Reasons to retract an interview invitation?

[Doctor.Zoidberg]

Is it horrible form/bad karma to reject an interview without having any acceptance offers yet? For what reasons have you all retracted an interview invitation?

Asking because I was recently offered an II at a school that is lower on my list. While I would love to go and could technically make it work financially, travel costs would be very expensive for me, and I already have interview offers at 5 other schools. No acceptance offers though. Would I be inviting the gods of medical school admissions to smite me if I turn it down?

Thanks in advance.

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[Kgizzle]

Is it horrible form/bad karma to reject an interview without having any acceptance offers yet? For what reasons have you all retracted an interview invitation?

Asking because I was recently offered an II at a school that is lower on my list. While I would love to go and could technically make it work financially, travel costs would be very expensive for me, and I already have interview offers at 5 other schools. No acceptance offers though. Would I be inviting the gods of medical school admissions to smite me if I turn it down?

Thanks in advance.

Probably... you can move the II to later and then decline if you get accepted

 

[voteknope]

Is it horrible form/bad karma to reject an interview without having any acceptance offers yet? For what reasons have you all retracted an interview invitation?

Asking because I was recently offered an II at a school that is lower on my list. While I would love to go and could technically make it work financially, travel costs would be very expensive for me, and I already have interview offers at 5 other schools. No acceptance offers though. Would I be inviting the gods of medical school admissions to smite me if I turn it down?

Thanks in advance.

If I were you, I would schedule it for as far from now as possible, and then cancel it if you receive acceptances from schools you prefer before the interview date. I personally would not have felt comfortable turning down an interview before receiving acceptances. (I'm actually still attending all my interviews even with a couple of acceptances just because I have major FOMO)

 

[ChicagoBear]

I sure would not turn down any II until you have an acceptance. If you are fortunate to receive two or more acceptances you will want to compare financial aid offers together with your overall impressions on the programs. If financial constraints require, just take the latest possible interview date - then cancel if you receive an acceptance. Like @voteknope I also have more interviews scheduled even though I have an acceptance.

 

[BKNbkn]

I'm going to poke a hole in this life raft, for I am certain that the rescue vessel will arrive in a few hours.

 

[JoaoMoutinho]

Another way of looking at it is that you could schedule it as soon as possible to use the interview as a chance to practice for schools that you're more interested in. If travel costs are an issue....sell a kidney?

 

[DokterMom]

Yes, you're tempting the Gods of Karma to smack you down hard.

Schedule a late date and cancel if appropriate.

 

[treesnm3s]

If you CAN make the interview, why would you skip an interview before you have an acceptance? You knew you were going to have to spend money to get into med school...

 

[Doctor.Zoidberg]

Thanks for the advice, everyone. This was really helpful Going to choose the latest date I can and wait it out.

RE: why I wouldn't go, circumstances outside of my control made finances a significant struggle this year. I am incredibly grateful for any interview invitation, but ya boy tryna eat and you can buy a lot of ramen for the price of two plane tickets. Didn't consider the possibility of scheduling now and then potentially cancelling.

RE: selling a kidney, I like it. One now and one to pay for tuition

Finally, @voteknope I'll be casting my ballot for you today. Leslie all the way.

Best of luck, everyone.

 

[james11]

Is it horrible form/bad karma to reject an interview without having any acceptance offers yet? For what reasons have you all retracted an interview invitation?

Asking because I was recently offered an II at a school that is lower on my list. While I would love to go and could technically make it work financially, travel costs would be very expensive for me, and I already have interview offers at 5 other schools. No acceptance offers though. Would I be inviting the gods of medical school admissions to smite me if I turn it down?

Thanks in advance.

I think it'd be reasonable to skip. Frankly, and I don't know what your 5 schools are and their yield rates etc, but going 0/5 on 5 interviews is pretty unlikely. I'd ask myself honestly whether there was a chance I had terrible interviewing skills. And if the answer was no, I'd turn down the interview.

 

[BKNbkn]

...going 0/5 on 5 interviews is pretty unlikely.

...and if the unlikely happens?

Oh, I'll just be a reapplicant; spend another $3-6k dancing the same, frustrating dance; force myself to find an innovative way to stand out from your previous application; have the stigma of being a reapplicant; watch your peers start year one while you're copy+pasting your diversity essay on secondaries again; maybe retake the MCAT 'cause it expired; and some good ol' fashioned regret for throwing away a perfectly good opportunity to a school (albeit "lower on [OP's] list") with a decent/good chance of getting in. Kicking yourself for an entire re-applicant cycle.


Until you have a sure thing, you don't have a sure thing.

 

[Mad Jack]

Because the surgeon tells you to.

