following details:

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

Geographic & Setting Preferences

The Geographic Preferences section allows you to communicate your preference, or lack of preference, for geographic divisions and urban, suburban, or rural settings. The AAMC reports that geographic location is one of the most important factors in residency program selection for both program directors and applicants.

You can select up to three U.S. Census divisions and explain your preference or lack of preference for each. You can also indicate your preference, or lack of preference, for an urban, suburban, or rural setting.

If you choose specific geographic divisions, only programs you apply to within those divisions will see your response. If you choose “I do not have a division preference,” all programs you apply to will see your response. If you skip the question, no geographic preference information will be provided to programs.

Important note: When an applicant's geographic preference aligns with a program's location, the AAMC reports that the likelihood of receiving an interview is higher than when no preference is selected.

For the 2027 ERAS season, Otolaryngology, Orthopedic Surgery, and Plastic Surgery-Integrated have opted out of receiving geographic preference answers. The same specialties have also opted out of receiving setting preference answers.

Education

The Education section on your ERAS application allows you to list institutions where you’ve received education, training, professional memberships, and notable achievements. The subsections are:

• Higher Education
• Medical Education
• Postgraduate Training
• Interruptions or Extensions
• Honors & Awards
• Professional Memberships

The Interruptions or Extensions section asks whether you’ve had any academic or professional interruptions, leaves, gaps, or breaks in your medical education due to repeated or remediated coursework, professionalism sanctions, or other adverse actions. If you answer “Yes,” you’ll need to include a description.

You can list current or prior accredited residency, fellowship, or AOA internship training in this section, regardless of the length of time spent in the training. (Fellowship applicants follow different application timelines and may have different document and program requirements than residency applicants.)

Experience

The ERAS Experience Section may be the most crucial section for showing your best self, besides the personal statement and letters of recommendation. Here, you will list up to 10 selected experiences and identify up to three “most meaningful experiences.”

It’s not just applicants who think these experiences matter, either. More than 94% of program directors surveyed used Most Meaningful Experiences when deciding which students to invite to residency interviews. About 70% used the Selected Experiences section as part of their application review process.

Download our 10 ERAS Experiences Guidebook to hear top tips from our Physician Advisors. Learn how to choose the 10 best experiences for your specialty and craft descriptions that impress.

Selected Experiences

You can add up to 10 experiences in the Selected Experiences section. For each experience, you’ll provide information about your position, organization, dates, frequency, location, and setting. You’ll also choose an experience type, primary focus area, and key characteristic, when applicable.

You have 750 characters to describe your major activities and responsibilities and provide any important context.

Most Meaningful Experiences

Up to three of your Selected Experiences can be designated as Most Meaningful. For each one, you’ll have an additional 300 characters to reflect on the experience, explain why it was meaningful, and describe how it influenced you.

Experience and Frequency Types

For each experience, you’ll choose the category that best reflects what you did and indicate how often you participated. Categories include:

• Education/training
• Military service
• Professional organization
• Other extracurricular activity, club, hobby
• Research
• Teaching/mentoring
• Volunteer/service/advocacy
• Work

You’ll also indicate how frequently you participated in the experience. ERAS offers six options: one-time, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually. Choose the option that best represents how often the activity occurred during the dates you entered.

Hobbies & Interests

The Experiences section also gives you up to 300 characters to share your hobbies and interests. This is a chance to show programs something about you outside of medicine, so choose interests that genuinely reflect who you are.

Primary Focus Area

The Primary Focus Area helps you identify what was most important about an experience. You can select one focus area for each experience, or leave it blank if none apply.

Examples include basic science, clinical/translational science, community involvement/outreach, improving access to health care, medical education, public health, quality improvement, social justice/advocacy, and technology.

Key Characteristics

For each experience, you can select one key characteristic that best reflects what you demonstrated or developed through that experience. You can leave this field blank if none of the characteristics apply.

Examples include:

• 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

Expert tip: When choosing experiences and key characteristics, consider how they demonstrate the core competencies residency programs expect physicians to develop.

Impactful Experiences

The Experience section also includes the optional Impactful Experiences question. This question allows applicants to share significant experiences or obstacles they’ve encountered or overcome that aren’t captured elsewhere in their application. These experiences can come from any point in your life and don’t have to be related to medicine.

Examples of appropriate topics include family background, financial background, community setting, educational experiences, and other general life circumstances.

Licenses & Certifications

The Licenses & Certifications section allows you to report your medical licenses and relevant certifications. You’ll need to enter each state medical license you hold, or select “None” if you don’t have one to report.

You’ll also answer questions about your medical license status, malpractice cases, and misdemeanor or felony convictions. Depending on your situation, you can also provide information about board certifications, other health care-related certifications, and DEA registration.

