Rule 1: Take a Breath
1) The process of reviewing an application has many steps and often is not done in a linear manner.
2) With a few to several thousand of applications, it might take sometime before they get to you. As far as I am concerned anyone who worries about an II before Oct 1st needs sedation. Anyone who "panics" before December needs inpatient care
3) They may pull out "outstanding" candidates, URMs, children of alumni, UGs from parent university, linked PB/SMP, usual feeder schools, etc. Some state schools look first at in state, others purposely OOS to find any with state connection or that may have strong ties to its mission. They may look at the first group to be read/scored/interviewed/decided, prior to dealing with next group of applications. This may be done at any point in the chain of tasks above. For example, the adcom may want to decided on who to II in the first group then seeing how many slots are left before they move on to next group.
4) Many schools are still ramping up their full process. August is still a relatively off month with staff dealing with incoming class, faculty still away on summer, and what not. Some schools may not start adcom voting meetings until September. One admissions dean a few years ago made a comment saying something like "I dont even want to know about new applications until after Labor Day"
