Interviewing *too* early?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
pyrrion89

pyrrion89

Full Member
10+ Year Member
Joined
May 29, 2013
Messages
950
Reaction score
759
Members do not see this ad.
A physician I've shadowed has also been an interviewer + adcomm member for two medical schools. He told me it is unwise to apply early to schools because, in his experience, they were more picky about their post-interview candidates at the beginning of the cycle since they were more confident someone better may come along later in the cycle. They tended to put good candidates on hold to wait for the better ones to come along. And then they would actually forget to check the hold pile and those in the pile would be thus rejected.

What do you guys think? It seems the mantra on the SDN is do everything ASAP to maximize your chances.
 
I don't think you have anything to worry about.

edit: I'm in love with your avatar
 
I actually learned about this concept in one of my math classes except it was about a guy choosing a girl to marry (where he rejects the first few girls in line because he thinks he will find someone better later on). Turns out that the ideal place to be in line in these situations is the 37th percentile. So basically, 37% of the interviews take place before your interview and 63% take place after your interview.
 
I was early in the cycle last year. i did fine.

it don't want to contradict an attending that has been an adcom, but I also think it may be dependent on rolling admissions or not.

It seems at schools without rolling admissions (OHSU and U of Arizona, Phoenix in my experience) they give each applicant a score based on set criteria, and those above a certain score get offered an acceptance (at OHSU). Files get looked at one time and the score is determined at that time. The waitlist eventually is built from the scores.

At UA,Phoenix they look at all people that interviewed up to that meeting, and accept the top scoring people. Everyone gets considered every meeting.

Good luck this cycle.

dsoz
 
pyrrion89 said:
A physician I've shadowed has also been an interviewer + adcomm member for two medical schools. He told me it is unwise to apply early to schools because, in his experience, they were more picky about their post-interview candidates at the beginning of the cycle since they were more confident someone better may come along later in the cycle. They tended to put good candidates on hold to wait for the better ones to come along. And then they would actually forget to check the hold pile and those in the pile would be thus rejected.

What do you guys think? It seems the mantra on the SDN is do everything ASAP to maximize your chances.
Click to expand...

It depends on the system the school uses, but think about it like this; would you rather be in the first group considered, and be compared with 200 other students for a certain number of seats, or would you want to be in a much later group and be compared with 2,000 other applicants (late applicants along with everyone else who applied earlier)? While some adcoms might be more picky early on, the huge number of applicants for each seat means schools can hand pick students at any point in the cycle, so based on strict numbers, being earlier will be better. Combine this with rolling admissions which many schools have, and earlier is most definitely better.
 
pyrrion89 said:
A physician I've shadowed has also been an interviewer + adcomm member for two medical schools. He told me it is unwise to apply early to schools because, in his experience, they were more picky about their post-interview candidates at the beginning of the cycle since they were more confident someone better may come along later in the cycle. They tended to put good candidates on hold to wait for the better ones to come along. And then they would actually forget to check the hold pile and those in the pile would be thus rejected.

What do you guys think? It seems the mantra on the SDN is do everything ASAP to maximize your chances.
Click to expand...

In your own wise word on the Mayo thread "Relax dude. 🙂"
 
Grain of truth. If you're borderline candidate, then you might be wait-listed, but then you're likely to be high up on the list when it comes time to pull people off.

If you're a poor candidate, no timing in the cycle will save you.

If you're decent candidate, then another school is just as likely to take you as one that would say "we can do better".

pyrrion89 said:
A physician I've shadowed has also been an interviewer + adcomm member for two medical schools. He told me it is unwise to apply early to schools because, in his experience, they were more picky about their post-interview candidates at the beginning of the cycle since they were more confident someone better may come along later in the cycle. They tended to put good candidates on hold to wait for the better ones to come along. And then they would actually forget to check the hold pile and those in the pile would be thus rejected.

What do you guys think? It seems the mantra on the SDN is do everything ASAP to maximize your chances.
Click to expand...
 
I think this would be a good argument to make for MMI but it would go a little bit differently. Since for MMI every gets a relative score based on the applicants interviewed on that day it is more likely that you will get a group of crazy gunners and be judged against them versus going against the "leftovers" this is just a theory though and if it is even true it would only work somewhat early in the cycle when you're not interviewed for a waitlist spot.
 
pyrrion89 said:
A physician I've shadowed has also been an interviewer + adcomm member for two medical schools. He told me it is unwise to apply early to schools because, in his experience, they were more picky about their post-interview candidates at the beginning of the cycle since they were more confident someone better may come along later in the cycle. They tended to put good candidates on hold to wait for the better ones to come along. And then they would actually forget to check the hold pile and those in the pile would be thus rejected.

