About
Who runs this, what it is, and what it refuses to do.
Who
My name is Joseph. I am an international medical graduate, applying into Internal Medicine like everyone this site is built for. I made this by hand: reading every program's own page, one at a time, for my own list, because there was no other way to know which programs would even consider someone with my visa need, my graduation year, or my exam scores. Once the list existed for me, extending it to every program and every applicant was the obvious next step, not a business plan I started with.
What this is
The MatchLens reads what a residency program has published about itself, in its own words, and shows you the sentence, the link, and the date it was read. Nothing here is written by us about a program: if we cannot quote it, we do not publish it. You put in the programs you are considering, or let the check run against everything we have read, and you get back which ones can consider you, which cannot, and which have published nothing on the question at all. That third answer matters as much as the other two: silence is not a yes.
What it refuses to do
No score. This site never tells you a percentage chance of getting in anywhere, because nobody has the data to say that honestly, and a number like that is a guess wearing a lab coat. No ranking advice: we will not tell you which of two programs that will both consider you is the "better" one to apply to, because that is not a question a published requirement can answer. No prediction about you as a person, anywhere on this site, in any form.
Independence
The MatchLens is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or reviewed by any residency program, the NRMP, ECFMG or AAMC. We use NRMP's own published Match results and ACGME's own public program list, and we cite both by name wherever we use them, but nobody at any of those organisations has approved a word on this site. If a program's page disagrees with what we quote, the program's page is what changed, and we go back and re-read it.
How it makes money
A single payment, once, for the 2027 cycle. No subscription. The tracker, the phase-by-phase calendar, and fifteen programs' worth of the full check are free for everyone, for the whole cycle, and stay that way whether or not you ever pay. Check my list, $59, unlocks the rest of your own list. The recommended list, $89, adds the eligible programs you never found. Most of what this site does is the free part.
How to reach us
Write to joseph@thematchlens.com. A person reads that mailbox, usually me, usually the same day. If a program's page has changed since we read it, or you think we misread it, that is the fastest way to get it fixed.
Three spellings, one site
The MatchLens, MatchLens, Match Lens: all the same site. Type any of them into a search box and you should land here.
See also how we read programs and our guides to the questions our data can actually answer.