magic number of interviews?

[GujuMD]

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All you need is one acceptance and I am sure there are people out there who got that one acceptance with only one interview. but statistically, how many interviews would get you that one acceptance?

 

[LifetimeDoc]

If you look at the raw numbers it's something like 500 interviews for 100 slots on average. So you would need 5 interviews to get 1 slot.

This doesn't take into account those people who would never get in because they don't interview well or come off as complete asses at the interview, so the above statistics are invalid.

I'd say my gut feeling would be that if you get an interview (and you aren't a sociopath and you are a good person) then you'd probably have a 50% chance).

 

[HumbleMD]

If you look at the raw numbers it's something like 500 interviews for 100 slots on average. So you would need 5 interviews to get 1 slot.

This doesn't take into account those people who would never get in because they don't interview well or come off as complete asses at the interview, so the above statistics are invalid.

I'd say my gut feeling would be that if you get an interview (and you aren't a sociopath and you are a good person) then you'd probably have a 50% chance).

Gosh, who knows? I'm 6/6 on interviews, so I guess would have needed only one, but no one (including myself) should ever count on just one interview to get an acceptance. That's what early decision programs are for. I feel like I went into the whole process (after talking to other applicants and my advisor) with the number going: Apply to 15, get secondaries at 8, interview at 3-4, and get at least one acceptance. Again, that involves whether or not secondaries/interviews or granted. I'd never turn down interviews until you have at least one acceptance at a place you'd be happy with.

 

[LizzyM]

Many schools need to make more offers than they have seats because not everyone accepts the offer of admission. This is obvious when you consider that many applicants have multiple offers by March.

So, let's calculate the probability of not getting an offer. Consider every admission decision as independent from every other offer decision. For the sake of argument, let's say that 50% of interviewees get an offer eventually (either straight way or from the waitlist).

Number of interviews/ Probability of not getting an offer
1 / 50%
2 / 25% (.5)(.5)
3 / 12.5 (.5)(.5)(.5)
4 / 6.25 (.5)(.5)(.5)(.5)
5/ 3.125 (.5)(.5)(.5)(.5)(.5)

So, if you have 5 interviews your probability of getting in somewhere is 96.875%. If you interview at schools that have higher or lower admission proportions, you could substitute other numbers.

School A: does not admit 70% of those interviewed
School B: does not admit 40 % of those interviewed
(.7)(.4) = .28 so a 72 percent chance of getting at least one offer (and a 28% chance of going 2 for 2 in the reject/perpetual waitlist category).

If you behave badly on interview day, the likelihood that you get an offer at that school plummets. This is going to affect the conditional probabilty of being accepted somewhere.

With 4 interviews, I'd say you have a pretty good shot (93%) and more than 5 without an offer means that you need to do some soul searching about your interview day behavior (interviewing skills but everything else too including conduct in the waiting area and grooming).

 

[LifetimeDoc]

Statistics and math make me dizzy. Guess that explains my P-Chem performance!

Hey LizzyM...you need to update your title to "2K Member"! 😀

 

[HumbleMD]

Many schools need to make more offers than they have seats because not everyone accepts the offer of admission. This is obvious when you consider that many applicants have multiple offers by March.

So, let's calculate the probability of not getting an offer. Consider every admission decision as independent from every other offer decision. For the sake of argument, let's say that 50% of interviewees get an offer eventually (either straight way or from the waitlist).

Number of interviews/ Probability of not getting an offer
1 / 50%
2 / 25% (.5)(.5)
3 / 12.5 (.5)(.5)(.5)
4 / 6.25 (.5)(.5)(.5)(.5)
5/ 3.125 (.5)(.5)(.5)(.5)(.5)

So, if you have 5 interviews your probability of getting in somewhere is 96.875%. If you interview at schools that have higher or lower admission proportions, you could substitute other numbers.

