Waitlist movements questions

[r2med]

When do waitlist movements start normally? Is it likely to be the same timeline this year as well?

I expect a lot more WL movement than normal this year due to multiple acceptances by top candidates. Is that a fair assumption? Is this a likely scenario with the so-called T-20s also?

Has any school run out of WLs in the past or do they usually waitlist enough and more to cover the movement?

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[Goro]

Typically May/June.

Believe me, Admissions deans have honed this to a science. They overbook and definitely do not run out of people. It's rare that they admit too many...this costs them their jobs.

It's somehow based upon the Dark Arts.

 

[KnightDoc]

When do waitlist movements start normally? Is it likely to be the same timeline this year as well?

I expect a lot more WL movement than normal this year due to multiple acceptances by top candidates. Is that a fair assumption? Is this a likely scenario with the so-called T-20s also?

Has any school run out of WLs in the past or do they usually waitlist enough and more to cover the movement?

I agree with you (or, is it you agreeing with me?? 😎), but nothing in the timeline is going to change, since it's the April 30th deadline that drives people dropping As, and that hasn't changed this year. That's why @Goro is saying May/June! Sure, some people drop As early (some may have already), but the big movement doesn't happen until people are up against a deadline. It's the same every year.

If we are right, this will happen at all schools, but not as much at T20s (and not at all at T5-10), because those are for the most part IIs people were not turning down even when they had to travel to them, so their As and yields probably won't move much at all. In fact, if anything, yields could even go up there if the 10,000 additional applicants this cycle really are competitive (i.e., it might actually be more difficult for top applicants to score As at the top schools). If yields go up, WL movement will go down.

The bigger movement will be at the lower ranked schools, where people in the past would have turned down IIs after receiving As in the late fall. There will be movement everywhere, as there always is, but the big change, if it comes, will be at the mid tier and below schools.

And, just to hedge my bets, the increased WL movement might not even come to the lower tier schools if, again, the additional applicants this cycle are competitive (I am totally not convinced of this, but adcoms report otherwise, and they know what they are talking about while I am just a speculating premed ! 😎). If this happens, top applicants might not get top tier As that they might have received in less competitive cycles, and might have to "settle" for lower tier schools. In that scenario, those folks won't be dropping their As and creating the anticipated increased WL movement.

No way to know, since this is a once every 100 years situation with no prior experience to use as a guide, but all will be revealed in a few months. The smartest course of action would be to expect nothing beyond what you already have, and allow yourself to be pleasantly surprised if things go well with respect to everything that is still outstanding. As the adcoms love to say, we are all rejected until informed otherwise!

 

[r2med]

If we are right, this will happen at all schools, but not as much at T20s (and not at all at T5-10), because those are for the most part IIs people were not turning down even when they had to travel to them, so their As and yields probably won't move much at all. In fact, if anything, yields could even go up there if the 10,000 additional applicants this cycle really are competitive (i.e., it might actually be more difficult for top applicants to score As at the top schools). If yields go up, WL movement will go down.

And, just to hedge my bets, the increased WL movement might not even come to the lower tier schools if, again, the additional applicants this cycle are competitive (I am totally not convinced of this, but adcoms report otherwise, and they know what they are talking about while I am just a speculating premed ! 😎). If this happens, top applicants might not get top tier As that they might have received in less competitive cycles, and might have to "settle" for lower tier schools. In that scenario, those folks won't be dropping their As and creating the anticipated increased WL movement.

From looking at SDN, top-applicants seem to have multiple As. This is probably not unique to this year, but don't we think this year might be more than others?

 

[KnightDoc]

From looking at SDN, top-applicants seem to have multiple As. This is probably not unique to this year, but don't we think this year might be more than others?

Yes, we (I) do, because of the virtual interviews. I was just pointing out that a countervailing argument would be that, if the 18% increase in applicants are as competitive as the rest of the pool (an assumption I have been unwilling to make, but one that adcoms on SDN have stated could very well be true), that would represent an additional 4,000 +/- (40% of 10,000) people displacing people would have been admitted in prior years. If true, that would counteract to some degree the effect or top people taking more interviews and scooping up more As.

