Any correlations between how soon you are asked to interview and acceptance

[Hollaback Girl]

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title is slightly misleading, but my question is

Is there a correlation between how soon you are wanted to go out for the interview and the level of interest of a school?

This may sound kind of dumb, but what I'm getting at is how some schools give invitations for interviewing 2 months from now, whereas others want you to come out a week or two after they offer you the interview. Is there something to be said for that or do you think it just depends on the efficiency of the admissions committee?
Holla

 

[tacrum43]

title is slightly misleading, but my question is

Is there a correlation between how soon you are wanted to go out for the interview and the level of interest of a school?

This may sound kind of dumb, but what I'm getting at is how some schools give invitations for interviewing 2 months from now, whereas others want you to come out a week or two after they offer you the interview. Is there something to be said for that or do you think it just depends on the efficiency of the admissions committee?
Holla

It depends on the school. Some schedule interviews months ahead of time, while others do it only a few weeks ahead.

When I first read your post, I thought you meant do you people have a better chance of acceptance if they interivew early. The answer is yes to some extent for rolling schools, but not for non-rolling.

 

[einnewt]

Is there a correlation between how soon you are wanted to go out for the interview and the level of interest of a school?

That's a great question.

Someone who knows how should set up a poll which asks for the time elapsed between when their file at the school was complete and when they were invited to interview, then also whether they were accepted. One could vote multiple times, one for each school they applied to.

 

[SailCrazy]

Is there a correlation between how soon you are wanted to go out for the interview and the level of interest of a school?

Some school definitely try to get a good & of their "most attractive" applicants in earlier.

 

[MoosePilot]

Anectdotally, I was invited to the first interview at two schools and I've been accepted to the same two schools. It may just be that they've had time to make the decision, though, due to the early interviews.

 

[wowzer]

no, for the most part. if you are invited to interview, it usually means that you are on even ground with everyone who has interviewed and everyone who is interviewing with you. There may be an exception once we get into the later winter months, like Feburary and March. Many people have posted that they have experienced interview invite surges during December/January.

In the end, getting an interview is mostly due to the committee getting to your application and deciding that you are a fairly good fit for the school. That's not to say that consideration to the whole application (grades, LORs, mcat) won't happen even after the interview, becuase most people interview really well and schools need more ways of being selective.

Edit: Check out UMich's admissions web page. Let's say that out of the 500 interviews already offered, 250 have been completed and decisions already made. That means that at this point in time, about 30% of total decisions have been made (250/800). If there was favoritism towards the beginning months (Sept-Nov.), you would see MUCH more than 30-35% of the total acceptances already offered. This is not the case - 28% of acceptances have been given as of now, which correlates nicely to the percentage of interviews offered as of now(30%).