Does how early you interview have any influence on post II A%?

[faze_contusion]

Does anyone have any insight on how the time of the year you get an II influences how likely that II is to translate to an A? For example, a school I interviewed at has a total post II A% of 35% (according to admit.org stats). I'd like to know whether IIs earlier in the cycle have a higher rate of A than late interviews (March/April). Also, is a January interview considered late? Or does it not matter?

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[GoSpursGo]

Earlier is probably better just because there are more open seats to compete for. Whether January is early or late at any given school is impossible to say.

 

[HappyRabbit]

Many factors go into interview timing, a lot of which is not dependent on your specific profile in most cases (speed of your reviewer submitting your application feedback to the committee, etc). However, I would say later interviews usually indicate a lower probability of acceptance probability but there are too many exceptions to treat this like a one-and-done rule. Just focus on doing your best because a great interview performance will overcome any "disadvantages" a later interview might indicate and take you from the bottom of the list to the top.

Also, see LizzyM's staircase analogy - it's a great way to understand how interview-to-acceptance conversion works.

 

[Dragonite7]

I've only seen the data from one school on this, and it did show that earlier dates had a higher acceptance rate. However, this only applied to the earliest slots after which the acceptance rate quickly plateaued. I think this makes sense because if you get a II 6mo after you submitted, it's because they didn't like you enough to give you a II on the initial pass. However, the difference isn't large so even later interviews give you a good chance. And I'm sure this varies by school as well.

 

[LizzyM]

Generally, better applicants are invited earlier. Thus, without controlling for quality, it is hard to say if earlier is better or is merely confounding the relationship between quality and an offer.

Another thing to consider is how well the interviewee does in the interview which can get better with experience meaning that the earliest interview a candidate has may not be "their best" and may be less likely to result in admission compared to a slightly later interview.

Some schools hold all the offers until the end. In those cases, there is no advantage to interviewing early.

I do suspect that controlling for quality, many schools make about the same proportion of offers to interviewed candidates month by month over the interview cycle.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

From my perspective and analysis, we (admissions teams) have spoken so consistently about early applications that better applicants (by metrics or experiences) are applying earlier. Yes, we get suboptimal applicants applying early too, but it's easy to gauge the baseline from historical trends and the early batch of applications (10-20% of our pools received within the middle of July, you can see it on various cycle trackers).