School A: does not admit 70% of those interviewed
School B: does not admit 40 % of those interviewed
(.7)(.4) = .28 so a 72 percent chance of getting at least one offer (and a 28% chance of going 2 for 2 in the reject/perpetual waitlist category).

If you behave badly on interview day, the likelihood that you get an offer at that school plummets. This is going to affect the conditional probabilty of being accepted somewhere.

With 4 interviews, I'd say you have a pretty good shot (93%) and more than 5 without an offer means that you need to do some soul searching about your interview day behavior (interviewing skills but everything else too including conduct in the waiting area and grooming).

Same statistics I used to calm myself in this process, but want to stress that med school admissions has many, many confounding factors, which make the statistical outcomes almost useless. So, although they are fun and interestig to apply to give yourself an idea, they should never be counted on to say, reject interviews before you have an acceptance, plan how many schools to fill out secondaries to, etc.

 

[DrZeke]

Many schools need to make more offers than they have seats because not everyone accepts the offer of admission. This is obvious when you consider that many applicants have multiple offers by March.

So, let's calculate the probability of not getting an offer. Consider every admission decision as independent from every other offer decision. For the sake of argument, let's say that 50% of interviewees get an offer eventually (either straight way or from the waitlist).

Number of interviews/ Probability of not getting an offer
1 / 50%
2 / 25% (.5)(.5)
3 / 12.5 (.5)(.5)(.5)
4 / 6.25 (.5)(.5)(.5)(.5)
5/ 3.125 (.5)(.5)(.5)(.5)(.5)

So, if you have 5 interviews your probability of getting in somewhere is 96.875%. If you interview at schools that have higher or lower admission proportions, you could substitute other numbers.

School A: does not admit 70% of those interviewed
School B: does not admit 40 % of those interviewed
(.7)(.4) = .28 so a 72 percent chance of getting at least one offer (and a 28% chance of going 2 for 2 in the reject/perpetual waitlist category).

If you behave badly on interview day, the likelihood that you get an offer at that school plummets. This is going to affect the conditional probabilty of being accepted somewhere.

With 4 interviews, I'd say you have a pretty good shot (93%) and more than 5 without an offer means that you need to do some soul searching about your interview day behavior (interviewing skills but everything else too including conduct in the waiting area and grooming).

Thank you for taking the time to write this down. I feel better. 😍

 

[melissainsd]

I am way too paranoid to trust in numbers. I am up to 11 interviews. 11 interviews and no money...

 

[Johannen]

I am way too paranoid to trust in numbers. I am up to 11 interviews. 11 interviews and no money...

Heh..whoa. I feel your pain, kind of.

I'm 0/3 with two more coming. We can always hope!

Meanwhile, I KNOW my non-acceptance is because of my poor EC's. They tell me that.

 

[melissainsd]

Heh..whoa. I feel your pain, kind of.

I'm 0/3 with two more coming. We can always hope!

Meanwhile, I KNOW my non-acceptance is because of my poor EC's. They tell me that.

😕

 

[MeBeans]

If you look at the raw numbers it's something like 500 interviews for 100 slots on average. So you would need 5 interviews to get 1 slot.

This doesn't take into account those people who would never get in because they don't interview well or come off as complete asses at the interview, so the above statistics are invalid.

I'd say my gut feeling would be that if you get an interview (and you aren't a sociopath and you are a good person) then you'd probably have a 50% chance).

Different schools have different interview:acceptance ratios.
Also, just because a school has 100 spots doesn't mean they accept 100 people (that's the minimum that they accept) - typically, it's anywhere between 120 and 250 acceptances to fill a class of 100.
Most schools seem to shoot for a 33% to 50% accepted of those interviewed.
Given that it's never guaranteed (no matter how many interviews), the 95% percentile in both cases would respectively be 7 and 5 (this is the likelihood of getting at least one interview).
So just basing it on the numbers, you shouldn't be feeling secure about being accepted until you've got 5-7 interviews.
In reality the number is slanted by a number of factors - how well the interview went, how early you interiewed (if you're interviewing in september, there's a good chance, but in march, not so good), in-state bias and how competitive other applicants were that year.

