So you're saying that most people in the pool eventually get interviews?
If so, your post does make me feel a little better - and I appreciate your taking the time to write it.
No, sorry if I explained poorly. The pool is not really a waitlist because everyone must be placed in it prior to interview. You can be accepted without being placed on a waitlist, but you cannot be interviewed without being placed in the pool (to my knowledge). Therefore, you should not feel bad about being placed in the pool. It simply means that you are in their top 40-50% of candidates.
Now they tend to interview about 8-10% OOS and 31% IS.
This means that roughly 20-25% of OOS placed in the pool will be interviewed, and 60-75% of IS placed in the pool will be interviewed.
Assuming IS and OOS are placed in the pool equally, the numbers above should be correct. If you are IS you have a VERY good chance of being interviewed if you are in the pool, and if you are OOS you have an alright chance of being interviewed.
These numbers are derived from the MSAR, but again I made a lot of assumptions in these calculations, and also the 40-50% pooled is a subjective number that I got from the forum. We have no idea if you are more likely to be placed in the pool if you are IS to begin with. If that is the case, then we would see that OOS people placed in the pool would have a greater chance then the one given above. I hope this helps some, but there is really no way of knowing for sure how they distribute the pool.
Sorry, I am a math guy, so these things are important to me
By the way, Congrats to all the invites!!!
I am pretty jealous, but I got a different one today to make up for it!