What do you guys think? It seems the mantra on the SDN is do everything ASAP to maximize your chances.
Click to expand...

OP, this is an interesting idea, and one I've thought about before in the context of U of Michigan. Here's a graph of their admissions decisions for interviews dates throughout the season last year. My interpretation: There are no real trends, meaning you have the same chance of being accepted, rejected, etc. regardless of the date that you interview. BUT if you assume that they're going to interview the stronger applicants first, it seems like you're going to be compared to a way tougher crowd the earlier you interview.

344fa6d.png
 
Nice info for Michigan. However, to really evaluate early vs late, we'll also need to know how many deferred and WL'd interviewees eventually got accepted. For example, it could be that all 10% deferred and 25% WL'd in the first interview group eventually got accepted, while the 41% deferred/WL in the last group all eventually got rejected.
 
volcomx said:
Nice info for Michigan. However, to really evaluate early vs late, we'll also need to know how many deferred and WL'd interviewees eventually got accepted. For example, it could be that all 10% deferred and 25% WL'd in the first interview group eventually got accepted, while the 41% deferred/WL in the last group all eventually got rejected.
Click to expand...

Excellent point. I don't think that information is available. Anecdotally, I interviewed early in the season, was deferred, and then later accepted.
 
somethingdeep said:
Excellent point. I don't think that information is available. Anecdotally, I interviewed early in the season, was deferred, and then later accepted.
Click to expand...

Yeah, admissions data is hard to come by. Michigan seems to be the most open by releasing those sectional data. I'm interviewing on the second michigan interview date...so I'm hoping earlier is better!
 
somethingdeep said:
OP, this is an interesting idea, and one I've thought about before in the context of U of Michigan. Here's a graph of their admissions decisions for interviews dates throughout the season last year. My interpretation: There are no real trends, meaning you have the same chance of being accepted, rejected, etc. regardless of the date that you interview. BUT if you assume that they're going to interview the stronger applicants first, it seems like you're going to be compared to a way tougher crowd the earlier you interview.
Click to expand...

Was 10/4 the first available interview date?
 
miss chievous said:
Was 10/4 the first available interview date?
Click to expand...

This year the first interview is like 9/6. The 10/4 date was probably when they announced the results of the first couple interview dates. I think they interview like 45 ppl each day, so the 100 number somewhat aligns.
 
pyrrion89 said:
A physician I've shadowed has also been an interviewer + adcomm member for two medical schools. He told me it is unwise to apply early to schools because, in his experience, they were more picky about their post-interview candidates at the beginning of the cycle since they were more confident someone better may come along later in the cycle. They tended to put good candidates on hold to wait for the better ones to come along. And then they would actually forget to check the hold pile and those in the pile would be thus rejected.

What do you guys think? It seems the mantra on the SDN is do everything ASAP to maximize your chances.
Click to expand...

Sounds legit.

Apply in September and let me know how it turns out.
 
The exact opposite seemed to be the case at most of the schools at which I interviewed. Early application is the generally accepted way to go. Do it.
 
manchestercity said:
Can an adcom weigh in on this? This is an interesting point made by OP.
Click to expand...

This is what one adcomm told me:
Every school is different. In fact, over the decade I've been on the subcommittee of my adcom that makes final decisions, we've done it 2 different ways. In both cases, we have people we make offers to as soon as posslble becuase we don't want them to get away.... "the recruit" group. We have some that we hold for a later decision, and some that we know aren't a good fit for us: the "deny" group. The "later" group does get reviewed again and divided into "admit now" and "waitlist". Some people who seem good early in the season are bumped by better people later in the season but there are also people who seem good later who aren't as good as those we saw earlier. In the end, everyone sorts themselves out and when they interviewed doesn't seem to matter except that traditional students who are plugged in and on top of everything tend to interview early and non-traditional students who are less likely to be connected to SDN or other advice tend to apply later, although some of those students are very interesting and recruitable.
Click to expand...
 
manchestercity said:
Can an adcom weigh in on this? This is an interesting point made by OP.
Click to expand...

I'm not an adcom, but I've spoken to people on the admissions committee at my school before. They've told me that they tend to outright accept a higher percentage of applicants early in the cycle than they do later on the cycle.

Also note that my school is one where they don't send out interview invites once they reach their quota of students for the class, so you'll always have a chance of acceptance if you receive an interview invite (unlike some other schools where you interview for a waitlist spot).

Another school I interviewed at was very transparent about how they made decisions: you got a numerical value assigned to your application on interview day (while you're getting a tour, actually), and if your score is higher than last year's average score, you get accepted, otherwise you get waitlisted and evaluated again later in the year.

It tends to be that those with early interviews are good applicants all the way around and get interviews at many places, so they get many offers. But, they can only end up choosing one school to go to.
 
pyrrion89 said:
Says the guy who posts as an alcohol label. Bro, stop de-railing the thread.
Click to expand...

