Number of interviews

[Apparition]

Of course this process involves too many factors to be in any way predictable but how many interviews does one need to feel sort of confident of at least one acceptance? I know there have been people with 5 interviews who ultimately got rejected from everywhere and there were some who had one interview and an acceptance. But still...

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[QofQuimica]

Of course this process involves too many factors to be in any way predictable but how many interviews does one need to feel sort of confident of at least one acceptance? I know there have been people with 5 interviews who ultimately got rejected from everywhere and there were some who had one interview and an acceptance. But still...

There's no "safe" number of interviews that will guarantee you an acceptance. So keep attending all of your interviews until you get an acceptance.

 

[Apparition]

There's no "safe" number of interviews that will guarantee you an acceptance. So keep attending all of your interviews until you get an acceptance.

I'm not trying to decide whether to attend all of my two interviews. I'm just bored at work and this question popped into my head.

 

[medicomel]

i'd say five was a fair number. but then again i'm bored at work and just throwing out a number.

 

[zurned]

well assume that each school takes 33 percent of their interviewees. So mathematically, the chance of you getting rejected from A and B and C etc is (1-0.33)^number of interviews. Less competitive schools take about half of interviewees so its 0.5^number of interviews that you will get rejected from all of them. It comes out to a pretty good chance if you have 5 interviews but who knows.

 

[BaylorGuy]

I would agree. It depends on the person and the med school. I would liken the whole process to baseball. There is an overall batting average for all players (I.E. total acceptances), but each player is going to have different averages, as is each pitcher (med schools).

Wow, I hope that made some sense.

 

[gdbaby]

I would agree. It depends on the person and the med school. I would liken the whole process to baseball. There is an overall batting average for all players (I.E. total acceptances), but each player is going to have different averages, as is each pitcher (med schools).

Wow, I hope that made some sense.

I am a HUGE baseball fan, and I loved it.

 

[shoal]

yeah that totally made sense. I just hope the pitcher isn't roger clemsons, or last years Johan Santana OUFTA!

 

[firebird69guy]

I would agree. It depends on the person and the med school. I would liken the whole process to baseball. There is an overall batting average for all players (I.E. total acceptances), but each player is going to have different averages, as is each pitcher (med schools).

Wow, I hope that made some sense.

So.. me interviewing at say, UCSF or Johns Hopkins is like a little leaguer facing Randy Johnson's heater... I like the analogy.

 

[Risa]

well assume that each school takes 33 percent of their interviewees. So mathematically, the chance of you getting rejected from A and B and C etc is (1-0.33)^number of interviews. Less competitive schools take about half of interviewees so its 0.5^number of interviews that you will get rejected from all of them. It comes out to a pretty good chance if you have 5 interviews but who knows.

That would be true if each interview was an independent event... but they are very much dependent (they're all the interviews of a particular individual), so the math really goes out the window.