Table 1.

Side-by-Side Comparison of the PSCA versus ERAS

	PSCA	ERAS
Cost	Free of cost	Costly
Letter upload process	Streamlined process for academic plastic surgery letter writers	Letter writers must upload after email request
Output	Concise output	Lengthy output
Signaling	Program signaling	No program signaling
Application sorting	No formal application sorting mechanism	Applications can be sorted by examination scores
Personal statement and letter assignment	Only one personal statement and four uploaded letters of recommendation max that are visible to every program that applicant applied to	Allows for program-specific assignment of letters of recommendation and personal statements
Specialty-specific customization	Specialty customization with short answer questions	No specialty customization
Timeline	Timeline flexibility	Uniform application timeline
Familiarity	Medical school administrators are relatively unfamiliar with the system	More familiarity and visibility with medical school support administrators
Listing of accomplishments and activities	Applicants are limited in the number of activities, research items, and accomplishments they can list	Allows applicants to list all activities, research items, and accomplishments
Logistics	Technical difficulties in earlier versions	Relatively few technical issues