 

[KnightDoc]

In any given year, just a tad over 50% of matriculants get 2 or more acceptances

That's great, but not really the issue we are speculating about! 😎

Our speculation is centering on whether, given the fact that we don't have to spend money flying around the country, staying in hotels, missing school and work, etc., people who would have turned down IIs from October forward in past cycles are not doing so now. And, if that is in fact happening, is it possible or even likely that the 50% you are referring to will have more As than in years past, since they are attending more interviews?

If so, that leads to a conclusion that we will see greater WL movement than in years past, since they can all still only matriculate at one school. Unless, of course, schools are anticipating this and issuing more As than in the past. And THAT seems extremely unlikely, given their inherently conservative nature. It has nothing to do with how many matriculants hold multiple As.

Have you given this any thought, and, if so, do you have an opinion????

 

[r2med]

Would the 50% increase?
Would the average of 2 increase?
@KnightDoc - both these have something to do with potential WL movement
Also, for 22k matriculants, are there normally 44k acceptances? Is that likely to increase this year?

 

[LizzyM]

Let's lay out a few facts.

There are waitlists.... you won't get an offer until after those with offers have given us their decisions; and there are "holds" meaning we have not yet issued a decision but may do so before the date on which you'll be asked to narrow your choices down to three.

Schools know how many offers they need to make to fill the class without going over. The multiplier is always more than 1 (no school gets every single admitted student to matriculate) and it could be as high as 3.5 (meaning that 350 offers are made to fill 100 seats).

Now if you are truly on the waitlist at a school that admits 350 applicants to fill 100 seats, there need to be 251 offers turned down before even one person from the waitlst gets an offer. This certainly does happen, particularly at the top schools because these schools are chasing the same 2,000 superstars out of a pool of 40,000-50,000. This is where you find the folks with 4-7 offers.

You may have no offers and 3 or more waitlists. You'll need to wait until the superstars sort themselves out and the schools determine if they have any empty seats. If there is an empty seat, you may get a call. This process begins after people narrow down their choices to three and certainly after admitted students make their decisions. It can also hopscotch through June as someone who accepted an offer at A gets off the waitlist at B leaving an empty seat at A that goes to someone who gives up their seat at C.

 

[r2med]

Let's lay out a few facts.

There are waitlists.... you won't get an offer until after those with offers have given us their decisions; and there are "holds" meaning we have not yet issued a decision but may do so before the date on which you'll be asked to narrow your choices down to three.

Schools know how many offers they need to make to fill the class without going over. The multiplier is always more than 1 (no school gets every single admitted student to matriculate) and it could be as high as 3.5 (meaning that 350 offers are made to fill 100 seats).

Now if you are truly on the waitlist at a school that admits 350 applicants to fill 100 seats, there need to be 251 offers turned down before even one person from the waitlst gets an offer. This certainly does happen, particularly at the top schools because these schools are chasing the same 2,000 superstars out of a pool of 40,000-50,000. This is where you find the folks with 4-7 offers.

You may have no offers and 3 or more waitlists. You'll need to wait until the superstars sort themselves out and the schools determine if they have any empty seats. If there is an empty seat, you may get a call. This process begins after people narrow down their choices to three and certainly after admitted students make their decisions. It can also hopscotch through June as someone who accepted an offer at A gets off the waitlist at B leaving an empty seat at A that goes to someone who gives up their seat at C.

Do you expect schools to increase their WL this year?
Also, do you think more applicants will have more than 1 acceptance and do you think applicants have more acceptances this year than before?

 

[456432]

Schools know how many offers they need to make to fill the class without going over. The multiplier is always more than 1 (no school gets every single admitted student to matriculate) and it could be as high as 3.5 (meaning that 350 offers are made to fill 100 seats).

Is the multiplier really always greater than one? I've heard rumors that, let's say for a final class size of 100, that sometimes the school will send ~80 acceptances initially, and then will fill the rest of the spots by taking applicants off the WL. Is there any reason you could see for them using this method?

 

[LunaOri]

Do you expect schools to increase their WL this year?
Also, do you think more applicants will have more than 1 acceptance and do you think applicants have more acceptances this year than before?

Yes to all 3 questions. The number of schools to which each applicant applies is way up this year, so each school is seeing more applications. That means each school has to figure out which of those applicants is likely to enroll. They can’t over-accept, but they can increase the number on the waitlist, if they think the yield is likely to be lower (schools may take a chance on those superstar applicants, but need backups).

