Early Application, Depreciating Advantage?

[drimpossible]

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Hey all,

By now, most of us are familiar with the gospel of SDN: the earlier you complete your application, the better your chances of an interview, acceptance, etc. This is especially true at schools with rolling admissions.

My question is this: Does the advantage depreciate over time? This cycle, I was complete early with a number of my applications and was fortunate to receive a number of early interview invites. A few other schools have given me a preliminary once-over and small-pooled me.

In the case of the schools where I have been small-pooled, I imagine that my early submission allowed the adcom to review my app before they were deluged with applicants, getting me past the first screen. Has my early submission now served it's one-time usefulness? I doubt that if I get re-reviewed in January that my July secondary submission will be a deciding factor. I assume that I'm now in the same pool as the applicant who was complete in October. The same question can be applied to reach schools, where more competitive, later-submitting applicants will likely jump me in the invite queue.

Anyway, I did a brief search and didn't find anything about this and thought it was an interesting question.

Good luck to everyone, and I hope to see you in the class of 2015!

 

[LizzyM]

There are very few applicants who submit in October. Very, very few. For the most part you are in a big pool and whether you are looked at early or late is often just luck of the draw.

Imagine you are at a club or a bar and there are loads of eligible singles there. You talk with one but aren't ready to spend an inordinate amount of time given the many other attractive folks you'd like to talk to... maybe you'll come back to that person you met earlier but it is unlikely that you are really holding out for the hunk/fox who you expect to walk through the door at midnight.

 

[drimpossible]

The bar analogy is a good one. Getting there early will ensure that you get to talk to a bunch of potential mates, possibly hitting it off with one, but does little to ensure you going home with a total hottie. 🙂

The early application/better chances mantra may need to be coupled with the caveat that applying early can only help your overall chances of an acceptance somewhere, but that somewhere may be ultimately pretty random.