Make sure all of the information you enter is accurate and up to date, including license and certification dates and expiration dates when applicable.

Scholarly Work

The Scholarly Work section is new for the 2027 ERAS season and replaces the previous Publications section. This is where you’ll enter your scholarly work using the categories provided in the MyERAS portal, including peer-reviewed journal articles, journal abstracts, and oral presentations. You can also identify up to three scholarly works as your most meaningful.

ERAS also allows you to group related scholarly works into collections, which can help you show how your research or other scholarly work has contributed to a larger body of work. If you don’t have any scholarly work to report, you’ll need to select “None.”

Specialty Questions

Residents applying to certain specialties will need to complete specialty-specific questions before sending applications to programs in these fields:

• Anesthesiology
• Neurological Surgery
• Plastic Surgery-Integrated

You’ll need to answer all of the questions for a specialty before you can save your responses. You can still complete them after certifying and submitting your application if you decide to apply to another participating specialty later. Check out the specialty questions here.

Read Next: Average Residency Applications Per Specialty

Documents

The Documents section is where you manage the supporting materials that go with your ERAS application. These include your personal statement, letters of recommendation, MSPE, medical school transcript, USMLE and COMLEX-USA transcripts, photo, and, for IMGs, the ECFMG Status Report.

Not every program requires the same documents, so be sure to check each program’s requirements before assigning your documents. You can also use the Assignments Checklist in MyERAS to make sure you’ve assigned the appropriate documents to the programs you’re applying to.

Personal Statement

The personal statement is an important part of your residency application. It gives you an opportunity to explain why you’re pursuing your chosen specialty and what you would bring to a residency program.

There are differences and similarities between your AMCAS and ERAS personal statements. While there are no hard and fast “rules” for your personal statement, you generally want to demonstrate the following:

• You understand the residency specialty you’re applying to.
• You have the attributes necessary to succeed in the field you have chosen.
• You will be an asset to the residency program in multiple ways, including through leadership, academic performance, or other strengths.

Personal statements may be customized for a specific program or specialty, and you can create as many different statements as you need. However, you can assign only one personal statement to each program. Each statement can contain up to 28,000 characters.

Proofread your statement thoroughly, and take advantage of the resources around you. Many medical schools have services to support applicants in writing their personal statements, so see if your school offers appointments for a professional review of your application materials.

If you’re applying to a highly competitive specialty or have red flags or obstacles that could hinder your chances during the Match process, consider getting professional consulting support with your personal statement and application.

Craft your ERAS personal statement with the help of a professional writer and a Physician Advisor with admissions committee experience. No limits on messaging, hours, or edits.

Letters of Recommendation

You should obtain high-quality, honest letters of recommendation written on your behalf (not by you). In general, most residency programs want letter writers to be clinical faculty familiar with your work. Review the websites of residencies you’re applying to well in advance to see if they have any specific requirements for ERAS LoRs.

You can create a separate LoR entry for each letter you intend to use during the application season, and you can send up to four LoRs to any given program. Yes, you can send different LoRs to different programs.

You can be strategic about sending different letters to different programs, but we also recommend that you waive your right to read the LoRs. This is typically perceived as more professional and allows your letter writers to be as candid as they wish.

Give your letter writers sufficient notice of any requirements and deadlines. They need to submit the letters directly through the ERAS Letter of Recommendation Portal so they may need brief instructions.

Most specialties expect you to submit one or two letters from a doctor in that specific field, although requirements vary by program. The other letters can come from different departments. Here are some take-home points concerning LoRs:

• Research what is required by your program of choice. An advisor familiar with your field of interest can be a helpful resource.
• Ask well in advance to allow your letter writers plenty of time.
• Choose wisely. You can create LoR entries for all of the letters you intend to use, but you can only send a maximum of four to any individual program.

MSPE or "Dean's Letter"

The Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE), or the Dean’s Letter, is not a letter of recommendation. It’s a summary of your time in medical school. Your Designated Dean’s Office is responsible for preparing your MSPE and uploading it into ERAS, but you’ll likely have to submit a CV and info form to help them prepare it.

To provide a broader view of your medical school performance, the MSPE includes the following information about you:

• Three noteworthy characteristics (chosen by you).
• Academic history, including info about your matriculation and graduation dates, any leaves of absence, any dual degree programs, any course remediations, and any adverse actions taken against you.
• Academic progress, which includes grades and performance summaries from courses and clerkships.
• A general summary of your med school performance and readiness for residency.

Transcripts

You’ll need to provide your Medical School Transcript with your ERAS application. Your medical school is responsible for uploading it. USMLE and COMLEX-USA transcripts are optional supporting documents, but many residency programs require them, so check your programs’ requirements before deciding whether to submit them.