 

[LizzyM]

Heh..whoa. I feel your pain, kind of.

I'm 0/3 with two more coming. We can always hope!

Meanwhile, I KNOW my non-acceptance is because of my poor EC's. They tell me that.

They really ought to be rejecting you pre-interview if your ECs are poor. They are wasting your time and theirs if you aren't a candidate for admission. 😡

 

[MadHopsMD]

Many schools need to make more offers than they have seats because not everyone accepts the offer of admission. This is obvious when you consider that many applicants have multiple offers by March.

So, let's calculate the probability of not getting an offer. Consider every admission decision as independent from every other offer decision. For the sake of argument, let's say that 50% of interviewees get an offer eventually (either straight way or from the waitlist).

Number of interviews/ Probability of not getting an offer
1 / 50%
2 / 25% (.5)(.5)
3 / 12.5 (.5)(.5)(.5)
4 / 6.25 (.5)(.5)(.5)(.5)
5/ 3.125 (.5)(.5)(.5)(.5)(.5)

So, if you have 5 interviews your probability of getting in somewhere is 96.875%. If you interview at schools that have higher or lower admission proportions, you could substitute other numbers.

School A: does not admit 70% of those interviewed
School B: does not admit 40 % of those interviewed
(.7)(.4) = .28 so a 72 percent chance of getting at least one offer (and a 28% chance of going 2 for 2 in the reject/perpetual waitlist category).

If you behave badly on interview day, the likelihood that you get an offer at that school plummets. This is going to affect the conditional probabilty of being accepted somewhere.

With 4 interviews, I'd say you have a pretty good shot (93%) and more than 5 without an offer means that you need to do some soul searching about your interview day behavior (interviewing skills but everything else too including conduct in the waiting area and grooming).

thats the excatly the same way i did it too. 👍 i looked at only international student statistics though (This is why its worth 15 bucks for USNEWS) . Still with 5 interviews it came close to 93%...i got 9 MD interviews so far (went only to 5 MD ones before i got my acceptance)

 

[steppwolf]

Of course, we must be mindful of those statistical outliers who go 5 for 5 or 8 for 10 in getting acceptances. Gotta be somebody on the opposite end pulling the o-fers to balance out the distribution, right? 😉

 

[MadHopsMD]

Of course, we must be mindful of those statistical outliers who go 5 for 5 or 8 for 10 in getting acceptances. Gotta be somebody on the opposite end pulling the o-fers to balance out the distribution, right? 😉

those are anomalies, just like 40+ MCATs. but we see plenty of those around SDN 🙄

 

[LizzyM]

Of course, we must be mindful of those statistical outliers who go 5 for 5 or 8 for 10 in getting acceptances. Gotta be somebody on the opposite end pulling the o-fers to balance out the distribution, right? 😉

There are those who have very strong applications and excellent interview skills. I have a friend who applied this year who I have predicted will be admitted at every school where he interviews. So far he has nothing but acceptances. 🙂

These folks do balance out the twits who are applying to please mommy and daddy (and who get no offers if the adcom sees the applicant's true self.)

 

[HumbleMD]

There are those who have very strong applications and excellent interview skills. I have a friend who applied this year who I have predicted will be admitted at every school where he interviews. So far he has nothing but acceptances. 🙂

These folks do balance out the twits who are applying to please mommy and daddy (and who get no offers if the adcom sees the applicant's true self.)

😛roud to be an anomaly:

Going on interviews, it's taught me just why med schools do them. Aside from the utterly socially inept people, it's usually easy to pick out these "twits" - they will be uninterested in the students, curricula, and on the tour; the whole process seems like a "game" or a "test to them; and finally, they complain all the darned time.

