Updated
Residency CV: What ERAS Uses Instead and How to Write Yours
ERAS does not take a CV upload. MyERAS builds your residency CV from what you type into the application: up to 10 experiences at 750 characters each, up to 3 most meaningful at 300 more, and your Scholarly Work, per the AAMC's 2027 MyERAS guide. You still want your own CV for letter writers, your dean's office and away rotations.
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Does ERAS have a CV upload?
No. In the 2027 guide, a CV is not on the document list, and anything off that list “is not considered a standard ERAS Document”. The AAMC describes the CV this way: “The CV is nothing more than the MyERAS application formatted differently for the benefit of programs that prefer to view applications in a CV format.” Find it under View/Print CV, beside View/Print MyERAS Application. If a program asks for extra material, “receipt of these materials would be determined between the applicant and the program in question.”
Three rules follow. “You only have one application that will be sent to all programs applied to in the MyERAS portal.” MyERAS “does not include a spell or grammar check feature.” And after submission, “you will not be able to make any changes or updates outside of the information provided under the Personal Information section. There are no exceptions.”
AMA or APA? The AAMC pages differ
The 2027 MyERAS guide says the application PDF is “displayed in AMA format to programs.” An AAMC overview page still says “displayed in APA format to programs.” We follow the 2027 guide, as it is the season-specific document. Either way, you don't choose the format. You only control the entries.
Which MyERAS sections become your CV?
Education, Experience, Licenses and Certifications and Scholarly Work carry most of it. These are the limits to plan around. See our full guide to the ERAS Experiences section for every tag and type.
| Field | Limit |
|---|---|
| Selected experiences | Up to 10, 750 characters each |
| Most meaningful experiences | Up to 3 of the 10, 300 more characters each |
| Hobbies and interests | 300 characters |
| Impactful experience | Optional, only if it applies to you |
| Scholarly work | No entry limit, up to 3 starred |
| Scholarly collection title | 100 characters |
Education: what each part asks for
Per the AAMC, Higher Education lists your undergraduate and graduate schools. Medical Education needs each medical school you attended. Postgraduate Training needs any accredited residency, fellowship or AOA internship, “regardless of the length of time spent in the training.” Yes or no questions ask about academic and professional extensions, leaves, gaps or breaks. Honors and Awards tracks AOA (MD), Sigma Sigma Phi (DO) and Gold Humanism status.
Experience: what programs look at first
“Identify and describe up to 10 experiences that communicate who you are, what you are passionate about, and what is most important to you.” Each entry takes one of eight types, plus a focus area and a key characteristic. For your top three, “you will be asked to write a short 300-character description, reflecting on the experience, and explaining why it was meaningful and how it influenced you.” Per the AAMC, “More than 94% of respondents to the 2026 Program Director Survey used the most meaningful experiences when factoring in whom to invite to interview.” In the guide, “programs will see experiences listed by experiences type and then chronological order with most meaningful experience(s) above all experiences.”
The optional impactful experience is separate. “This question is intended for applicants who have overcome major challenges or obstacles.” Only use it if that applies to you.
Scholarly Work: new for 2027
“For the 2027 ERAS season, the MyERAS Publications section has been redesigned and renamed Scholarly Work.” “No limit on the number of entries you may include”. The five types are peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters and journal abstracts, plus oral and poster presentations. “Select up to 3 most meaningful scholarly works by clicking the star icon next to an entry.” Enter authors as “Lastname FirstInitial MiddleInitial with multiple author names separated by a comma.” Then select your own name and click B to bold it. Mark whether you are first author.
Per the AAMC, submitted, accepted and published statuses apply only to journal articles and abstracts. Collections, with a title of up to 100 characters, “help students cultivate a narrative of how their research or scholarly work produced academic output”. Check it all “by clicking the preview as program button when in the scholarly work section”.
Reapplicants: if you bring entries over from last season, see the AAMC's 2027 season notes and recheck every imported entry by hand.
When do you still need your own residency CV?
Even though ERAS makes one, you will want your own document for these uses. This is our advice from how applications run, not an AAMC rule.