For USMLE and COMLEX-USA transcripts, you must authorize the release of your transcript before you can assign it to the programs you’re applying to. Once your transcript is authorized and retrieved, you can assign it to the appropriate programs through the Additional Documents section.

Your USMLE Step 1 score is reported as pass/fail, making Step 2 CK the primary numerical USMLE score available to residency programs.

A Photograph

Your ERAS photo is optional, although programs may use it to help identify applicants when they report for interviews. If you choose to include one, you’ll upload it directly through MyERAS.

The photo file must meet the following requirements:

• File type: JPEG/JPG or PNG
• Maximum file size: 150 KB

International medical graduates (IMGs) cannot upload their own photos. The Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG) is responsible for uploading the IMG’s photo into the ERAS system.

ECFMG Status Report (For IMGs Only)

The ECFMG provides an ECFMG Status Report for IMGs applying to residency programs in the U.S. ECFMG uploads the report directly to ERAS, and it is automatically assigned to the programs you apply to.

The report confirms your ECFMG certification status and includes the month and year you passed the examinations required for certification. It does not include your USMLE scores, which are provided through the separate USMLE transcript.

The ECFMG Status Report is only applicable to IMGs and is an important part of documenting your eligibility for U.S. residency programs.

Programs

As you build your program list, pay attention to the type of residency position you’re applying for. Programs may offer categorical, preliminary, or advanced positions, and understanding the difference can help you determine which programs are appropriate for your goals.

Program signals (also known as preference signals) allow you to show interest in specific residency programs as you fill out your MyERAS application. By signaling a program, you can increase your chances of landing an interview.

Signals are received at the institutional level by specialty, whether that’s urology, dermatology, or emergency medicine. This means you cannot signal a specific program track while excluding other program tracks in the same specialty at the same institution.

It’s important to keep in mind that programs only see that you signaled them. They don’t see where else you sent signals or where you didn’t.

For some specialties, a tiered-signaling system is used. Rather than the standard program signal, tiered program signals give you the option to choose between “Gold” (“most preferred”) and “Silver” (“preferred”).

The number of signals you can send to programs depends on the specialty. Here’s the current list of how many signals you can send to programs in the 2027 ERAS application season, including the number of Gold and Silver signals available for specialties using tiered signaling.

Should You Use Program Signals?

Program signals have become an important part of the residency application process. In the 2026 ERAS season, 96% of program director survey respondents reported using program signals to help decide whom to invite for interviews, and 90% said signals helped them identify applicants they otherwise might have overlooked.

The AAMC also found that applicants who sent a program signal had a higher probability of receiving an interview invitation across participating specialties.

“Interview invitation rates are higher for applicants who signaled… Interview invitation rates are higher for applicants who sent a Gold signal than for those who sent a Silver signal… Interview invitation rates for applicants who did not signal are near zero.” – AAMC, 2025 ERAS Analysis

Ultimately, program signals are now among the most powerful tools for applicants during ERAS. It’s in your best interest to use each signal available to you strategically and to prioritize the programs you’re serious about.

As interview season progresses, you may also consider communicating your interest in a program through a letter of intent. A letter of intent is separate from your ERAS application and is generally used later in the application and ranking process.

Curriculum Vitae (CV)

Your residency application automatically populates into a readable CV format. This format is likely how residency programs will review your application, so review it carefully to ensure everything is accurate, complete, and presented as intended. If you notice an error or omission, update the corresponding section of your ERAS application.

Certification & Submission

Before you can apply to residency programs, you must certify and submit your MyERAS application. This is a one-time action that cannot be reversed, so carefully review your entire application for errors or omissions before submitting. Once submitted, your application is locked and will be provided to the programs you apply to during the ERAS season.

Can I Change or Edit Aspects of My Application After Submission?

Once you certify and submit your MyERAS application, you cannot make changes or updates to your application, except for information in the Personal Information section. You can update your Personal Information throughout the application season, and programs will be able to see those updates after you save them.

If you decide to apply to a participating specialty that requires specialty-specific questions after submitting your application, you can still add those responses. However, you cannot edit or delete specialty-specific responses after you certify and submit your application.

Key Dates to Keep in Mind

Here are the most important dates for the residency ERAS timeline:

• June 4, 2026: 2027 ERAS season begins at 9 a.m. ET.
• September 2, 2026: Residency applicants may begin submitting ERAS applications to programs at 9 a.m. ET.
• September 23, 2026: Residency programs may begin reviewing ERAS applications and Medical Student Performance Evaluations (MSPEs) at 9 a.m. ET.
• October 2026-January 2027: Interview season is in full swing.
• May 31, 2027: 2027 ERAS season ends at 5 p.m. ET.

FAQs

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This guide covers the major components of the ERAS application, but every applicant is different. You may be applying to a highly competitive specialty, navigating the process as an IMG, or simply looking for help developing a stronger application strategy.

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