 

[Johannen]

They really ought to be rejecting you pre-interview if your ECs are poor. They are wasting your time and theirs if you aren't a candidate for admission. 😡

Yeah, I know. I'm hoping to get lucky somewhere, but at the same time, look at my profile. My clinical/patient contact is abysmal. I'm aware of it. If I don't get in, I'll work on more clinical experience in my off-year and reapply, but what ends up happening is that my commitment to medicine gets questioned, and I don't have the evidence to back up how I feel. Therefore, no shiny letter for me!

 

[stiffany]

There are those who have very strong applications and excellent interview skills. I have a friend who applied this year who I have predicted will be admitted at every school where he interviews. So far he has nothing but acceptances. 🙂

Lizzy, what happens when you interview somewhere and say 2/3 or 1/2 of your interviews go fantastically and the other one is just kind of shrug, i.e. not bad but not exactly stellar either? How is that considered by the adcom? I interviewed at a school on Tuesday and after grilling me (and answering with what I felt weren't the most articulate answers given the degree of difficulty/personal stuff involved in answering), my interviewer said he'd love to have me come to the school and would be giving me his highest mark. However, in the second interview, I was able to answer all of the questions my interview had in an articulate and I think thoughtful manner, but I didn't feel like we really "clicked."

 

[Law2Doc]

All you need is one acceptance and I am sure there are people out there who got that one acceptance with only one interview. but statistically, how many interviews would get you that one acceptance?

This kind of statistics won't hold because there are so many subjective criteria. A strong interviewer can be successful in 100% of his/her interviews and a poor interviewer can be terminally unsuccessful. So for some people the magic number is going to be infinitely large. And the more unsuccessful interviews you go on, the more likely you are doing something wrong, and hence the worse your odds, not better. Best not to look at it this way. You have to bring your A game every time -- don't assume that because you have a half dozen interviews, you are set. Because you aren't until you have that acceptance letter in hand.

 

[morriske]

Best not to look at it this way. You have to bring your A game every time -- don't assume that because you have a half dozen interviews, you are set. Because you aren't until you have that acceptance letter in hand.

I've had 5 interviews and no acceptances yet. My application has only been to the committee at one school and they made "no decision". I didn't think the interview went that well but I called the school and they said my evaluations looked fine 😕 Anyway, I'm really wanting that one acceptance right now 😳 I'm hoping the December committee meetings work in my favor

 

[LizzyM]

I've had 5 interviews and no acceptances yet. My application has only been to the committee at one school and they made "no decision". I didn't think the interview went that well but I called the school and they said my evaluations looked fine 😕 Anyway, I'm really wanting that one acceptance right now 😳 I'm hoping the December committee meetings work in my favor

The odds are an acceptance (off the bat or from the waitlist) by Independence Day -- not New Year! So, hold on. You've got 5 interviews and no decisions. Unless you are a twit 😛 you have a 95% chance of getting at least one offer before school starts. Take up a hobby and forget about the process for a few months.

 

[melissainsd]

Yeah, I know. I'm hoping to get lucky somewhere, but at the same time, look at my profile. My clinical/patient contact is abysmal. I'm aware of it. If I don't get in, I'll work on more clinical experience in my off-year and reapply, but what ends up happening is that my commitment to medicine gets questioned, and I don't have the evidence to back up how I feel. Therefore, no shiny letter for me!

Your ECs looked okay to me...

 

[morriske]

The odds are an acceptance (off the bat or from the waitlist) by Independence Day -- not New Year! So, hold on. You've got 5 interviews and no decisions. Unless you are a twit 😛 you have a 95% chance of getting at least one offer before school starts. Take up a hobby and forget about the process for a few months.

