How indicative of impending rejection are the stats in the response database?

[socrate4se]

 

I've been following TheGradCafe admissions response database quite a bit and, as you might imagine, have been disappointed to see interviews already extended to a couple people for some schools. This is my first round of applications; I'm wondering, from people who have been through a full application cycle and used grad cafe before, how representative the stats we get from that database are. Say, if we see that a couple interviews were extended last week and we haven't yet heard anything, should we take that to be a good sign that we are not on the shortlist?

Does anyone here have experience getting positive news from a school a week or more after they started seeing interviews posted on the database?

Thanks for any and all feedback!

 

[GreenEyedTrombonist]

It's my first cycle as well, but from what I understand, the answer to your question is basically "it depends."

Some programs interview all applicants they are considering for the program, in which case no interview means your chance of getting in is low. Other programs interview borderline candidates, in which case you are either a clear acceptance or a clear rejection if you don't get an interview. The situation that applies to interviews differs by program, so, though some areas of study tend to do more interviews than others, it's almost impossible to tell what type of interviews any one program is conducting.

I'm in the same boat having seen interview requests come to others who applied to the same program I did, but not receiving one myself. I've recently found out from those who received the requests that the invitation listed them as a finalist, which seems to indicate the program is interviewing all candidates they are considering for admission, but at the end of the day, I don't really know what's going to happen until I officially hear from the school. Right now I'm trying to focus on the work in front of me and making some progress on my Plan B. 

Hope this helps!

[hopefulPhD2017]

This is a great question @socrate4se Have you gone back and re-read the threads from your schools from previous years? I found them very enlightening. I feel pretty confident now that the answer to your question, for my schools at least, is that they are representative, yes. But there are exceptions. 

[DBear]

I think it's really impossible to tell because there is no way of knowing of the total pool of applicants to your program, how many use gradcafe and even more importantly, how many of those users bother to upload their results. So for example, if you are one of 200 applicants to Program Y, and 40 of those applicants actively visit this place and 10 people decide to post results and all 10 of those people post that they've received interview requests, it'll look like EVERYONE has interviews even though it's only 10 out of 200... But if 190 people out of 200 post, that'd be a different story, wouldn't it?

[socrate4se]

4 hours ago, DBear said:

I think it's really impossible to tell because there is no way of knowing of the total pool of applicants to your program, how many use gradcafe and even more importantly, how many of those users bother to upload their results. So for example, if you are one of 200 applicants to Program Y, and 40 of those applicants actively visit this place and 10 people decide to post results and all 10 of those people post that they've received interview requests, it'll look like EVERYONE has interviews even though it's only 10 out of 200... But if 190 people out of 200 post, that'd be a different story, wouldn't it?

I agree that it's impossible to tell because of all the unknowns. But I'm not trying to create objective outlook on the odds based on those stats--I was specifically asking for people who had received interviews to their school(s) of choice apparently later than other people, based on the database. Purely anecdotal.

In any case, I doubt very many people who actually got into school actively continue to use this site long after admission.

[DBear]

@socrate4se, if that's the case the only relatively reliable and useful information that can be reaped is to ascertain whether or not a program tends to send out interviews all at once or sporadically. If you look at the past couple of years, depending on the number of posts, a trend should be apparent. For example, there is one program I am waiting on that sent out interview invites all Jan long - so I'm still holding out hope. There is no way to know whether late/ early interview invites impact chances of admissions, but at least you can get somewhat of an idea on whether you should still wait for an invite or not.