Which was the earliest interview that resulted in an acceptance?

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Which was the earliest interview that resulted in an acceptance?

  • 1st

    Votes: 48 59.3%
  • 2nd

    Votes: 11 13.6%
  • 3rd

    Votes: 7 8.6%
  • 4th

    Votes: 8 9.9%
  • 5th

    Votes: 3 3.7%
  • 6th

    Votes: 3 3.7%
  • 7th

    Votes: 1 1.2%
  • 8th

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 9th

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 10th+

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    81

DrSmooth

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I hear people say to not interview at their top choices early on. Looking back, how many interviews did it take till you got an acceptance?

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I found that my interview skills got worse over the season. I feel like I got tired of flying and putting on the happy interview face. I also prepped way more at the beginning of the season.

I suppose my advice would be to schedule your really important interviews after a few but directly after them so that you're still in interview mode. Having a month or so between interviews really puts a damper on your excitement about interviewing, or at least it did to me.

Edit: For better or worse this was my 15,000th post. Someone pretend to care.
 
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This is kind of a stupid question as sometimes people don't even get 1 and others 11. It varies that the one with 1 gets in and the one with 11 not at all.
 
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I tried to schedule my interviews on the earliest days they offered them to me as long as it worked with my schedule. I think my earlier interviews went a little better- maybe I just got lazy or didn't prepare for the later ones as much.
 
Well, I guess my vote is pretty dang inaccurate.

I interviewed 5 times over the first 2 years I applied without any acceptances.

I ended up getting accepted to the first interview of the season my 3rd time.
 
Got my acceptance call from the 3rd interview while in the waiting room at my 4th interview. :cool: Pretty freakin weird.
 
Well, I had a perfect record on interviews, so I dunno how much it helps, but I definitely felt like my interview answers got better as I went. From foot-in-my-mouth BS-ing to actually sounding coherant and somewhat informed. Definitely try to set up a few 'practice-run' interviews.
 
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Well, I had a perfect record on interviews so i dunno how much it helps, but I definitely felt like my interview answers got better as I went. From foot-in-my-mouth BS-ing to actually sounding coherant and somewhat informed. Definitely try to set up a few 'practice-run' interviews.
...
 
I found that my interview skills got worse over the season. I feel like I got tired of flying and putting on the happy interview face. I also prepped way more at the beginning of the season.

I suppose my advice would be to schedule your really important interviews after a few but directly after them so that you're still in interview mode. Having a month or so between interviews really puts a damper on your excitement about interviewing, or at least it did to me.

Yeah I have to echo this experience. I spent weeks prepping for my first interview, rehearsing answers, making the image I was projecting of myself gel with what I perceived as a good fit, etc, and I definitely did well. At my last interview I went in pretty unprepared and did really, really badly. Part of that was just luck with interviewers but I definitely lost some momentum after getting in somewhere.
 
This is one of those things that people over-think. Prepare right with mock interviews and research and you'll be fine.

Since this is a rolling process, it makes sense to schedule your interviews ASAP.
 
This is one of those things that people over-think. Prepare right with mock interviews and research and you'll be fine.

Since this is a rolling process, it makes sense to schedule your interviews ASAP.

this. i dont think anything in the process is a given (including getting into whatever you consider to be a safety school, if you think like that). should give it your all and prepare before the season
 
1st interview, 1st acceptance. I'll always remember it like my first girlfriend...
 
Accepted at the first 2 schools at which I interviewed and waitlisted/waiting to hear (or rejected at one) for the remaining 6. Kind of parallel ksmi's post, in that I definitely prepped harder for the first couple and stopped caring as much towards the end, even at schools I was more interested in. That's not to say I thought my interviews went better early on. But I think part of the reason is that the schools that send you early interviews are the ones most interested in you in the first place. I don't think it really matters to be honest.
 
I found that my interview skills got worse over the season. I feel like I got tired of flying and putting on the happy interview face. I also prepped way more at the beginning of the season.

I suppose my advice would be to schedule your really important interviews after a few but directly after them so that you're still in interview mode. Having a month or so between interviews really puts a damper on your excitement about interviewing, or at least it did to me.

Ditto. It really doesn't matter. Interviews at top tier schools just happened to fall earliest for me, so I took them as they came. I found it best to schedule my interviews within the same span of time, because I found myself to be in the "interviewing zone." It was kind of painful to kick up interview mode after a few months of inactivity.
 
I found that my interview skills got worse over the season. I feel like I got tired of flying and putting on the happy interview face. I also prepped way more at the beginning of the season.

I suppose my advice would be to schedule your really important interviews after a few but directly after them so that you're still in interview mode. Having a month or so between interviews really puts a damper on your excitement about interviewing, or at least it did to me.

Edit: For better or worse this was my 15,000th post. Someone pretend to care.

Yup, same thing happened to me. My performance in the first few were very good, but my last one was just terrible. I couldn't even keep focused during the interview and stuttered my way through some answers I've repeated a thousand times :laugh:

Oops, almost forgot to pretend to care, congrats for 15k ;)
 
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Yup, same thing happened to me. My performance in the first few were very good, but my last one was just terrible. I couldn't even keep focused during the interview and stuttered my way through some answers I've repeated a thousand times :laugh:

Oops, almost forgot to pretend to care, congrats for 15k ;)

Thanks, dingy!
 
Then quality of my interviews was more dependent on the interviewer than on my prep or enthusiasm or when it took place. My best interviews were with MDs - my worst ones were with PhDs...a generalization, but that is what happened to me.

Having said that, the time gap between my first and last interviews (total of 6 interviews) was just over 5 weeks, from early September to mid October. I didn't really have enough time to burn out, or have an interview season that extended too long to sustain interest, either.

I also suspect that interviewers get sick of the whole interviewing process after a couple of months, or for sure after Jan 1. I really believe in early apps and early interviews - avoid burnout of yourself, and of your interviewers, and at rolling admissions schools, a tremendous advantage, especially when you get that first acceptance in October and can start shutting it all down.
 
Well, I guess my vote is pretty dang inaccurate.

I interviewed 5 times over the first 2 years I applied without any acceptances.

I ended up getting accepted to the first interview of the season my 3rd time.

Eh... I'm echoing this. I interviewed at 4 places in a previous cycle, and either got waitlisted or rejected all of them. My first interview this season was an acceptance, my second was a rejection, and my third was an acceptance. Both acceptances came on the earliest possible date (the first was just after Oct 15th, and the second was the day after my interview).
 
Not until my 6th did I get my acceptance. It was a painful journey, to put it mildly.
 
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