I'm just extra nervous because of my husband's job situation. He basically has to accept an offer in one of two cities by March, at the latest. He'll also need to know which state bar exam he's taking so he can register/study in the spring. But, you're right-there's nothing I can do but wait. I did tell the schools about his deadlines so hopefully that will encourage the schools to make a decision. If I end up on waitlists, I hope they're in the same city 😱

Enough whining, I will officially suck it up and deal 😀

 

[DrZeke]

This kind of statistics won't hold because there are so many subjective criteria. A strong interviewer can be successful in 100% of his/her interviews and a poor interviewer can be terminally unsuccessful. So for some people the magic number is going to be infinitely large. And the more unsuccessful interviews you go on, the more likely you are doing something wrong, and hence the worse your odds, not better. Best not to look at it this way. You have to bring your A game every time -- don't assume that because you have a half dozen interviews, you are set. Because you aren't until you have that acceptance letter in hand.

Funny that you guys mention all this stuff about interviewing strong vs. weak. I interview well, but I'm skeptical of how it factors in sometimes because my BEST interview by far was at a school where I ended up being waitlisted.

Sometimes it's just...a crapshoot.

 

[BeatrixKiddo]

If you look at the raw numbers it's something like 500 interviews for 100 slots on average. So you would need 5 interviews to get 1 slot.

This doesn't take into account those people who would never get in because they don't interview well or come off as complete asses at the interview, so the above statistics are invalid.

I'd say my gut feeling would be that if you get an interview (and you aren't a sociopath and you are a good person) then you'd probably have a 50% chance).

What if you're mean but like, totally brilliant.

 

[Law2Doc]

What if you're mean but like, totally brilliant.

A brilliant person would figure out how to not come off mean in interviews.

 

[BeatrixKiddo]

A brilliant person would figure out how to not come off mean in interviews.

I meant medically brilliant.

 

[MadHopsMD]

A brilliant person would figure out how to not come off mean in interviews.

totally agree. if you can NOT adjust than you are not brilliant. simple has that. hahaha

 

[LizzyM]

In the last cycle, an Associate Dean who did not interview applicants but who was passing through an area where the applicants were assembled, saw and heard an applicant berating a low level admissions office staffer. The Dean noted the applicants name (from the name badge) and wrote a note to the applicant's file.

It was the Kiss of Death for an otherwise acceptable applicant! If you are rude to "the little people" you are going to have a hard time being part of a team that includes custodians, aides, nurses, therapists, technicians, etc.

 

[Disinence2]

im glad that stuff happens! I wish adcom's spyed on us more during interviews, ive heard poeple say things that would certianly get them rejected if somone making the decisions overheard

 

[GujuMD]

im glad that stuff happens! I wish adcom's spyed on us more during interviews, ive heard poeple say things that would certianly get them rejected if somone making the decisions overheard

i agree!

you would think that the person making those comments would hold off until after the interview...but the don't have that much sense in them to....hold off or not to make those comments in the first place.

if that person does become a doc...he/she will have to put up with the so called "little people".....or for that matter...any profession he enters, he/she'll have to put up with the little people unless.

 

[Disinence2]

On a side note, Anyone hear have 5 interviews during a previous cycle and fall into that 3-5% and has to re-apply!

As much as i want to trust this math, this is still stressing me out!

 

[lilold3chordme]

On a side note, Anyone hear have 5 interviews during a previous cycle and fall into that 3-5% and has to re-apply!

As much as i want to trust this math, this is still stressing me out!

i did (all waitlists and eventual rejections), and this year, i have been accepted (even to a school that rejected me post-interview last time), so i am proof that nothing is ever final. having been through the agony, though, i feel your pain. hang in there...

 

[Law2Doc]

On a side note, Anyone hear have 5 interviews during a previous cycle and fall into that 3-5% and has to re-apply!

As much as i want to trust this math, this is still stressing me out!

There are a handul of SDNers who fall into this group each year. I kind of doubt it's as low a percentage as 3-5%, or you wouldn't come across so many such folks who are both good enough on paper to get 5 interviews and "bad" enough in person not to snag one of them.