 

[r2med]

Is the multiplier really always greater than one? I've heard rumors that, let's say for a final class size of 100, that sometimes the school will send ~80 acceptances initially, and then will fill the rest of the spots by taking applicants off the WL. Is there any reason you could see for them using this method?

I believe it is A+WL multiplier always greater than 1

 

[LunaOri]

Is the multiplier really always greater than one? I've heard rumors that, let's say for a final class size of 100, that sometimes the school will send ~80 acceptances initially, and then will fill the rest of the spots by taking applicants off the WL. Is there any reason you could see for them using this method?

The multiplier is always greater than 1, even at schools like Harvard. Not every accepted student will commit, and every school needs to fill its class. A school may hold back some “As” for great applicants who interview late in the season, or start accepting off the waitlist while still interviewing, but that’s not the same as deliberately underfilling the class.

 

[456432]

I believe it is A+WL multiplier always greater than 1

This definitely makes sense, since otherwise you'd never fill up the class.

I was referring to the A multiplier being sometimes less than one, which I've heard some schools do (i.e. accepting only ~80% of the class initially and the remaining ~20% are taken off the WL). I have no clue what the strategy is there though (as opposed to accepting the entire class size first and pulling from the WL when those accepted applicants rescind their acceptances).

 

[r2med]

This definitely makes sense, since otherwise you'd never fill up the class.

I was referring to the A multiplier being sometimes less than one, which I've heard some schools do (i.e. accepting only ~80% of the class initially and the remaining ~20% are taken off the WL). I have no clue what the strategy is there though (as opposed to accepting the entire class size first and pulling from the WL when those accepted applicants rescind their acceptances).

Guess that they want to see who is really interested before making them the offer and then mark that as everyone that I offered to accepted it?

 

[KnightDoc]

Let's lay out a few facts.

There are waitlists.... you won't get an offer until after those with offers have given us their decisions; and there are "holds" meaning we have not yet issued a decision but may do so before the date on which you'll be asked to narrow your choices down to three.

Schools know how many offers they need to make to fill the class without going over. The multiplier is always more than 1 (no school gets every single admitted student to matriculate) and it could be as high as 3.5 (meaning that 350 offers are made to fill 100 seats).

Now if you are truly on the waitlist at a school that admits 350 applicants to fill 100 seats, there need to be 251 offers turned down before even one person from the waitlst gets an offer. This certainly does happen, particularly at the top schools because these schools are chasing the same 2,000 superstars out of a pool of 40,000-50,000. This is where you find the folks with 4-7 offers.

You may have no offers and 3 or more waitlists. You'll need to wait until the superstars sort themselves out and the schools determine if they have any empty seats. If there is an empty seat, you may get a call. This process begins after people narrow down their choices to three and certainly after admitted students make their decisions. It can also hopscotch through June as someone who accepted an offer at A gets off the waitlist at B leaving an empty seat at A that goes to someone who gives up their seat at C.

Perfectly stated, with one small exception -- the 350 would INCLUDE everyone ultimately accepted off the WL, so it's not true, in your example, that 251 As would have to be turned down before there would be WL movement. (The As that schools report at the end of the cycle include all As, not just pre-WL ones!) 😎

 

[LizzyM]

I may not be recalling this clearly but I believe that AMCAS has a requirement that every school make a number of offers equal to its number of seats by a certain date in March. So the multiplier is going to be at least 1 and, I believe, greater than 1 to allow for offers that are turned down before the deadline date.

As a medical school, depending in large part on the waitlist means you are willing to take the leftovers after the top candidates with multiple offers tell you and your waitlist to .... (do something anatomically difficult or impossible) and they enroll at the schools that made them outright offers.

 

[LizzyM]

Perfectly stated, with one small exception -- the 350 would INCLUDE everyone ultimately accepted off the WL, so it's not true, in your example, that 251 As would have to be turned down before there would be WL movement. (The As that schools report at the end of the cycle include all As, not just pre-WL ones!) 😎

No, I'm stating that a school might make as many as 350 initial offers in an effort to fill 100 seats. Then it might take 1 or 2 off the waitlist for a total of 352 offers. Tis true that 251 will need to turn down an offer before that 1 lucky person is pulled from the waitlist. That's why Goro calls it a "dark art" There really is some magic in making the right number of offers to exactly fill the class without going over and without going to the waitlist.

