Dental Match - Rules of Participation

Rules of Participation

All programs and applicants that register to participate in the Match must agree to abide by the policies and rules of the Match as summarized below.

All participating programs and applicants must abide by the Schedule of Dates of the Match.

Participating programs must offer through the Match all positions being offered for the first year of training in the program. The programs and positions must either (i) be accredited by the American Dental Association Commission on Dental Accreditation, or (ii) have applied for initial accreditation, expect to receive accreditation in time for the 2011 class, and have received permission from the appropriate sponsoring organization to participate in the Match.

Programs may not make any commitments regarding ranking intentions or offers to any applicant, or require any commitments from any applicant, prior to the release of the Match results. Programs may rank on their Rank Order Lists only those applicants registered in the Match.

Similarly, applicants may not make any commitments to, or require any commitments from, any participating program prior to the release of the Match results. For Phase I of the Match, applicants may rank only programs that are participating in Phase I of the Match. For Phase II of the Match, applicants may rank only programs that are participating in Phase II of the Match. Applicants matched in Phase I of the Match will not be permitted to submit a Rank Order List for Phase II of the Match. If an applicant wishes to accept a position at a program that is not participating in the Match, or decides not to participate in the Match for any other reason, then the applicant must submit a withdrawal from the Match and must not submit a Rank Order List for the Match.

Programs and applicants may freely discuss any matter and may express a high level of interest in each other. However, programs must not disclose to any applicant or solicit from any applicant information regarding specific ranking intentions. Also, applicants must not request information on how any participating program intends to rank any applicant. The Rank Order Lists submitted by each program and applicant are the sole determinants of their respective order of preferences for the Match.

The Match results constitute a binding commitment from which neither the applicant nor the program can withdraw. A program must offer an appointment to each applicant with whom it is matched, and the applicant must accept the offer from the program. A program may not offer a position to any applicant who was matched elsewhere.

Violations of the policies of the Match will be reported to the appropriate sponsoring organizations. Even if both parties agree to a release from the Match result, the sponsoring organizations may decide to impose penalties on those who violate the policies, such as cancellation or denial of memberships in the sponsoring organizations, barring participation in future matches, and reporting the violations to the dental schools or to other Match participants.