Letter writers. Send it with your personal statement so they can write specifics.
Your dean's office. The MSPE author needs your activities and honors in one place.
Away rotations. Some host programs ask for one, so check each listing.
Interview day. Bring a one-page version only if a program or mentor would find it useful.
Your own master list. Keep everything here, then trim it down to MyERAS limits.
See our guides to letters of recommendation, the MSPE and VSLO away rotations.
How do you write a residency CV?
Use one column, a plain font at 11 or 12 point, no photo unless asked and consistent dates (our advice, not an AAMC rule). Lead each entry with a strong verb and a number: patients, volunteers, hours, sample size. Here is the order we suggest:
- Name and contact details
- Education, newest first, with degree dates
- Honors and awards, AOA and Gold Humanism first if you have them
- Licensing exams: Step 1 pass and your Step 2 CK or COMLEX results, if you have released them
- Clinical, research, leadership and service experience
- Scholarly work, in AMA citation style, with your name in bold
- Teaching, such as tutoring, anatomy lab or near-peer sessions
- Memberships in professional societies, like your specialty's student section
- Certifications, licenses, languages and skills
- Short personal interests line (optional)
How long it should be, and IMGs
Our suggestions for your residency CV length:
- Typical US MD or DO senior: 2 to 3 pages
- IMG or applicant with more work history: 3 to 4 pages
- PhD or research-heavy applicant: as long as the work takes
- Interview handout: 1 page
IMGs should add ECFMG certification status and visa needs where a reader would look for them, and list US clinical experience apart from observerships. See our IMG residency interview guide.
Skip a references section. Your letter writers are already in ERAS, and a program that wants references will ask.
A full one-page sample residency CV
Example CV, written by our team. The applicant is invented.
Maya R. Ellison
Fourth-year medical student, applying in Internal Medicine
maya.ellison@example.edu, (555) 014-2290, Columbus, OH
Education
MD candidate, Midwest State University College of Medicine, expected May 2027
BS in Biochemistry, magna cum laude, Lakeview University, May 2022
Honors and awards
Gold Humanism Honor Society, inducted 2026
Dean's Research Award, 2024
Licensing exams
USMLE Step 1: Pass, 2025
USMLE Step 2 CK: 252, 2026
Clinical and service experience
Student director, Eastside Free Clinic, 2023 to present. Recruited 40 volunteers and cut the wait for a first visit from 3 weeks to 9 days.
Sub-internship, inpatient medicine, Midwest State University Hospital, July 2026
Research
Research assistant, Division of Hospital Medicine, 2023 to 2025. Built a 1,200-patient readmission dataset and ran the regression for our heart failure abstract.
Teaching
Near-peer anatomy tutor, 2024 to 2025. Led weekly review sessions for 30 first-year students.
Scholarly work
Ellison MR, Patel S, Grant L. Thirty-day readmission after heart failure discharge in a safety-net hospital. Poster presented at: Society of Hospital Medicine Annual Meeting, April 2025.
Memberships
American College of Physicians, student member, 2023 to present
Skills and interests
Spanish, professional working proficiency
Long-distance running, two marathons
How do you turn a CV entry into a MyERAS entry?
Bullets become one clear paragraph, and the reflection adds what the description cannot. This whole example is ours, and the clinic is invented.
Student Director, Riverside Free Clinic, 2024 to 2026
Before: our example of a weak master CV entry
- Helped with scheduling volunteers
- Participated in patient intake
- Worked on diabetes follow-up project
- Attended monthly board meetings
After: 750-character box (ours, 595 characters)
Led a student-run free clinic serving uninsured adults, with 40 volunteers across two Saturday sessions each month. Built a volunteer schedule that ended canceled sessions for the year. Saw patients with a supervising physician, doing intake and medication review. After noticing that patients with diabetes rarely returned, I started a phone follow-up list with two classmates and trained new volunteers to run it. Of the 86 patients we called in the first year, 61 came back for an A1c check. I presented results to the clinic board, which made follow-up calls a standing part of each session.