 

[KnightDoc]

Yes to all 3 questions. The number of schools to which each applicant applies is way up this year, so each school is seeing more applications. That means each school has to figure out which of those applicants is likely to enroll. They can’t over-accept, but they can increase the number on the waitlist, if they think the yield is likely to be lower (schools may take a chance on those superstar applicants, but need backups).

This ^^^^^, but it's even more technical than this! My understanding is that under AAMC guidelines, schools are supposed to issue AT LEAST one A for every available seat by March 15th each year. Other than the SDN rumor mill, there is absolutely no reason for schools to hold back As in order to admit people off the WL. Why not just admit them at the outset???? To make candidates beg? This is nothing more than SDN conjecture!

 

[KnightDoc]

I may not be recalling this clearly but I believe that AMCAS has a requirement that every school make a number of offers equal to its number of seats by a certain date in March. So the multiplier is going to be at least 1 and, I believe, greater than 1 to allow for offers that are turned down before the deadline date.

As a medical school, depending in large part on the waitlist means you are willing to take the leftovers after the top candidates with multiple offers tell you and your waitlist to .... (do something anatomically difficult or impossible) and they enroll at the schools that made them outright offers.

Correct! March 15th is the magic date, but nowadays, as with everything else, it is a guideline, not a requirement! 😎

"By March 15 of the matriculation year, issue a number of acceptance offers at least equal to the expected number of students in its first-year entering class and report those acceptance actions to AMCAS."

 

[KnightDoc]

Would the 50% increase?
Would the average of 2 increase?
@KnightDoc - both these have something to do with potential WL movement
Also, for 22k matriculants, are there normally 44k acceptances? Is that likely to increase this year?

Yes, both would potentially explain more WL movement, but there is no reason to think the 50% would increase. It has been pretty steady for many years now. Around 40% are accepted, and around half of them, or 20%, have multiple acceptances. We are speculating that people at the top will go on more interviews this cycle, and consequently have more acceptances. Nobody has put forth any theory to explain why there might be a greater percentage of people at the top! If anything, that number could very well go down if the majority of new applicants are not competitive due to the last minute nature of their applications.

With respect to your question about the gross number of acceptances, this normally doesn't have a lot of relevance in the aggregate, since it's just a function of the sum of each individual school's class size and yield. The number you are asking about is just math -- it's the number of matriculants divided by average yield. If yield goes down because schools are give As to same small group at the top, then yeah, the total number of acceptances will go up. On the other hand, if schools are more proactive in engaging in yield protection, the number can actually go down.

Speculating is fun, but nobody really knows, since this is a once in a lifetime event with no precedent to guide us.

 

[LunaOri]

Yes, both would potentially explain more WL movement, but there is no reason to think the 50% would increase. It has been pretty steady for many years now. Around 40% are accepted, and around half of them, or 20%, have multiple acceptances. We are speculating that people at the top will go on more interviews this cycle, and consequently have more acceptances. Nobody has put forth any theory to explain why there might be a greater percentage of people at the top! If anything, that number could very well go down if the majority of new applicants are not competitive due to the last minute nature of their applications.

With respect to your question about the gross number of acceptances, this normally doesn't have a lot of relevance in the aggregate, since it's just a function of the sum of each individual school's class size and yield. The number you are asking about is just math -- it's the number of matriculants divided by average yield. If yield goes down because schools are give As to same small group at the top, then yeah, the total number of acceptances will go up. On the other hand, if schools are more proactive in engaging in yield protection, the number can actually go down.

Speculating is fun, but nobody really knows, since this is a once in a lifetime event with no precedent to guide us.

I don't think there's a greater percentage of people at the top--I think that the top applicants are applying to more schools, thereby creating this artifactual perception. Since the "top" applicants can each only attend 1 school, there will still be the usual number of spots left for the "regular" applicants.

 

[LizzyM]

I don't think there's a greater percentage of people at the top--I think that the top applicants are applying to more schools, thereby creating this artifactual perception. Since the "top" applicants can each only attend 1 school, there will still be the usual number of spots left for the "regular" applicants.

True, but rather than go to the waitlist, schools could make an educated guess and change their multiplier from 3.5 to 3.7 (or whatever it is) and issue an extra 20 offers at the start-- they'd be guessing that they'll have 270 applicants turn them down rather than the usual 250.

