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All of them, in your honest order. Victoria's PMCV match takes 1–15 health services 1, SA takes four programs 2, WA three sites 3; NSW is not a preference system at all outside BPT and the surgical network — you apply per position 4. An unlisted service cannot offer you anything.
How many you are allowed differs by state. Victoria's PMCV PGY2 Match lets you preference 1–15 health services, and you apply directly to each one as well as in the match 1. SA MET gives you four program preferences out of roughly 35 2. WA's centralised RMO/SMR pool takes three site preferences 3. Queensland asks you to nominate level, facility and specialty preferences, then runs a re-preference round on 4–7 Sep 2026 for the 2027 year so unsuccessful PHO and registrar applicants can drop down to JHO, SHO or PHO 5. NSW is the odd one out: you apply position by position, and preference matching only applies to BPT networks and the Surgical Skills Network, which make one offer in round one 4.
Fill the list. The mechanics differ but the failure mode does not — a service you did not preference cannot offer you a job, and Queensland's own process only sends you an interview from your first preference at the early stage 56.
Do not game the order. The recurring belief is that moving a hospital up your list makes you likelier to get it. The people who have actually read a matching algorithm say your first slot should be your true first choice and the rest should be honest 6. And in some rounds preferences are not what decides it at all — AGPT allocates on merit ranking, so a stronger applicant whose earlier preferences are full takes your first preference ahead of you 7.
The thing nobody tells you is that a preference list is not a promise. People get reallocated off a first preference because of staffing shortages, and Victoria's 2025 match had a result re-run that moved people down their lists after offers had already landed 6.
r/ausjdocs — community view, not policy; verbatim, cautionary beside positive where both exist, every quote linked to the comment.
Nope, because it is merit based ranking, not preference based.
If you're happy to work in a particular region, put it as a preference or you're only hurting your chances.
Stacking is about positions #2 to #15. The first position is *always* your first preference.
Don't fall into the trap of thinking that moving a particular preference higher up your list makes you more likely to get it - it doesn't (necessarily).
You'll only receive an interview offer at this stage from your first preference.
Asked 40 times on r/ausjdocs (title-regex count) · encoded by hand from the numbered sources, retrieved 12 Sept 2026; no AI wrote any of it. how the count was made
asked_count = posts in the 19,145-post r/ausjdocs dump (2022-09-13 to 2026-09-12) whose title matches /preferenc/i. Quotes are the highest-scoring comments that state a mechanic rather than a result, with the AGPT merit-ranking correction included because it contradicts the 'order matters' assumption in the others.