How much does luck factor into post-interview acceptance?

[Anonimus.Maximus]

I can think of several general reasons someone might get turned down after an interview. I'm sure this varies a ton from school to school, but very broadly, how does the breakdown go?

1. People who get rejected because of things they did/said wrong on interview day. Subcategories here would be (a) those who had plain bad interviews, (b) those who didn't appear informed or enthusiastic enough about the school, (c) those who didn't present themselves professionally, and (d) those who committed a major faux pas outside of the interview itself, like bashing another school or being rude to staff.

2. Marginal candidates whose interviews might have been fine, but weren't strong enough to overcome their otherwise weak applications.

3. Yield protection, for superstar applicants the school thinks are unlikely to matriculate. Arguably overlaps with category 1b.

4. Those who didn't seem to align with the school's mission. For example, interviewing at a service-oriented school and appearing only interested in research. Also overlaps with 1b.

5. People who did everything right, but were just plain unlucky.

Or to put it differently, if you do everything well at an interview day, how strong is your position?

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[Anonimus.Maximus]

This is more akin to an olympic event where the 3 top medal finishers are just fractions of a second faster then the next 3. except for your number, the rest of the reasons dont exist. These candidates would have never made it to interview

I guess a related question would be "how many excellent premeds are terrible at interviewing?" I've liked most of the people I've met, but there were one or two really cringeworthy moments that I saw.

 

[Isoval]

I guess a related question would be "how many excellent premeds are terrible at interviewing?" I've liked most of the people I've met, but there were one or two really cringeworthy moments that I saw.

I’ve come away with similar thoughts:
A vast majority of people I’ve met at interviews have been people I’m relatively sure would do well on (or, at least, not blow) their interviews. Yet, somehow, statistically just over half of us will get cut.

 

[LizzyM]

I'd estimate that <5% of the interviewed applicants are dreadful and shouldn't be admitted to any medical school.

Those who get multiple interviews are usually strong enough to get into at least one school whereas there are many applicants who end the cycle without any interviews. I wonder what proportion of the 40K+ applicants in a given cycle don't get any interviews at all and I wonder what proportion of those who get at least one interview have at least one offer at the end of the cycle.

@gonnif are those data available?

 

[tiramisucheese]

Data on the second, no data on the first. Just under 20% of matriculants had 1 interview invite and therefore garnered a single acceptance.

https://www.aamc.org/download/474258/data/msq2016report.pdf
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Too bad those numbers can't be further broken down by how many schools an applicant applied to. Or perhaps percentages.

 

[Goro]

I'd estimate that <5% of the interviewed applicants are dreadful and shouldn't be admitted to any medical school.

Those who get multiple interviews are usually strong enough to get into at least one school whereas there are many applicants who end the cycle without any interviews. I wonder what proportion of the 40K+ applicants in a given cycle don't get any interviews at all and I wonder what proportion of those who get at least one interview have at least one offer at the end of the cycle.

@gonnif are those data available?

I agree with my learned colleague. It takes work to actually bomb an interview. Hence, very few people get outright rejected.

 

[Anonimus.Maximus]

I agree with my learned colleague. It takes work to actually bomb an interview. Hence, very few people get outright rejected.

Is it safe to say that if you're interviewing late in the cycle (say, a certain Southern private school that was booked out to February by mid-August) you need to genuinely wow the interviewer to even have a shot?

 

[Lost in Translation]

This is more akin to an olympic event where the 3 top medal finishers are just fractions of a second faster then the next 3. except for your number 1, the rest of the reasons dont exist. These candidates would have never made it to interview

Man, now I really wanna know why I was rejected from Duke.

 

[bae2017]

So, from doing a lot of reading/asking and from being on SDN for so long - those of you who are current members of adcoms feel free to correct me - but I think most schools have a process that's something like this: essentially, individuals are given scores based on the different dimensions of their application - MCAT, GPA, interview, leadership, volunteering, research, clinical experience, etc. etc. I have no idea what the categories actually are but I suspect they look something like that. After the interview, there are often multiple admissions committees that review and score applicants in parallel. These are sometimes organized regionally (so, one adcom for the Northeast, one for Midwest, etc.). If an applicant is above a certain score threshold, they are moved on and assessed by a "master" admissions committee that is now considering the top applicants. They then are responsible for essentially "crafting" the incoming class, so they will select for characteristics that they want - eg. they might want a certain number of athletes, or a certain number of research superstars, or make sure that there is enough regional, national, and international, as well as racial, ethnic, and cultural, etc. diversity.

So, even if everything in your app is solid and you make it past the preliminary adcom, you might still not be accepted just because the master adcom might find someone else will fit better into their ideal composition of a class. That, I think, largely explains why some applicants will get into some top 5/10/20 schools but not others. Most people who have good applications and do well on their interviews likely make it past the small adcom. It's just the part after, at the large adcom, that the process becomes hazy.

 

[Goro]

Is it safe to say that if you're interviewing late in the cycle (say, a certain Southern private school that was booked out to February by mid-August) you need to genuinely wow the interviewer to even have a shot?

The later in the cycle, the picky we become

 

[LizzyM]

There is no "crafting"... mostly it is like a tossed salad... you scoop up a serving, maybe picking out and putting to the side the bit that looks rotten or nasty and you have a little bit of everything right there. Sometimes, you might "cherry pick" and go back to be sure you got your share of something rare but desirable, the cherry tomatoes of the admission cycle but for the most part, choosing "the best" provides sufficient variety of jocks, artists, etc.

 

[Menander's Bust]

This is an interesting topic because the more people look into luck the more they conclude that almost everything great that happens to you is largely the result of luck. Hard work is a prerequisite to success, but many people work hard and never make it big. When people examine why the people who make it big succeed, usually it’s luck.

 

[Goro]

This is an interesting topic because the more people look into luck the more they conclude that almost everything great that happens to you is largely the result of luck. Hard work is a prerequisite to success, but many people work hard and never make it big. When people examine why the people who make it big succeed, usually it’s luck.

It only appears to have random elements to people who have never taken in part in the admissions process.

 

[hurtem&healem]

It only appears to have random elements to people who have never taken in part in the admissions process.

I think he's referring more to life in general, re, Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. It could be argued that there were infinite lucky breaks that got the candidate to the point of interviewing.

 

[LizzyM]

I think he's referring more to life in general, re, Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. It could be argued that there were infinite lucky breaks that got the candidate to the point of interviewing.

Luck does play a part, beginning with where, when and to whom you were born. 😉