 

[KnightDoc]

True, but rather than go to the waitlist, schools could make an educated guess and change their multiplier from 3.5 to 3.7 (or whatever it is) and issue an extra 20 offers at the start-- they'd be guessing that they'll have 270 applicants turn them down rather than the usual 250.

Of course, and you are far closer to to it than most of us are -- is this at all likely?

My understanding is that you guys tend to be very conservative. Would you risk being oversubscribed by increasing your multiplier just to get an earlier hook into the last 20 people on your A list? Everything I've learned over the past two years tells me no.

By the way, what I have been speculating about isn't really a thing at your tier of school, since nobody turns down your IIs in any year (relatively speaking), so your yields shouldn't move, unless, of course, the cycle is really sooooo much more competitive than normal, in which case they might actually rise! If the schools that might be impacted properly anticipated it and took it seriously, the solution would have been to be more aggressive with resource protection pre-II, or to interview more people with a view towards building a bigger WL.

Schools like Vandy did just this by announcing they were extending their interview season in response to the influx of applications. Obviously, I have no inside knowledge regarding whether Vandy is going to issue more As or build a bigger WL, but I'm betting it's the latter. Going out on a limb and extending more As in anticipation of lower yields before they actually materialize just doesn't sound like the adcoms I have come to know and love over the past two cycles. 😎

 

[LizzyM]

Because it is far cheaper to interview this year than ever, many people who would have declined an interview invite after receiving an offer might just say, "what the heck, I can always use it as leverage for a bigger scholarship offer at my target school". And then we have a spiral where we interview more candidates, the candidates attend more interviews, the (top) candidates get more offers per candidate than ever before and more of us are getting turned down in the Spring as this pool of candiates reduces their stack of offer letters to one. This all means that more offers need to be made to fill the available seats. A school could be conservative and run the risk of having to pull many applicants from the waitlist, or it could roll the dice and believe it knows the magic formula. Of course, a school that cares about yield and is choosing to interview applicants who will not be highly sought after (the situation in some state schools that are required to favor in-state applicants) there may be the assumption that the yield is usually 1.1 and is likely to remain so even with fewer people canceling interviews after they hold an offer (because very few of the people they choose to interview have an offer from anywhere else).

 

[KnightDoc]

Because it is far cheaper to interview this year than ever, many people who would have declined an interview invite after receiving an offer might just say, "what the heck, I can always use it as leverage for a bigger scholarship offer at my target school". And then we have a spiral where we interview more candidates, the candidates attend more interviews, the (top) candidates get more offers per candidate than ever before and more of us are getting turned down in the Spring as this pool of candiates reduces their stack of offer letters to one. This all means that more offers need to be made to fill the available seats. A school could be conservative and run the risk of having to pull many applicants from the waitlist, or it could roll the dice and believe it knows the magic formula. Of course, a school that cares about yield and is choosing to interview applicants who will not be highly sought after (the situation in some state schools that are required to favor in-state applicants) there may be the assumption that the yield is usually 1.1 and is likely to remain so even with fewer people canceling interviews after they hold an offer (because very few of the people they choose to interview have an offer from anywhere else).

Yes, yes, yes, this is EXACTLY what we were speculating about. Maybe I am putting your school on too much of a pedestal, but were a lot of people declining IIs at schools in your tier before this cycle? If so, then I guess this applies to you as well, but my working assumption was that this would mainly impact mid tiers, or even just schools below T10, after T10 schools started making offers after 10/15.

My question, however, remains -- why would a school risk thinking it knows the magic formula, and possibly have to pay the price for being wrong, when it has no precedent to go on and all it has to gain is maybe getting an edge on recruiting the last few dozen people at the bottom of its A list? The reward seems illusory at best, while the risk is very tangible.

I really hope you are right, but my experience so far has been that schools tend to do what is best for them, not necessarily the candidates. And you still haven't said what the school gets out of taking a risk here, as if it would care if all 20 of your theoretical As turned down offers from your WL and the school had to go to the next 20 people on the WL. 😎

 

[EdgeTrimmer]

The multiplier is always greater than 1, even at schools like Harvard. Not every accepted student will commit, and every school needs to fill its class. A school may hold back some “As” for great applicants who interview late in the season, or start accepting off the waitlist while still interviewing, but that’s not the same as deliberately underfilling the class.