Most meaningful, 300-character box (ours, 197 characters)
A patient told me he skipped visits because no one noticed when he did. Calling him taught me that follow-up is care, not paperwork. I now ask what makes the next visit hard before I end any visit.
Draft outside MyERAS and proofread there. The AAMC also says your most meaningful descriptions “should not repeat the information from your MSPE Noteworthy Characteristics and/or personal statement.” Keep the personal statement for why this specialty.
How do you trim a long CV to 10 experiences?
Our rules for getting a 15 to 20 item master list down to 10:
- Keep what shows the specialty you want, ongoing commitment or a role with real responsibility.
- Combine related work: three shifts at one student clinic make one entry, not three.
- Move papers, posters and talks to Scholarly Work so they do not use up an experience slot.
- Skip routine core clerkships. Your transcript and MSPE already show them.
- Keep one non-medical entry if it shows who you are. Use Hobbies and Interests for the rest.
- Pick your three most meaningful by what changed you, not by what looks most impressive.
What mistakes should you avoid?
- Saving a designed PDF to upload at the last minute. There is no place for it.
- Telling the same story in your personal statement and most meaningful experiences.
- Adding one poster twice when you presented it at two meetings. Use Add Event.
- Forgetting to bold your name or mark first authorship in Scholarly Work.
- Listing a gap on your own CV but leaving it unexplained. Answer the Education questions honestly and be ready to talk about it.
- Submitting before you read both the View/Print CV and Preview as Program views.
What will interviewers ask about your CV?
Anything on it, so if you can't talk about an entry for two minutes, reconsider it. Most interviews open with something close to tell me about yourself.
“Walk me through your CV.”
Your interviewer can read the list, so do not recite it. Pick a thread, tie two or three entries to it and end on why this specialty. Aim for about a minute.
Example answer, written by our team (not a real applicant)
The thread through my CV is patients who fall out of care. It started before medical school, when I worked as a medical assistant in a community clinic and booked the same missed appointments over and over.
In medical school I ran our student free clinic and started a phone follow-up list for patients with diabetes. That became my research project, on what predicts a missed follow-up visit, which I presented at our regional meeting.
On my internal medicine sub-internship, I saw the same problem at discharge, and I loved working out why a plan would fall apart at home. That is why I am applying in internal medicine, and why your primary care track stood out.
Sources: AAMC 2027 MyERAS Applicant User Guide, Viewing the CV, Additional documents and the 2027 ERAS season update. All checked October 30, 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Can you upload a CV to ERAS?
No. A CV is not a standard ERAS document. MyERAS builds one from what you enter in the Application section, and you and programs can see it through View/Print CV. If a program asks for your own CV, you arrange that with the program directly.
What is the difference between View/Print Application and View/Print CV?
The content is the same. The AAMC says the CV is the application formatted differently for programs that prefer a CV layout. Read both views before you submit, since you can't fix most mistakes afterward.
How many experiences can I list on my ERAS CV?
Up to 10 selected experiences at 750 characters each, with up to 3 marked most meaningful for another 300 characters each. Hobbies and interests get 300 characters. Scholarly work is separate and has no limit on entries.
What replaced Publications in the 2027 ERAS application?
Scholarly Work. It has five types (peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters and journal abstracts, plus oral and poster presentations), no limit on entries, up to 3 starred entries, a first-author field and collections that group related work.
Can I update my ERAS CV after I submit?
Not outside the Personal Information section. The AAMC says there are no exceptions. Share updates, like a new publication, with programs directly if they accept them, and be ready to mention them on interview day.
Do I still need a separate CV for residency?
Yes, in practice. Letter writers, your dean's office and some away rotation hosts find one useful, and a master list makes MyERAS much easier to fill in. The AAMC does not set a format for it, so use a simple one-column layout.
How long should a residency CV be?
We suggest 2 to 3 pages for a typical US senior, 3 to 4 for an IMG or applicant with more work history, and a single page for an interview handout. Research-heavy CVs can run longer. There is no official length.