All Interviewees Equal??

[thatslife]

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After its all said and done, this questions has been bugging me to no end...

Are all interview-ees equally considered? I was told this by my pre-med advisor and thought this to be true myself. If you were invited by a school to interview, they "think you are capable and now its a matter of personality and intangibles that cannot be translated to an piece of paper."

I was fortunate to be well received by some schools. I have quite a few friends who, sadly, were not. The step down (from interview to admission) at most "first tier" schools is 3 to 1 or 4 to 1. For example, a good friend of mine was invited to 6 "top tier" schools to interview. He was rejected at 5 and waitlisted at 1. Right now it doesnt look likely that he will get into any of those schools (2nd tier at UPenn). All things being equal he had a 86.7% probability of getting into at least one school [1-(2.5/3.5)^6). Granted I know that conditions are never ideal.

Anyways, I was wondering two things:

First, has anybody else has similiar experiences?

Second, does anybody know from adcom perspective, do schools invite applicants they do not consider "as capable" (i.e. shoe-ins and marginal applicants)?

(sorry for the long post)

 

[MED_04]

After its all said and done, this questions has been bugging me to no end...

Are all interview-ees equally considered? I was told this by my pre-med advisor and thought this to be true myself. If you were invited by a school to interview, they "think you are capable and now its a matter of personality and intangibles that cannot be translated to an piece of paper."

I was fortunate to be well received by some schools. I have quite a few friends who, sadly, were not. The step down (from interview to admission) at most "first tier" schools is 3 to 1 or 4 to 1. For example, a good friend of mine was invited to 6 "top tier" schools to interview. He was rejected at 5 and waitlisted at 1. Right now it doesnt look likely that he will get into any of those schools (2nd tier at UPenn). All things being equal he had a 86.7% probability of getting into at least one school [1-(2.5/3.5)^6). Granted I know that conditions are never ideal.

Anyways, I was wondering two things:

First, has anybody else has similiar experiences?

Second, does anybody know from adcom perspective, do schools invite applicants they do not consider "as capable" (i.e. shoe-ins and marginal applicants)?

(sorry for the long post)

trust me its not true

 

[Touchdown]

Its not, the two school I interviewed at last year said I was waitlisted/rejected because of my grades.

 

[Law2Doc]

After its all said and done, this questions has been bugging me to no end...

Are all interview-ees equally considered? I was told this by my pre-med advisor and thought this to be true myself. If you were invited by a school to interview, they "think you are capable and now its a matter of personality and intangibles that cannot be translated to an piece of paper."

I was fortunate to be well received by some schools. I have quite a few friends who, sadly, were not. The step down (from interview to admission) at most "first tier" schools is 3 to 1 or 4 to 1. For example, a good friend of mine was invited to 6 "top tier" schools to interview. He was rejected at 5 and waitlisted at 1. Right now it doesnt look likely that he will get into any of those schools (2nd tier at UPenn). All things being equal he had a 86.7% probability of getting into at least one school [1-(2.5/3.5)^6). Granted I know that conditions are never ideal.

Anyways, I was wondering two things:

First, has anybody else has similiar experiences?

Second, does anybody know from adcom perspective, do schools invite applicants they do not consider "as capable" (i.e. shoe-ins and marginal applicants)?

(sorry for the long post)

First, whether all interviewees are treated as equal depends on the school. There are definitely schools that do this, and adcoms who explicitly tell interviewees this.
Secondly, I disagree with your odds analysis. If someone interviews badly, he has bad odds whether he has one interview or six. You are assuming the interview is a formality and that everyone who doesn't flip out has a chance. But the truth of the matter is that at interviews, some schools may accept a half to as few as a quarter of those interviewed, and so you really may have to outperform 50-75% of those other folks interviewed. If you are a lukewarm interview, and others know how to sell themselves, you may be going nowhere fast.

 

[SeventhSon]

interviewees are not at all equal at any school. I have had some relaly really good interviews at schools and then got waitlisted or even rejected.

 

[Law2Doc]

interviewees are not at all equal at any school. I have had some relaly really good interviews at schools and then got waitlisted or even rejected.

Unless you interviewed at 120+ schools you may be overgeneralizing. 🙂 I also would suggest that few folks are good critical judges of how well they interview.

 

[SeventhSon]

Secondly, I disagree with your odds analysis. If someone interviews badly, he has bad odds whether he has one interview or six. You are assuming the interview is a formality and that everyone who doesn't flip out has a chance.

yes he knows this, that's why he said "all things being equal"

 

[Law2Doc]

yes he knows this, that's why he said "all things being equal"

I guess, but what point is calculating odds if you basing them on assumptions that cannot possibly be true in the first place. Treating everyone as equal as they come into an interview is not the same as saying we are going to randomly pick from this batch. There is a performance being judged. 😕

 

[tacrum43]

There's also the issue that some schools make a bigger cut pre-interview than others, and so then the applicants they do interview have a greater chance than at a school that interviews a greater percentage.

