Scheduling interviews late...

[zogoto]

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Is it worth it to hold off on scheduling interviews? I was complete about 3-4 weeks ago at all my schools and have 8 offers so far. I've been getting one every 2-3 days for the past few weeks. I applied to 20 schools total.

I don't want to schedule them haphazardly because then I may end up having to fly to the same city or area multiple times which is going to get expensive, and I may also run out of possible days that I can interview on. I had an early interview last week and I will find out about it on Oct 15th. It is around the middle of the pack out of my 20 schools, so it would probably cut down on 5-7 schools that I would decline an interview at if I got in. 1 or 2 of the 6 interview offers that I haven't scheduled yet would fall into this group of 5-7 schools.

However, is it a bad idea to hold on to the ones I haven't scheduled (6 out of the 8) until I find out about more? Here are the cons as I can see them:

(1) Schools will think I'm not interested.
(2) Interviewing later means I'm interviewing for fewer spots, flying in the face of the "apply early" mantra, so I might be hurting my chances.
(3) Waiting to schedule a date might end up meaning less flexibility in choosing a date since many schools won't have openings on Mondays (most convenient day for me).

Thoughts?

 

[Mattabet]

I'd probably keep scheduling the interviews, at least the majority of them, until you actually have an acceptance. If you want to hold off one or two of the cross country ones, you can do that (especially if cost is a factor), but I wouldn't hold back on 75% of them. If you get in somewhere and no longer want to interview, I would think they'd let you cancel, so it doesn't seem like 'wait until October and see' gives you any advantages, besides the aforementioned cost.

 

[flip26]

I'd probably keep scheduling the interviews, at least the majority of them, until you actually have an acceptance. If you want to hold off one or two of the cross country ones, you can do that (especially if cost is a factor), but I wouldn't hold back on 75% of them. If you get in somewhere and no longer want to interview, I would think they'd let you cancel, so it doesn't seem like 'wait until October and see' gives you any advantages, besides the aforementioned cost.

I agree with this - you should push pretty hard to get more of those scheduled ASAP. If on Oct 15 you get the good news, then you can start canceling later interviews and reordering your priority for remaining interviews.

For example, I have 6 invites, all scheduled; I have already attended 2 of them which will notify on October 15, and they are both top choice schools. I have 2 more next week, and one the week after. The one remaining interview I have scheduled for after October 15 and it is the lowest one on my radar so I will definitely cancel it if I get good news Oct 15. Any other schools I receive invites from at this point will probably fall after October 15 anyway.

But I would sure hate to get the 'not so good' news on October 15 and have missed an opportunity with these other schools to interview in Sept and early October. That would feel horrible, I think, so I am gritting my teeth and going to almost all of my interviews in the next couple of weeks.