 

[vellez]

If you can, schedule it as far out as you can. I'd still go to it. Even if you don't like the school, you can always withdraw your app. The reason I say this, is because you don't seem to stoked on this school. If you get in here and not to your top picks and would rather wait another year, you pretty much have to go where you are accepted.

 

[Goro]

My advice is to go to the interview, because there is ZERO guarantee that you'll get an accept anywhere else. Keep in mind that most applicants get only a single accept.

And you knew ahead of time that this would be an expensive process.

Look, you're going to be some $250K in debt. What's another $1K for travel costs?

Is it horrible form/bad karma to reject an interview without having any acceptance offers yet? For what reasons have you all retracted an interview invitation?

Asking because I was recently offered an II at a school that is lower on my list. While I would love to go and could technically make it work financially, travel costs would be very expensive for me, and I already have interview offers at 5 other schools. No acceptance offers though. Would I be inviting the gods of medical school admissions to smite me if I turn it down?

Thanks in advance.

 

[james11]

...and if the unlikely happens?

Oh, I'll just be a reapplicant; spend another $3-6k dancing the same, frustrating dance; force myself to find an innovative way to stand out from your previous application; have the stigma of being a reapplicant; watch your peers start year one while you're copy+pasting your diversity essay on secondaries again; maybe retake the MCAT 'cause it expired; and some good ol' fashioned regret for throwing away a perfectly good opportunity to a school (albeit "lower on [OP's] list") with a decent/good chance of getting in. Kicking yourself for an entire re-applicant cycle.


Until you have a sure thing, you don't have a sure thing.

Yeah i mean it depends how risk tolerant you are. I don't have any data on it of course, but I can't imagine applicants with 5 interviews ever get totally rejected save for a few psychopaths. Or if all five interviews are with elite schools and you somehow didn't apply to any state schools or anything. Idk just having trouble imagining this coming back to bite OP. Five is a lot of interviews.

 

[aldol16]

Personally, I've turned down a couple interviews because of a combination of the following factors: 1) I'm running out of money and I don't feel comfortable taking on credit card debt that I may not be able to pay off prior to medical school and 2) it's a school that's really far down my list that I realized I didn't really want to attend that much. But since you've only attended five interviews, can't you spare, say, $300-400 to go to one more? Unless you've been spending exorbitantly on interviews (e.g. staying in hotels, taking taxis instead of subway/Uber/bus), you probably haven't spent more than $2k on interviews already? You can make this work if you stay with a student host, use public transit even though it might take longer, and being smart with how you spend your money.

 

[wysdoc]

Thanks for the advice, everyone. This was really helpful Going to choose the latest date I can and wait it out.

RE: why I wouldn't go, circumstances outside of my control made finances a significant struggle this year. I am incredibly grateful for any interview invitation, but ya boy tryna eat and you can buy a lot of ramen for the price of two plane tickets. Didn't consider the possibility of scheduling now and then potentially cancelling.

RE: selling a kidney, I like it. One now and one to pay for tuition

Finally, @voteknope I'll be casting my ballot for you today. Leslie all the way.

Best of luck, everyone.

One applicant suggested taking a plane on the way to the interview (as you won't worry as much about being late) and taking a bus for the return trip home. A way to substantially reduce your travel costs. And Ramen is a medical student tradition for over 35 years!!

 

[james11]

But since you've only attended five interviews,

Lol. Unnecessarily savage. Five is a lot. Really as many as any applicant could ask for

 

[aldol16]

Lol. Unnecessarily savage. Five is a lot. Really as many as any applicant could ask for

Not meant to be consdescending. Don't know how you took it that way. My point is, if one spends an average of $300 on an interview (which can be realistic or unrealistic depending on where you live), then having five interviews likely hasn't already broken the bank unless one has non-frugal habits.

 

[Gurby]

Lol. Unnecessarily savage. Five is a lot. Really as many as any applicant could ask for

Writing a reply to your post and suddenly I said, hey, I know that username.... I used your MCAT study guide, to great success!

Call me overly risk-averse, but I would want to attend 8-10 or so before I started turning down II's. If OP's schools had an average of 30% post-II acceptance rate, that would be 0.7^5 = 17% chance of needing to reapply. He would probably be fine with 5, but I would be uncomfortable in that spot.

Also risk-vs-reward-wise it just makes sense to go to a lot of interviews... Who knows if you'll get a lot of money somewhere, fall in love with a school, if the experience you gain from that interview helps you do better in the next one that you care more about, etc. Once you start down this road it's all monopoly money anyways, pretty much. What's another $1000 in debt on top of the $200k you'll accumulate...