But overall, I would say things are definitely not equal when you get to the interview stage. The only way everything would be equal would be if they only reviewed your interview performance before making an admissions decision, but I don't know of any school that do that, although some do weigh the interview much more heavily than others.

 

[Law2Doc]

The only way everything would be equal would be if they only reviewed your interview performance before making an admissions decision, but I don't know of any school that do that, although some do weigh the interview much more heavily than others.

I'm pretty sure some adcoms have explicitly said at interviews that they do this. There was a thread not that many months ago about which schools indicated this.

 

[Saluki]

I think that you don't go in equal.... I think I interview fairly well, but at each of the top ten schools I applied to I got waitlisted, whereas I was accepted at the top twenty schools and backup schools I applied to. I just don't believe that's coincidence or that I interviewed worse at the top schools....
That being said, I also don't believe they interview people with no shot, so I think even if you're marginal you could wow the interviewer and make it in...

 

[eastsidaz]

After its all said and done, this questions has been bugging me to no end...

Are all interview-ees equally considered? I was told this by my pre-med advisor and thought this to be true myself. If you were invited by a school to interview, they "think you are capable and now its a matter of personality and intangibles that cannot be translated to an piece of paper."

I was fortunate to be well received by some schools. I have quite a few friends who, sadly, were not. The step down (from interview to admission) at most "first tier" schools is 3 to 1 or 4 to 1. For example, a good friend of mine was invited to 6 "top tier" schools to interview. He was rejected at 5 and waitlisted at 1. Right now it doesnt look likely that he will get into any of those schools (2nd tier at UPenn). All things being equal he had a 86.7% probability of getting into at least one school [1-(2.5/3.5)^6). Granted I know that conditions are never ideal.

Anyways, I was wondering two things:

First, has anybody else has similiar experiences?

Second, does anybody know from adcom perspective, do schools invite applicants they do not consider "as capable" (i.e. shoe-ins and marginal applicants)?

(sorry for the long post)

The answer is no, no, and no. If anything, most schools use interviews solely as a way to screen out psychos.

 

[Law2Doc]

The answer is no, no, and no. If anything, most schools use interviews solely as a way to screen out psychos.

Actually they screen for psychos who are "a good fit".
But seriously, most schools weight the interview pretty heavilly, whether they treat everyone as equal or not, and it is used more significantly than to just eliminate outliers. Do what you can to prepare for the interview (esp. via mock interviewing if you can), show up enthusiastic and with lots of questions, and be ready to sell yourself. I've known quite a few folks who got accepted over folks with better numerical stats based on the strength of their interviews (they were told).

 

[riceman04]

First, whether all interviewees are treated as equal depends on the school. There are definitely schools that do this, and adcoms who explicitly tell interviewees this.
Secondly, I disagree with your odds analysis. If someone interviews badly, he has bad odds whether he has one interview or six. You are assuming the interview is a formality and that everyone who doesn't flip out has a chance. But the truth of the matter is that at interviews, some schools may accept a half to as few as a quarter of those interviewed, and so you really may have to outperform 50-75% of those other folks interviewed. If you are a lukewarm interview, and others know how to sell themselves, you may be going nowhere fast.

I put my seal of approval on this

 

[dbhvt]

Actually they screen for psychos who are "a good fit".

This is hilarious because it is true. Seriously (on both counts, hilarious and true)

 

[argonana]

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?p=3486733#post3486733

Bottom line: It really depends on the school. At some places, interviewees are by no means considered to be equal.

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

They're not equal by any means.

I don't think a school will waste time calling people who have no chance, but I think that grades are again taken into consideration when extending offers. Really, it's ridiculous (in my view), since they have your grades before they call you to interview, and if the grades will be a reason to decide against you, then it's just wasting your time and money having you interview.

 

[JohnyWalker]

Having talked to people on the adcom at UCSD I can tell you that, at least at their school, interview does not count for much. UCSD is on a point scale and the interview is worth 20 points out of a total of 160 that the applicant can accumulate. So, lets say both applicants accumulated enough points to get an interview with the cutoff being 100. Lets say applicant 1 has 110 points and applicant two has 135. No matter how well applicant one interviews or how poorly applicant two interviews, when it comes to making a decision on which applicant to pick they will pick applicant 2. So not all applicants have equal footing during an interview. However, as others have said, it does depend on which school and this was just one example.