Are you asking which specific program is most competitive or what field is most competitive?

If you want to know which specific program is most competitive in a single field, then you need to specify which field, and then it is mostly subjective.

If you want to know which fields are most competitive, I can probably figure out a good estimate based on this years fill rates by field.

If you clarify your question, I'll try to answer it.

I was wanting to know competitive stats by field. Thanks!

I will get this information posted by the end of the weekend - I've found the info, but not in a very friendly format. I'm too busy right now to convert it to post, but I will get it up here soon.

This is probably as good of an estimate as you will find as far as competitiveness of residencies goes. I've listed the main programs, in decreasing order of competitiveness, based on the %fill rate. Opthamology is not included because they do not participate in the match. Also, the programs that have very few people matched obviously can have a very large variance, so the percentage fill rate may not be that informative.

Based on 2003 data of programs filled by US seniors (does not include
international medical graduates):

Program - #Matches - %Filled
Rad Onc (PGY-1) - 10 - 100%
Neurosurg - 37 - 94.9%
Ortho Surg - 533 - 92.7%
Plastic Surg 10.4 71 92.2%
Otolaryngology - 33 - 91.7%
Rad Onc (PGY-2) - 97 - 90.7%
Urology - 50 - 89.3%
Rad Diag (PGY-1) - 116 - 85.3%
Gen Surg - 867 - 82.7%
Rad Diag (PGY-2) - 692 - 82.1%
Derm (PGY-2) - 194 - 81.2%
Peds/psych/child psych - 16 - 80%
Emergency Med - 859 - 77.1%
Derm (PGY-1) - 25 - 75.8%
Anesthesiology - 321 - 74.5%
Peds - 1596 - 71.3%
Ob/Gyn - 786 - 68.3%
Med-Peds - 258 - 67%
Med-Psych - 19 - 61.3%
Psychiatry - 597 - 60.5%
Pathology - 265 - 59.8%
IM - 2590 - 55.2%
Neuro - 25 - 44.6%
FP - 1226 - 42%
Psych-FP - 5 - 31.3%

Total PGY-1 - 13,364 - 63.9%
Total PGY-2 - 1857 - 75.6%