 

[aldol16]

Also risk-vs-reward-wise it just makes sense to go to a lot of interviews... Who knows if you'll get a lot of money somewhere, fall in love with a school, if the experience you gain from that interview helps you do better in the next one that you care more about, etc. Once you start down this road it's all monopoly money anyways, pretty much. What's another $1000 in debt on top of the $200k you'll accumulate...

This is dangerous thinking because if you're charging that interview expense money to a credit card, there's a real chance you won't be able to pay it all back before medical school starts. Your student budget cannot take into account this kind of debt and depending on where you live, you might not have that much extra money left over on your student budget for your first med school year to pay off prior credit cards. Credit cards for 20-somethings are usually high-interest cards, so you'll be racking up anywhere from 15-25% APR on that debt until you can pay it off. The $200k you'll take on in debt (at most top schools, the average is lower because of the money they have in their possession to give you) is money that accrues interest slowly, since government student loans are low-interest loans (compared to credit cards).

It's easy to say "go on the interview" if one is working full-time and has some spending money. It's something else entirely when one is completely independent from one's parents and trying to make ends meet - especially after primary and secondary application fees. Sure, one can anticipate interview expenses before applying. But in some cases, people might get way more interviews than they could have ever expected. Somebody expecting 2 or 3 might end up with 10 or 12. That requires a completely new calculus that wasn't apparent at the beginning.

The point is, be smart about how you're spending that money. It could come back to bite you.

 

[mcatjelly]

I attended 4 IIs last cycle and was WLed everywhere. By the end of March, I had my reapp and MCAT retake plans all set. I ended up getting an II in April for an MD school that would have been very expensive to attend, it was further away from my home and SO than I wanted, and I just overall felt very not enthused about going there. So I declined. It was a huge gamble but I really would rather have reapplied.

 

[Gurby]

I attended 4 IIs last cycle and was WLed everywhere. By the end of March, I had my reapp and MCAT retake plans all set. I ended up getting an II in April for an MD school that would have been very expensive to attend, it was further away from my home and SO than I wanted, and I just overall felt very not enthused about going there. So I declined. It was a huge gamble but I really would rather have reapplied.

The ghost of application cycles past...

 

[When the Moon Forgot]

(Content redacted to preserve anonymity)

 

[Wolfpack2014]

When I applied (my 2nd time so I was especially cautious as reapplying SUCKS), I only started turning down interviews after I got into at least one of them and I am very glad I did that. I ended up interviewing at 7 schools, and I interviewed at 3 of my top 4 picks early on (like septemberish), so I felt pretty good about my chances of getting into those schools. Then, I interviewed at my 5th, 6th, and 7th picks in late october/november. Thank goodness I didn't cancel those later interviews because I only got accepted at my 5th and 7th pick, waitlisted at the rest, and never ended up getting off those waitlists.

Do I still wish I had gotten into my top pick or two? Sure, but I'm perfectly happy at this school and it's sure as hell better than having to reapply again. I don't understand how people can even consider turning down an acceptance and reapplying just because a school wasn't one of their top picks.

 

[DokterMom]

How good are your odds with five interviews? If you're relatively high-stat for the schools where you're interviewing and you've got substantial, interesting ECs and a good personality, then they're probably pretty good. But if your stats and ECs are pretty average, then you're not safe until you've been accepted.

Think of LizzyM's 'staircase' analogy -- You start out on a certain step and your interview moves you up of down. Generally you only move up or down a few steps, but sometimes it's more than a few. If you start out on a high step, you can afford not to move up much - or even to drop a step or two based on your interview. But if you start on a lower step, you'll need your interview to move you up.

When I applied (my 2nd time so I was especially cautious as reapplying SUCKS), I only started turning down interviews after I got into at least one of them and I am very glad I did that. I ended up interviewing at 7 schools, and I interviewed at 3 of my top 4 picks early on (like septemberish), so I felt pretty good about my chances of getting into those schools. Then, I interviewed at my 5th, 6th, and 7th picks in late october/november. Thank goodness I didn't cancel those later interviews because I only got accepted at my 5th and 7th pick, waitlisted at the rest, and never ended up getting off those waitlists.

Do I still wish I had gotten into my top pick or two? Sure, but I'm perfectly happy at this school and it's sure as hell better than having to reapply again. I don't understand how people can even consider turning down an acceptance and reapplying just because a school wasn't one of their top picks.

This is it, in a nutshell. Once you have an acceptance in hand, then you have the luxury of turning down interview invitations to less desirable schools. But until you have one acceptance in hand, you've got nothing. Cancelling an interview is fine -- there will still be many unaccepted students who will be thrilled to take up the newly-vacated interview slot.