So in the beginning of the season, I was told to schedule my "top choices" as late as possible so I could gain as much interview experience as I can before going in for them. Following that advice (whether it was good or bad), I have three interviews left at places I'm really interested in over the next three weeks. I keep reading threads about programs having ranking meetings already. Does that mean that they're lists will more or less be set and probably not going to change for those interviewing later? Yes, this is borderline neurotic. Anyone else in the same boat?
Rank lists are not 'set', but (depending on the program) they are created and shuffled around on a rolling basis.
Our program sends out a volley of interview invitations, before the dean's letters are out, to the candidates who look really great on paper (e.g., one guy had a two seventy something on his Step 1, and many of us didn't even know the scale goes that high). They tend to pick early interview days. A second volley of interview invitations goes out after the dean's letters are out. These people may have had decent numbers or whatever, but on paper they were just not compelling enough for the PD to take a chance on them without seeing their letters/dean's letter. Then there is a trickle of invitations that goes out as people start canceling interviews. Not many people cancel (at our program) so there are very few of these. Because of the way the PD issues interview invitations, the people who trickle in are likely to be interviewing on the last days, and they are also like to be a priori not the most compelling candidates.
We meet weekly to discuss the students who interviewed the previous week, and they get thrown onto the ever-changing rank order list. You might be placed #2 on the rank list after you interview during the second week of availability, but if more compelling candidates interview on weeks 3, 4, 5, etc then you just get bumped lower and lower. Conversely, if nobody better than you comes along, then you stay where you are, and other candidates fall into place behind you.
It is human nature to use rules of thumb and other shortcuts in decision making. One of these shortcuts that plays out in the rank list is "anchoring". Every year it seems like there one or two candidates that serve as "anchors" for other candidates when we are deciding where to place them. Typically one of the anchors holds the place for the "ranked to match" set, and one of the anchors holds the place for the "not ranked to match but probably would match here given recent trends" set. And every week, there are bound to be a few applicants who just get compared to the anchors. One year, for whatever reason there was an applicant (let's call him or her Pat) who was a particularly prominent anchor. Pat was a decent candidate, with decent numbers and decent letters and a decent interview. But there were many, many applicants who, when it came to their turn to be discussed, the conversation ended up revolving around the question "Is she better than Pat or not?" Lots of candidates were deemed "better than Pat", so poor Pat just kept sinking lower and lower on the rank list.
At the end of the interviewing season, we review each person on the list to make sure that is where we want him, and we bump her up or down depending on whether we feel a corrective needs to be applied. But in my experience I haven't seen anyone shift more than a few places up or down. Certainly I've never seen anyone move from "meh" to "not ranked to match but probably would match here given recent trends".
Clearly this is a longwinded answer to the OP's question. Are the rank lists set by the end of the season? No. If you
chose a late interview date (i.e., you were not one of the candidates who trickled in at the end because others canceled) and you are a compelling candidate, then you will be placed where we think you should be placed. But is there a certain amount of inertia that sets in? Yes. But there's really no way to predict whether the inertia will work for or against you.
