Third-year medical students enter the Fourth-Year Scheduling lottery (FYSH) to submit preferences for Acting Internships (AI) and electives to be taken in the fourth year. The lottery applies to students on all campuses. A class meeting is held early in the spring semester of the third year to provide details on FYSH and fourth-year scheduling.

We strongly advise that you meet with your career advisor or campus leadership before entering your final lottery picks. You’ll want to consider the courses best for your desired specialty, the optimal time for Step 2 CK study, and whether you need to take away electives.

Timeline

Important Notes

Acting Internships

• Birmingham, Huntsville, and Montgomery students are required to take eight weeks of clinical electives (excluding co-enrolled courses) or acting internships on their clinical campus.
• Primary Care Track students are required to complete all three AIs in Tuscaloosa.
• All students may take the critical care AI as well as elective AIs on any campus where there is capacity.

Courses requiring written permission

These courses are not available via FYSH. Once FYSH results are posted to schedules, you will be able to use the Drop or Add Course page to register for a written permission course. You will be required to upload an email with permission from the course instructor.

Teaching associate courses

As part of the FYSH lottery, you will be able to rank order the teaching associate courses. Teaching associate courses allow a fourth-year medical student the opportunity to mentor/teach pre-clinical students. These optional courses are longitudinal courses that count toward elective credit. You are not required to take a teaching associate course and should only rank order them if you intend to complete a TA course.

Entering Your Preferences in the Lottery

Use the Scheduling Lottery link to enter your preferences for AIs and electives in the lottery before the posted deadline. 

Lottery Results

Results will be posted to your schedule (Academic Summary) on the date listed in the timeline above. You will be notified to review the results. 

Important: The results of the lottery may not give you a complete schedule, and you may want/need to add additional courses. See the section on making changes below.

Making Changes

Before the lottery deadline

You can make changes to your preferences in the lottery any time before the deadline – even if you already saved preferences previously.  Your saved preferences at the time of the deadline are used for the lottery.  If you do not enter FYSH, you will not be assigned a fourth-year schedule and will have to use the Drop or Add Course link to create one.

After courses are posted to your schedule

Use the Online Schedule Change Request system (OSCR) to adjust your schedule after lottery results have been posted.  You can search for courses in Course Availability.  

We strongly advise that you meet with your career advisor or campus leadership before adding or dropping courses.

Helpful Resources

What types of AIs do you need? How many weeks of electives do you need to graduate? Find out on the Graduation Requirements webpage.

What have students in your desired specialty taken in the past? This Advising Aid allows you to select a specialty and see the courses most frequently completed by students who successfully matched into that specialty in the past five years. 

Fourth Year Scheduling Lottery - Entering Lottery Picks Video

Fourth Year Scheduling Lottery - Course Types in the Lottery Video

Fourth Year Scheduling Lottery - How the Lottery Works Video

Fourth-Year Scheduling FAQs Video