Hey guys, this may be a stupid question, but I was wondering about small pools versus not having heard back at all. There are a few places that haven't given me any updates since I was complete, and a friend recently told me that she was small pooled at a few of them. So I was wondering what that means? I guess my major issue is that I am kind of confused about the whole process of "small-pooling" and was curious if I should be concerned that they have not given me any updates on my application
Small Pool versus No response
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I haven't applied to any places that small pool, but my understanding is that if you've been small pooled, they've basically eliminated a large chunk of the applicant pool and basically the "small pool" of applicants are the people who get reviewed more closely for interview invites.
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Here are the typical places schools will "cut" the applicant pool down (marked with "X") along with an estimate of the percentage of people who usually make it far (note that this varies wildly between schools and is not representative of the general process):
Primary Applicant (100%) X1 Secondary Applicant (90%) X2 Applicant pool (85%) X3 "Small" pool (40%) X4 Interview Invitation (15%) X5 Accepted (11%)
X1: Schools often screen the primary application based on statistics (MCAT and GPA are the most common)
X2: Secondaries usually ask for information regarding past academic or legal offenses, and these MAY screen you out (though often they do not)
X3: Once your primary and secondary are submitted, some schools will "small-pool" you. This is just a (much) smaller group of applicants (see estimates) that you need to make it into in order to get an interview invitation. Some schools do not small-pool any of their applicants, and thus this step is nonexistent.
X4: From the small-pool, the adcom may still decide not to interview you. As you can see by my estimates, a large chunk of the small pool is still not interviewed.
X5: Once you're interviewed, they may waitlist or deny you, but the majority of interviewees are eventually accepted.
I know this may be more than you were asking for, but hopefully it gives you a good idea of the general process and how "small-pooling" fits into things.
Primary Applicant (100%) X1 Secondary Applicant (90%) X2 Applicant pool (85%) X3 "Small" pool (40%) X4 Interview Invitation (15%) X5 Accepted (11%)
X1: Schools often screen the primary application based on statistics (MCAT and GPA are the most common)
X2: Secondaries usually ask for information regarding past academic or legal offenses, and these MAY screen you out (though often they do not)
X3: Once your primary and secondary are submitted, some schools will "small-pool" you. This is just a (much) smaller group of applicants (see estimates) that you need to make it into in order to get an interview invitation. Some schools do not small-pool any of their applicants, and thus this step is nonexistent.
X4: From the small-pool, the adcom may still decide not to interview you. As you can see by my estimates, a large chunk of the small pool is still not interviewed.
X5: Once you're interviewed, they may waitlist or deny you, but the majority of interviewees are eventually accepted.
I know this may be more than you were asking for, but hopefully it gives you a good idea of the general process and how "small-pooling" fits into things.
