Residency Letters for SOAP and Off-Cycle Applicants
For attendings writing a residency letter for a SOAP or off-cycle applicant: Match Week 2027 timing, NRMP's no-contact rule and a constructed closing.
Residency Letters for SOAP and Off-Cycle Applicants
Write the SOAP letter before Monday, March 15, 2027, write it so it works in any specialty the applicant may apply to that week, and do not phone programs for the applicant once SOAP starts. NRMP's 2027 agreement bars an applicant's "representatives" from contacting a SOAP program until the program makes contact.
That last rule changes what a letter writer is for. In the regular season a faculty member can call a colleague. During SOAP the letter is the whole contribution, and it competes with a clock: SOAP opens at 10 a.m. ET on Monday and programs start reading applications at 8 a.m. ET on Tuesday. A letter that names one specialty, or arrives on Wednesday, does little. This page is for the attending or program director who gets the request; the applicant's side of the week is in Match Week 2027: SOAP schedule and rules, and every residency letter guide sits in our medical school and residency essays hub.
Every NRMP page and PDF quoted below was checked on November 7, 2026. AAMC's ERAS letter pages refused our automated request that day (HTTP 403), so this page does not quote ERAS upload, assignment or replacement rules; read the ERAS letters of recommendation chapter before you upload.
The NRMP rules a SOAP letter writer works inside
Five lines from NRMP set the frame. The schedule comes from the 2027 Match Week and SOAP calendar; the rules come from the 2027 Match Participation Agreement for Applicants.
| Rule | NRMP's words | What it means for your letter |
|---|---|---|
| Who can SOAP (MPA 9.1) | "Partially or fully unmatched on Monday of Match Week" | The request can arrive on Monday from a student who expected to match |
| Which positions (MPA 9.3) | "categorical, preliminary, or advanced unfilled positions for which they are eligible, without restriction by specialty" | The applicant may apply outside the specialty your letter names |
| Contact (MPA 9.2) | "If a program does not contact the applicant or the applicant’s representative, there may be no communication to the program." | No calls or emails from you unless a program reaches out first |
| Applications (MPA 9.2) | "Policies surrounding application submissions are determined by the application service and not the NRMP." | Upload rules are set by ERAS or the program's service |
| Commitment (MPA 9.0) | "Positions offered and accepted during SOAP constitute a binding commitment under this Agreement." | The letter may decide where the applicant trains next year |
NRMP's SOAP page adds the line that matters most for timing: "It is important that applicants be ready for SOAP in the event they learn on Monday of Match Week that they are unmatched." The same page says the "2027 SOAP guide for applicants" is "coming early 2027".
Can you call a program director for a SOAP applicant?
No, not first. MPA section 9.2 says "Neither SOAP-eligible applicants nor their representatives may initiate any verbal, written, or electronic communication with any program until and unless specifically contacted by a program representative after the published time on Monday of Match Week and after receipt of the application." The rule names representatives, and we read a faculty member calling on the applicant's behalf as one. The applicant pages cover this rule in full, including what IMGs may and may not send during SOAP.
If a SOAP program calls you after it has the application, answer it. That is the program initiating contact, which the rule allows.
Our view: treat Match Week as closed to advocacy and put everything into the letter before Monday. Your phone call cannot happen, so the letter has to carry the comparison you would have made on the phone: how this applicant ranks against residents or students you have supervised, in plain words.
The countercase: the rule ends with SOAP. The MPA says "At the published time, SOAP communication rules end, and unmatched or partially matched applicants may contact unfilled programs freely," and the calendar puts that at 9 p.m. ET on Thursday, March 18, 2027. For an applicant still unmatched after SOAP, the communication rules no longer apply, so a call from you to a program on the updated List of Unfilled Programs is no longer barred.
When the letter has to exist
The 2027 applicant calendar sets the Rank Order List Certification Deadline at 9:00 p.m. EST on Wednesday, March 3, 2027. Match Week follows. Programs "begin reviewing SOAP applications" at 8 a.m. ET on Tuesday, March 16.
Our recommendation: if a student or resident has few interviews and asks in February for a "backup" letter, write it then, not on Monday of Match Week. ECFMG's guide to asking for letters (updated May 20, 2025) warns that "A program director may choose not to view LoRs received after the program’s deadline for accepting supporting documents." In SOAP, reading starts at 8 a.m. ET on Tuesday, so a letter uploaded after that arrives once programs are already choosing.
The countercase: a letter you already wrote may already work. If it names no specialty and closes with a recommendation for residency training, the applicant can assign it in SOAP without a new one from you.
Specialty letter or general letter?
ECFMG's guide states the problem: "If a letter writer has recommended you for a position in a specific specialty, it is not advisable to use that LoR to apply for positions in other specialties." It gives two fixes: "request a general letter applicable to all specialties, or request multiple, specialty-specific LoRs from that same letter writer."
Match the letter to the applicant's position on Monday:
| Applicant's situation | What to write |
|---|---|
| Fully unmatched, may SOAP into a different specialty | A general letter: same evidence, closing recommends "residency training" with no specialty named |
| Partially matched to an advanced position, needs a preliminary year | A letter that recommends the applicant for an intern year in medicine, surgery or a transitional program |
| Unmatched, applying in the same specialty | Your existing specialty letter, if you wrote one |
| SOAP-ineligible | No letter for Match-participating programs: NRMP says ineligible applicants "cannot apply to any Match-participating programs" until SOAP concludes. On Tuesday of Match Week they may apply to non-Match programs, where a general letter works |
The applicant writes a matching statement for each of those situations; the SOAP personal statement examples show the statement side, and the supplemental rank order list guide explains the advanced-plus-preliminary pairing.