I heard Cleveland Clinic only gives out 32 As, their class size.

 

[r2med]

Are top applicants doing more interviews this year? Probably yes
Assuming some of the additional applicants are top applicants - and every interview they do is technically an additional interview - mathematically more interviews for top applicants
All this leading to more As for same top applicants - very likely
Including in top tier schools - likely IMO

 

[Goro]

Are top applicants doing more interviews this year? Probably yes

Hell, I'm seeing them at my own DO school!

 

[r2med]

Has it ever happened that schools ran out of their As and WLs and had to scramble to interview in May / June?

Is this a possibility this year?

 

[LunaOri]

True, but rather than go to the waitlist, schools could make an educated guess and change their multiplier from 3.5 to 3.7 (or whatever it is) and issue an extra 20 offers at the start-- they'd be guessing that they'll have 270 applicants turn them down rather than the usual 250.

Ooh, I hadn't thought of that!

 

[Med Ed]

Has it ever happened that schools ran out of their As and WLs and had to scramble to interview in May / June?

Is this a possibility this year?

I know of one instance where something like this happened, but it was an isolated incident.

By the end of this cycle enough qualified applicants will have been interviewed to fill every seat in the country. I think most schools will be fine, even if they go further down their respective waitlists than usual. Some may screw up and interview too few, interview too strong, and/or create a WL that is too short. We'll just have to wait and see.

 

[LizzyM]

Yes, yes, yes, this is EXACTLY what we were speculating about. Maybe I am putting your school on too much of a pedestal, but were a lot of people declining IIs at schools in your tier before this cycle? If so, then I guess this applies to you as well, but my working assumption was that this would mainly impact mid tiers, or even just schools below T10, after T10 schools started making offers after 10/15.

We are inviting some people who are worn out having done two interviews per week for 6 weeks in the fall! In years past, this type of applicant might be inclined to decline an interview invitation given the cost and time involved in traveling for an interview but with video interviews, it is less costly and less time consuming and I think that the number declining an invitation has dropped but I don't have access to that data.

 

[KnightDoc]

We are inviting some people who are worn out having done two interviews per week for 6 weeks in the fall! In years past, this type of applicant might be inclined to decline an interview invitation given the cost and time involved in traveling for an interview but with video interviews, it is less costly and less time consuming and I think that the number declining an invitation has dropped but I don't have access to that data.

Thanks!!! I guess I am at least a little wide eyed and naive, because it never occurred to me that anyone would turn down IIs at your tier of school, especially after having had time to recover from the fall marathon! I know for sure I wouldn't! 😎

So, it looks like even at your school, you run the risk of giving As to people who wouldn't have even bothered to make the trip in years past. If you are not also willing to throw money at them, good luck with them. Maybe you should also look into a little resource protection and not waste your time with such candidates at this point in the cycle? If not, then yes, it looks like you too should plan on dipping deeper than usual into your WL.

 

[LizzyM]

Thanks!!! I guess I am at least a little wide eyed and naive, because it never occurred to me that anyone would turn down IIs at your tier of school, especially after having had time to recover from the fall marathon! I know for sure I wouldn't! 😎

So, it looks like even at your school, you run the risk of giving As to people who wouldn't have even bothered to make the trip in years past. If you are not also willing to throw money at them, good luck with them. Maybe you should also look into a little resource protection and not waste your time with such candidates at this point in the cycle? If not, then yes, it looks like you too should plan on dipping deeper than usual into your WL.

We get a lot of grief if we resource protect by not at least making an ii to an applicant with a 522/3.99.

 

[r2med]

We get a lot of grief if we resource protect by not at least making an ii to an applicant with a 522/3.99.

Interesting. Is 522 your cutoff for such?

 

[KnightDoc]

Interesting. Is 522 your cutoff for such?