Burn? Good one, "bro".

On topic: the idea that it hurts your chances to apply early runs counter to everything I have ever heard from pre-professional advisers, representatives from medical schools, and successful applicants. So I'd disregard it.
 
TheBossDoctor said:
I actually learned about this concept in one of my math classes except it was about a guy choosing a girl to marry (where he rejects the first few girls in line because he thinks he will find someone better later on). Turns out that the ideal place to be in line in these situations is the 37th percentile. So basically, 37% of the interviews take place before your interview and 63% take place after your interview.
Click to expand...

That's really interesting. 🙂
 
Not to go against the grain here and this is really only a theory. But is it possible the reason most acceptances are given in the first interviews and slowly declines there afterwords is because the first people they interview have the highest amount highly qualified candidates so many get accepted. But if you are competitive however not extremely competitive candidate being compared to all the other higher qualified candidates in the beginning makes it harder to get an acceptance versus waiting just a little bit and being perhaps compared to a more normal distribution of candidates.

So ultimately the super early high acceptance rate could therefore be an inflated number and I am not saying that you should delay half way through the season, but if interviews start in September perhaps October is ideal? Again this is just a theory I came up with after reading this thread, I have no facts to back this up.

Thoughts?
 
Last edited:
slopes23 said:
Not to go against the grain here and this is really only a theory. But is it possible the reason most acceptances are given in the first interviews and slowly declines there afterwords is because the first people they interview has the highest amount highly qualified candidates so many get accepted. But if you are a competitive however not extremely competitive candidate being compared to all the other higher qualified candidates in the beginning makes it harder to get an acceptance versus waiting just a little bit and being perhaps compared to a more normal distribution of candidates.

So ultimately the super early high acceptance rate could therefore be an inflated number and I am not saying that you should delay half way through the season, but if interviews start in September perhaps October is ideal? Again this is just a theory I came up with after reading this thread, I have no facts to back this up.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Yes I think you are right that the early interview dates are filled with fantastic candidates but I really don't think interviewing later will help you at all. You will still be compared to those first candidates they already accepted(or are planning to accept) whether you interview the same day as them or weeks after. If anything I would imagine that the later your interview the more you are hurting yourself for rolling schools. If they have already accepted a bunch of other people(including some people just like you who they interviewed earlier) they might start slowing up on accepting people as the cycle goes on. I have no special insight though so I honestly don't know.
 
slopes23 said:
Not to go against the grain here and this is really only a theory. But is it possible the reason most acceptances are given in the first interviews and slowly declines there afterwords is because the first people they interview have the highest amount highly qualified candidates so many get accepted. But if you are competitive however not extremely competitive candidate being compared to all the other higher qualified candidates in the beginning makes it harder to get an acceptance versus waiting just a little bit and being perhaps compared to a more normal distribution of candidates.
Click to expand...

Yes, the high chance of acceptance early on is because early applicants are interviewed early. However, if you're asked to interview early, you're clearly a desirable applicant to that school, so it behooves you to interview early and take the chance of an early acceptance.
 
mvenus929 said:
Yes, the high chance of acceptance early on is because early applicants are interviewed early. However, if you're asked to interview early, you're clearly a desirable applicant to that school, so it behooves you to interview early and take the chance of an early acceptance.
Click to expand...

This is probably the biggest flaw in my argument. Like you said, even if it were true, if you are getting an early interview they probably consider you to be part of the highly competitive, that or they don't do tiered interviews so I suppose either way it's just always best to go as soon as possible.

I guess it's settled.
 
Yeah, I am not sure I understand the idea of "being compared to highly qualified applicants" on your interview day. If a school is rolling, I would rather identify myself with that "competitive" group and interview early. If they aren't rolling, you will still be compared to them whether or not you interview early. The interviews I have had so far have all said that they all meet soon after interview day and assign a score that places you on a list.

I would love to see more stats like the ones from UMich above though. IMHO, it is obvious that early interviews offer serious advantages at rolling schools, and the elite non-rolling schools know what they want, and when you interview won't make too much of a difference.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

E
Is it still too early to be worried about radio silence from 33 schools?
Replies
5
Views
745
LizzyM
LizzyM
amitriptylean
Not many interview invites... too early to worry?
Replies
5
Views
3K
lacrossegirl420
L
J
Do high-stat, early applicants get mostly first-wave interviews?
Replies
4
Views
883
Mr.Smile12
Mr.Smile12
J
Early interview invites
Replies
4
Views
3K
jacksparrow1
J
C
Seeking interview advice for Early Admission Program (EAP)
Replies
1
Views
628
mochi_
M
Top