Chances of Admission with a September Interview

[NYCNative]

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So this topic has been (inconclusively) touched on by a few posters in a few threads, and I thought the topic deserved its own thread. Perhaps some adcoms might be able to enlighten us with an insider's view, as well.

We all know each school's interview to acceptance rate, but that figure includes so many of the interviewees that we know may be interviewing for waitlist spots. How much different do you think that schools' interview to acceptance rates are for people who interview within the first month of a school's cycle?

 

[13132]

So this topic has been (inconclusively) touched on by a few posters in a few threads, and I thought the topic deserved its own thread. Perhaps some adcoms might be able to enlighten us with an insider's view, as well.

We all know each school's interview to acceptance rate, but that figure includes so many of the interviewees that we know may be interviewing for waitlist spots. How much different do you think that schools' interview to acceptance rates are for people who interview within the first month of a school's cycle?

You think you are ever going to get a "conclusive" answer? There is a reason the question wasn't answered with certainty. Sure, it is probably a higher chance, but nobody can know how much.

 

[mvenus929]

The people who interview in September *tend* to be the super-star applicants, so I feel like they are going to have a higher acceptance rate (straight out) than the 'average' applicants interviewing in February.

But I agree with the poster above--you're not going to get a definitive answer, probably because it varies so much school to school, and even year to year.

 

[Lya]

I am not sure if there is any data out there to answer your question fully. It depends on schools and also how they evaluate students.

Schools like IU, for example, sometimes don't tell you if you got in or not until December or even March, even if you interviewed in September or sometime early. Moreover, they write down scores for each interview, so if you screw up in your September interview, the chance are still low.

(At the same time though, we would like to believe that chances are slightly higher for early interviewees because there are more spots available.)

 

[yehhhboiii]

bout tree fiddy

 

[13132]

I am not sure if there is any data out there to answer your question fully. It depends on schools and also how they evaluate students.

Schools like IU, for example, sometimes don't tell you if you got in or not until December or even March, even if you interviewed in September or sometime early. Moreover, they write down scores for each interview, so if you screw up in your September interview, the chance are still low.

(At the same time though, we would like to believe that chances are slightly higher for early interviewees because there are more spots available.)

Doesn't every school keep track of how you did in the interview and it affects your chances? Are you just emphasizing that you can mess up a good thing (interviewing early) with a bad interview?

 

[NYCNative]

You think you are ever going to get a "conclusive" answer? There is a reason the question was answered with certainty. Sure, it is probably a higher chance, but nobody can know how much.

OK, it appears that it's necessary for me to clarify that I'm not looking for conclusive numbers (even though I don't think I said that I was -- I merely stated that other posters had addressed the issue inconclusively (and by that I meant in a peripheral and off-hand manner) so that people would know I had already done some SDN research on the matter. I'm just wondering what adcoms (or other knowledgeable parties) perceive the answer to be. It's obvious that the ratio is higher, so I think the question is worth asking. SDN, please pile on me if this is not the case. But how much higher? For those sitting on adcoms, how many more acceptances do you feel that you give out during the first month of the cycle compared to the rest? For that matter, how many acceptances go out on October 15?

 

[13132]

OK, it appears that it's necessary for me to clarify that I'm not looking for conclusive numbers (even though I don't think I said that I was -- I merely stated that other posters had addressed the issue inconclusively (and by that I meant in a peripheral and off-hand manner). I'm just wondering what adcoms perceive the answer to be. It's obvious that the ratio is higher, so I think the question is worth asking. SDN, please pile on me if this is not the case. But how much higher? For those sitting on adcoms, how many more acceptances do you feel that you give out during the first month of the cycle compared to the rest? For that matter, how many acceptances go out on October 15?

So you aren't looking for conclusive numbers but you aren't happy with the answers of "More acceptances...better chances...etc"?

So do you want an answer like:

"We give out slightly more than 176 acceptances on Oct 15th, but slightly less than 178."

If you seek certainty in this process you will drive yourself crazy.

 

[Dbate]

So this topic has been (inconclusively) touched on by a few posters in a few threads, and I thought the topic deserved its own thread. Perhaps some adcoms might be able to enlighten us with an insider's view, as well.

We all know each school's interview to acceptance rate, but that figure includes so many of the interviewees that we know may be interviewing for waitlist spots. How much different do you think that schools' interview to acceptance rates are for people who interview within the first month of a school's cycle?

The real way to answer this is for everyone to come back to this thread after getting acceptances.

They should report their interview date and then whether they were accepted/waitlisted or rejected. Then a poster can run a regression with the proportion of people who were accepted by date.

This would enable a more accurate picture of the impact of interview date on chances.

I love statistics, so I would be happy to crunch the numbers. All it takes is for people to either report their interview date in this thread or their MDapps.

 

[NYCNative]

So you aren't looking for conclusive numbers but you aren't happy with the answers of "More acceptances...better chances...etc"?

So do you want an answer like:

"We give out slightly more than 176 acceptances on Oct 15th, but slightly less than 178."

If you seek certainty in this process you will drive yourself crazy.

I should have known what I was in for when the SDN IRB came back with a recommendation to approve my research as likely to yield generalizable knowledge but involving high risk of annoying mssquaredb 😀

The real way to answer this is for everyone to come back to this thread after getting acceptances.

They should report their interview date and then whether they were accepted/waitlisted or rejected. Then a poster can run a regression with the proportion of people who were accepted by date.

This would enable a more accurate picture of the impact of interview date on chances.

I love statistics, so I would be happy to crunch the numbers. All it takes is for people to either report their interview date in this thread or their MDapps.

I think this is an awesome idea. It's been years since I took a stat class, so I would definitely appreciate your collaboration on this project. I just came across a call for papers to the SDN Journal of Premedical Science... We can submit our findings and I'll even let you take lead author

 

[Dbate]

I should have known what I was in for when the SDN IRB came back with a recommendation to approve my research as likely to yield generalizable knowledge but involving high risk of annoying mssquaredb 😀



I think this is an awesome idea. It's been years since I took a stat class, so I would definitely appreciate your collaboration on this project. I just came across a call for papers to the SDN Journal of Premedical Science... We can submit our findings and I'll even let you take lead author

Hahahaha, actually--if I get bored enough--I might start combing the currently existing MDapps for the data.

It could be a valuable resource to SDN. Unfortunately, I don't think there would be enough data points to see the trends at each individual school.

 

[tantacles]

The real way to answer this is for everyone to come back to this thread after getting acceptances.

They should report their interview date and then whether they were accepted/waitlisted or rejected. Then a poster can run a regression with the proportion of people who were accepted by date.

This would enable a more accurate picture of the impact of interview date on chances.

I love statistics, so I would be happy to crunch the numbers. All it takes is for people to either report their interview date in this thread or their MDapps.

You can just look on MDapps right now. Many people do post their interview dates, and you could normalize for MCAT and GPA based on what's on there. If you want, you can also go through school-specific threads. There are often aggregations of interview and acceptance statistics there. As for getting everyone to post in this thread . . . Good luck.

 

[NYCNative]

Those are some good points. In the last hour, I've tried combing MDApps for some data, but most people seem to omit interview and acceptance dates from their page 🙁 I'm sure there are some apps on there, though, whose data is complete enough to at least draw a few inferences.

Maybe a few applicants would be so kind as to drop in and let us know the number of early interviews that you attended, and the number of acceptances that you have received by the end of the week! And perhaps just mention if any of the schools where you interviewed do not have rolling admissions. If you could just drop in and write

4/3

or something along those lines...