I really don't think you need to take her literally! I am POSITIVE that EVERY school in that tier has rejected people pre-II above 521/3.98, probably with good reason!!!!!! She said they get grief; she didn't say it isn't done!!!! She's only saying resource protecting very high stat applicants at top schools isn't a thing. So, I guess we can all rest easy knowing that if we don't get an II at a T10, it's not because they think we are too good for them! 😎

 

[r2med]

I really don't think you need to take her literally! I am POSITIVE that EVERY school in that tier has rejected people pre-II above 521/3.98, probably with good reason!!!!!! She said they get grief; she didn't say it isn't done!!!! 😎

Do they get grief for 521? 😜

 

[LizzyM]

I was just saying that when we reject someone pre-interview who has a very strong application, someone (like a facutly member or a trustee) just might call us and say, "what's up with this? How can it be that this applicant is not good enough for an interview?" Fortunately, it is not my job to answer those questions.

 

[HopeP]

Yes to all 3 questions. The number of schools to which each applicant applies is way up this year, so each school is seeing more applications. That means each school has to figure out which of those applicants is likely to enroll. They can’t over-accept, but they can increase the number on the waitlist, if they think the yield is likely to be lower (schools may take a chance on those superstar applicants, but need backups).

I am not sure If I am able to follow this logic completely. In my view answer is 'No' to question 'Do you expect schools to increase their WL this year?'.
Reason is simple, offers and WL are based on number of seats in school, not based on number of applications in the school, and number of seats in schools are static compare to previous years. Why would a school even changed a multiplier solely because they have more applications? Only way I see more WL compare to previous cycles, if a school purposefully decrease that multiplier.
So 2000 superstars will be distributed like they were distributed in previous cycles. Those superstars from 52K or 62K, those numbers are irrelevant.

 

[EdgeTrimmer]

I am not sure If I am able to follow this logic completely. In my view answer is 'No' to question 'Do you expect schools to increase their WL this year?'.
Reason is simple, offers and WL are based on number of seats in school, not based on number of applications in the school, and number of seats in schools are static compare to previous years. Why would a school even changed a multiplier solely because they have more applications? Only way I see more WL compare to previous cycles, if a school purposefully decrease that multiplier.
So 2000 superstars will be distributed like they were distributed in previous cycles. Those superstars from 52K or 62K, those numbers are irrelevant.

Simple, Superstars will do more interviews this year than before because there is no cost to attend interviews and schools may give offers to them hoping for them to accept. I guess it’s a buyers market for super stars and sellers market for others.

 

[r2med]

Here is the math I derived from various stats

1. 22k matriculants
2. 11k with one acceptance (thanks @gonnif )
3. 2k superstars (thanks @LizzyM )
4. Total 75k A+WL (thanks gonnif
5. My estimate is 44k A and 31k WL
6. Of the 44k A, 11k single acceptance = 33k for the other 11k (average 3k)
7. 2k superstars, so 9k non-superstar but with >=2 acceptance
8. Assume superstars have
a. 10 average acceptances = 20k, other 9k will have 13k (which is less than 2 per)
b. 7 average acceptances = 14k, other 9k will have 19k (which is just over 2 per)
c. 5 average acceptances = 10k, other 9k will have 23k (which is just over 2.5 per)
Is 8(b) or 8(c) closer to reality?

Also, I don't know how to derive anything about WL. Of the 31k estimated WL, how many go to superstars and how many to applicants with >=1 acceptance?

 

[r2med]

My 75K Acceptances/alternates is purely a rough estimate

I dont think we can go beyond the aggregate as presented before. This is because of the highly variable and inverse relationship between the "tier" of the school and " acceptance/waitlist to class-size ratio" of schools. That is the more selective/prestigious an medical school, the more likely an acceptee will matriculate there. This in turn reduces the the number of acceptances and alternates a school has to make. This means those with multiple acceptance will likely matriculate at the more prestigious/well-endowed school. So the lower tier schools have to have larger number of acceptance/alternate as their better acceptees with multiple acceptances matriculate elsewhere. There are just too many variables and too many different ways that schools do this. One of the reasons that AMCAS doesnt produce any reports on the waitlist data/alternate data it collects is that each does it differently. Some schools will formally have very deep waitlists of several hundred but never get past the first hundred. we can play with these numbers all we want but its all for naught.

How does the movements within top tiers work? I assume the same number of superstars apply to all top tier and get A from many, right?

 

[EdgeTrimmer]

How does the movements within top tiers work? I assume the same number of superstars apply to all top tier and get A from many, right?

Some of the top tiers don't have rolling admissions, so I doubt superstars will cancel any of top tier IIs and end up with multiple As from them.

