This post is inspired by the recent updates to the GC Results page, especialy those results pertaining to Yale's program. Filtering the results page by "history" reveals that 4 Fall 2019 History PhD applicants have posted about being contacted by their POI for an interview. The first of these 4 was contacted on January 7th, the second on January 11 and the third and fourth today, January 17. The last of these 4 included a comment about their POI saying that receiving an offer to interview "was standard routine for the most promising candidates." I am guessing that more people than just these 4 got interview offers in the past couple of weeks, but they just didnt post about it.
Does this suggest that most of the "most promising candidates" have already been contacted for an interview? Yales own PhD admisions statistics page shows that about 30 offers go out every year to history PhD applicants. It's not unreasonable to think that besides the 4 who posted, another 20+ people were contacted for interviews, but we haven't seen those on the Results page because they didn't post them, aren't GC members/lurkers, etc.
It would be great if past applicants to Yale's History program could respond with their own interview experiences or the experiences of those they know. If you got an interview, when were you contacted for it? Were you ultimately accepted or rejected? If you were accepted, did almost everyone else in your cohort get an interview?