Hi Shannon – thank you for bringing this up!  I was going to post about it today as well.  We did see a decrease and my program director asked me to find if others had as well.  So, I guess the answer is yes!  I’d love to hear from other programs as well.  Are your numbers lower?  Higher? About the same?

Thanks!!

Julia

Ohio State Orthopaedics

Great Post! I was just discussing this yesterday with my director. The amount of applications in SFMP (fellowships) are down compared to this time in previous years. Unsure what is going on. Would love to see more feedback on this. Maybe travel finances?

– Donna

• This reply was modified 1 month ago by Donna Lizut.

We’re down too! I was curious about our numbers as well, so I reviewed the totals from the CSV files in ERAS archives. Since program signals were introduced in 2023, our  total application volume has declined by approximately 20% each year over the past 3 years. However, this year we saw only a 7% decrease in applications. The encouraging news is that the number of program signals remained unchanged.

We believe we’ve hit that “sweet spot” with applicants using their signals more strategically and applying to 35-45 programs rather than the 80+ applications that were common before program signals. We would be more concerned if program signals were declining at the same rate as total applications, but the stable signal volume suggests continued strong interest in our program despite the overall reduction in application numbers.

–Helen, University of Utah

We received 13% fewer residency applications this year compared to last year. But I wasn’t too surprised. We’ve been tracking a general decline in #s each year since a record high # of applications in 2021. Applications dropped roughly 20% each year in 2022, 2023 and 2024. Small uptick in 2025. Then 13% decrease this year.

We generally think the decrease is due to the introduction of signaling, which is what signaling was intended to do. There’s likely other local or national trends that could be factored in, but overall I think applicants are being more thoughtful about where they apply. I’m sure there’s a group at CORD looking at the national data.

Just saw Helen at Utah’s response. Love the insights she drew from her program’s signal data! I have not looked at our signal data, but that is very encouraging.

Jen

Our program also noticed a 15% decrease of applicants from last year.

Lucy – Loyola University

Follow-up Question —

Is anyone else getting a notable amount of “application update” type emails from applicants that did NOT signal your program?

• If so, how do you handle those emails?
• Do you then pull that application for further review, or leave it go because there’s no signal?

Seems they are trying to finagle an extra signal or something.. I don’t know.

Our numbers are reflecting what others have posted.

We also filter out those who do not signal us – if we aren’t one of your top 30 programs, then we aren’t considering you.

I am curious if anyone else receives emails from applicants who “inadvertently forgot to signal your program”. I feel like you are trying to stretch those 30 signals into 31. AND it doesn’t show that you have great attention to detail.

Cheryl