 

[r2med]

Some of the top tiers don't have rolling admissions, so I doubt superstars will cancel any of top tier IIs and end up with multiple As from them.

Good point. However, if they don't have rolling, many applicants are likely to have multiple acceptances, unless they share their selections with each other.

 

[KnightDoc]

Good point. However, if they don't have rolling, many applicants are likely to have multiple acceptances, unless they share their selections with each other.

Well, this is one thing you absolutely, positively do not have to worry about. It would be anti-competitive collusion, and fear of being accused of that is precisely why AMCAS eliminated a report they used to produce allowing schools to see where else all of its A and WL candidates held As.

There is no such thing as "many applicants are likely to have multiple acceptances." It's no more than a tiny slice of applicants at the very top. Schools are aware of this, because it happens every year. It's why most schools issue more than one A for every seat.

TBH, the more I think about this the more I think all of this speculation is really about nothing. The non-rolling top schools are non-rolling every year. Nothing new there. If you've been paying attention to SDN over the past few months, the "superstars" you are asking about have been interviewing all fall, a time that they would have taken the interviews in any year.

They are not the ones receiving the late IIs now. Most superstars are already sitting on several As, and are just waiting for decisions from the non-rolling schools. They don't seem to be receiving IIs in January. As a result, I really don't think there will be a lot of people accepting IIs at T20s that wouldn't have done so in the past. Also, if you've been paying attention, schools outside the T10-20 seem to have done a pretty aggressive job of resource protecting out superstars, so I don't think there will be a lot of opportunity there for people to take IIs who would not have done so in the past.

Again, start by thinking about yourself. Have you accepted a single II that you would not have if you had to travel to campus? If not, what makes you think you are atypical? I'm pretty sure you are not!

I think this was a real possibility at the beginning of the cycle, but I am not seeing it manifesting, between the majority of studs having completed their IIs by Christmas, and the extent to which high stat candidates are being screened out at mid tiers and below. Is anyone seeing reports of people with multiple As still receiving and accepting IIs from schools they wouldn't seriously consider attending, just to see what happens because it's free and easy? I think I've seen like 2 or 3 such posts, which indicates to me it is just not widespread.

 

[Goro]

Here is the math I derived from various stats

1. 22k matriculants
2. 11k with one acceptance (thanks @gonnif )
3. 2k superstars (thanks @LizzyM )
4. Total 75k A+WL (thanks gonnif
5. My estimate is 44k A and 31k WL
6. Of the 44k A, 11k single acceptance = 33k for the other 11k (average 3k)
7. 2k superstars, so 9k non-superstar but with >=2 acceptance
8. Assume superstars have
a. 10 average acceptances = 20k, other 9k will have 13k (which is less than 2 per)
b. 7 average acceptances = 14k, other 9k will have 19k (which is just over 2 per)
c. 5 average acceptances = 10k, other 9k will have 23k (which is just over 2.5 per)
Is 8(b) or 8(c) closer to reality?

Also, I don't know how to derive anything about WL. Of the 31k estimated WL, how many go to superstars and how many to applicants with >=1 acceptance?

Trying to quantify this is yet another waste of time, in fact an unhealthy one.

 

[r2med]

Trying to quantify this is yet another waste of time, in fact an unhealthy one.

Thanks. Will leave it as a difference in opinion.

 

[proudofmykids]

This definitely makes sense, since otherwise you'd never fill up the class.

I was referring to the A multiplier being sometimes less than one, which I've heard some schools do (i.e. accepting only ~80% of the class initially and the remaining ~20% are taken off the WL). I have no clue what the strategy is there though (as opposed to accepting the entire class size first and pulling from the WL when those accepted applicants rescind their acceptances).

I think you might be misremembering what you heard...
There would be No reason to ever offer fewer than a 1 multiplier , or in other words, minimally offering enough acceptances to fill the class exactly.

A school like NYU now has a very high yield, almost a different yield problem than Harvard and maybe harder to predict. So they off very close to 1x As and then use WL for the 1-Yield remainders 20%. Whereas Harvard might do 1.1-1.2x and need a only a few WLs.

 

[r2med]

Whereas Harvard might do 1.1-1.2x and need a only a few WLs.

Do we have any stats that shows only 10-20 people who get other acceptances and also HMS, deny HMS? Curious.