Constructed example: the specialty-locked closing and the SOAP version
Constructed example, written by us, not a real recommendation letter. Context (invented): Dr. M. Abebe, an internal medicine attending, supervised fourth-year student Lorna Hartmann on a four-week inpatient sub-internship. Hartmann applied in emergency medicine.
I recommend Ms. Hartmann without reservation for emergency medicine residency. She will be an outstanding emergency physician.
That closing names one specialty. In SOAP, a family medicine or preliminary medicine program reads it as a letter written for someone else.
Constructed example, written by us, not a real recommendation letter. Same invented writer and student.
I recommend Ms. Hartmann without reservation for residency training. On my service she carried four patients a day, presented them before I saw them, and had the overnight admissions ready for rounds by 7 a.m. Of the 14 sub-interns I have supervised, she and one other were ready to carry an intern's list in their first week. She is ready to start as an intern in internal medicine, family medicine or a preliminary year.
That is 74 words. It keeps the evidence (the patients she carried, the comparison against 14 sub-interns) and moves the specialty from the verdict to a list of the positions she can start in. It is also the comparison a writer would have made on the phone.
Off-cycle positions
On this page, an off-cycle position is a vacancy a program fills outside the Match, starting on a date other than July 1. If the applicant is already a resident, the letter changes. The ACGME's glossary counts a resident "moving from one program to another" as a transfer, and its 2026 Common Program Requirements (section 3.5) require the new program to "obtain verification of previous educational experiences and a summative competency-based performance evaluation prior to acceptance of a transferring resident."
So for an off-cycle applicant in training, the program director's paperwork goes with your letter. Write the letter to match it: the dates of training, the level reached, and why the resident is available now. The full method, with a constructed letter, is in the letter for a prelim or transferring resident.
SOAP letter checklist for writers
- Ask the applicant on the day of the request: which specialties and position types could they apply to in SOAP?
- Write one general letter, or one letter per specialty, before Monday, March 15, 2027.
- Keep your evidence: named patients' problems (without identifiers), dates, and a comparison with a number in it.
- Close with a recommendation for "residency training", or for each position type the applicant may apply to.
- Use a general salutation. ECFMG says "Letters should not be addressed to specific programs or program directors."
- Do not call or email SOAP programs for the applicant. Answer if a program calls you.
- After 9 p.m. ET on Thursday, March 18, 2027, calls to unfilled programs are allowed again.
Questions about SOAP and off-cycle letters
Can I upload a new letter during SOAP?
That is an application-service rule, not an NRMP rule. The MPA says "Policies surrounding application submissions are determined by the application service and not the NRMP." Read the ERAS letters of recommendation chapter, or the program's own service, before Match Week.
Should my letter say the applicant did not match?
No. The letter is about readiness for training; the applicant's SOAP statement handles the Match result. A letter that opens with the non-match spends its first lines on the one fact the program already knows.
Can a program director call me during SOAP?
Yes. The rule restricts contact that the applicant or a representative starts. ECFMG notes that "Program directors may contact LoR authors during the application screening process."
What if the applicant matched to an advanced position but not a prelim year?
Write for the preliminary year: say the applicant can start as an intern in a medicine, surgery or transitional program, and back that with ward evidence. For what the dean's office already sends, see how the MSPE and letters differ.
Get a free review of the letter
Get a free Quick Review of the letter against GradPilot's residency letter of recommendation rubric. Paste the general version you will leave with the applicant before Match Week; it checks how the letter establishes your vantage, whether each claim rests on a patient-care incident you saw, and whether a reader can tell how strongly you recommend the applicant.
More residency letter guides:
- Residency letter of recommendation sample: a constructed attending letter, annotated.
- Letter for a prelim or transferring resident: what the transfer paperwork covers and what the letter adds.
- USCE letter of recommendation for IMGs: writing for an international graduate after an observership.
- ERAS letters of recommendation: the applicant's guide to the letter layer.
Sources
Retrieved November 7, 2026, except where noted.
- National Resident Matching Program, SOAP (2027 Match): SOAP definition, readiness line, SOAP-ineligible applicants, 2027 guide "coming early 2027".
- National Resident Matching Program, 2027 Main Residency Match Week and SOAP Calendar (2027 Match): March 15–18, 2027 times.
- National Resident Matching Program, 2027 Main Residency Match Applicants Calendar (2027 Match): Rank Order List Certification Deadline, March 3, 2027.
- National Resident Matching Program, 2027 Match Participation Agreement for Applicants (2027 Main Residency Match and SOAP), sections 9.0–9.3: eligibility, positions, communication, application policies, binding commitment.
- ECFMG, Asking for a Letter of Recommendation (LoR) (last updated May 20, 2025): specialty-specific letters, late letters, salutation, program contact with authors.
- Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, Common Program Requirements (Residency) (effective July 1, 2026), section 3.5, and ACGME Glossary of Terms (June 17, 2026): transfer residents.
- Not retrieved: AAMC, ERAS letters of recommendation chapter (HTTP 403 to our request on November 7, 2026); no ERAS rule is quoted on this page.
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