Do most schools read the applicant's entire application before giving II?

[deleted887473]

I know LORs can be read after interviews, but do they read all of the personal statement, activities section, and secondary response before extending an II? Asking because I have gotten a few IIs and am wondering if that means my writing to those schools were particularly good or I just got lucky.

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[Goro]

It means your app was good.

 

[LizzyM]

It means that the school saw enough to recommend you for interview and nothing that would negate the idea that you would be admissible.

 

[KnightDoc]

Just tacking on, you guys reading the whole app (LORs too) before you send an ii?

????? You are literally re-asking the question they just answered in the responses you are quoting.

 

[PigsHaveWings]

Is there an objective score that is assigned to an application after the initial review, and then the interviewer adds another score, or is the whole process very subjective ?

@Goro @LizzyM

 

[Catalystik]

do they read all of the personal statement, activities section, and secondary response before extending an II?

Why waste an interview slot on someone who might turn out to have a disqualifier in their application?

I was asking if they read the LORs too before?

At my school, Yes.

 

[deleted887473]

It means that the school saw enough to recommend you for interview and nothing that would negate the idea that you would be admissible.

Thank you for your reply. Given that 70% - 90% of applicants are rejected pre-interview, seeing "enough" sounds like a quite modest standard, but is it how admissions do proceed?
I know it doesn't matter; I am just procrastinating on interview prep...

 

[KnightDoc]

I was asking if they read the LORs too before? Goro and LizzyM just said that it meant your app was passable. "Saw enough" could mean they just read the primary and skimmed the secondary.

Maybe I'm a little stupid, but I actually don't understand the OP, or your follow up.

The OP was exactly what part of an application (PS, ECs, secondary, maybe not LORs) are reviewed prior to an II? The responses were, we like what we see, that's why you get called in. You then followed up with, yeah, what about LORs in addition to everything else?

What part of their responses were unclear to you? Are you worried everything about your application is great EXCEPT the LORs, and that could kill you later? You're right, it could, whether or not they are read before the interview.

As you must know, you can be knocked out anytime before, during or after the interview. You have no way to know, since there is no visibility into what is ultimately a very competitive, highly subjective process. Asking anonymous adcom members highly detailed questions about what is looked at when is highly unlikely to make the murky process suddenly clear.

At the end of the day, everything is looked at and compared to everything in everyone else's file, and then decisions are made. Does that make it more clear?

 

[KnightDoc]

Thank you for your reply. Given that 70% - 90% of applicants are rejected pre-interview, seeing "enough" sounds like a quite modest standard, but is it how admissions do proceed?
I know it doesn't matter; I am just procrastinating on interview prep...

It's actually a pretty high standard, since only 10-30% of applicants make the cut! As @Catalystik said, schools don't waste IIs on people who are not admissible, so receiving an II means you don't have any disqualifiers in your file.

The common misconception is that this means the only thing standing between an applicant and an A is the interview. This isn't true, because, as we see every year at every school, people have perfectly fine interviews and still don't make the cut. This happens because at the end, even if you are very good and perfectly admissible, there just might end up being more people who are "better" than you (whatever that means at a particular school) than there are seats in the class and spots on the WL.

 

[LizzyM]

Thank you for your reply. Given that 70% - 90% of applicants are rejected pre-interview, seeing "enough" sounds like a quite modest standard, but is it how admissions do proceed?
I know it doesn't matter; I am just procrastinating on interview prep...

Seeing enough to decline to interview is a different situation than seeing enough to interview and nothing that would negate that recommendation. In some cases, it may be that "enough" is a screen based on numbers: GPA 2.5/MCAT 498/college graduation in the future might be enough for an algorhythm to toss the application into the "no interview" pile that will be examined later in 5 minutes before declining to interview.

If I'm the second reader and the first reader has recommended admission, I am the devil's advocate and try to find some reason to not interview the candidate, something that was overlooked. Keep in mind we are trying to reduce the proportion of interviewed candidates to less than 20% (at some schools much less than 20%) so we need to be ruthless. If someone has not recommended admission, I will look at the reasons and see if I can find evidence that the first reader overlooked (e.g. something on the application was misclassified or overlooked and the applicant actually has experience with x,y,z). In those cases a "don't interview" can be turned around.

If we have a candidate with a 4.0/520 from a rural background who is interested in a career in general surgery in an underserved part of the state and I'm at a state school, that may be all that I need provided there are no lethal IAs and the letters recommend without reservations. Is this making sense?

 

[deleted887473]

Seeing enough to decline to interview is a different situation than seeing enough to interview and nothing that would negate that recommendation. In some cases, it may be that "enough" is a screen based on numbers: GPA 2.5/MCAT 498/college graduation in the future might be enough for an algorhythm to toss the application into the "no interview" pile that will be examined later in 5 minutes before declining to interview.

If I'm the second reader and the first reader has recommended admission, I am the devil's advocate and try to find some reason to not interview the candidate, something that was overlooked. Keep in mind we are trying to reduce the proportion of interviewed candidates to less than 20% (at some schools much less than 20%) so we need to be ruthless. If someone has not recommended admission, I will look at the reasons and see if I can find evidence that the first reader overlooked (e.g. something on the application was misclassified or overlooked and the applicant actually has experience with x,y,z). In those cases a "don't interview" can be turned around.

If we have a candidate with a 4.0/520 from a rural background who is interested in a career in general surgery in an underserved part of the state and I'm at a state school, that may be all that I need provided there are no lethal IAs and the letters recommend without reservations. Is this making sense?

Thank you, that makes sense. I have gotten IIs from schools that have very low post-interview acceptance rates, and I was wondering if I actually had realistic chances of admission or they just chose to interview me for my stats. I would assume the interview plays a more important part for those schools in making or breaking the applicant?

 

[LizzyM]

Some schools might have reasons to cast a wide net including satisfying the state legislature that every instate applicant is given every consideration or satisfying alumni, faculty and other donors that "special interests" are given every consideration. There may be schools that inflate their number interviewed by at least giving an inteview to students/grads of their affiliated post-bac or SMP. Don't take the denominator at face value unless you know what goes into it.

 

[deleted887473]

Some schools might have reasons to cast a wide net including satisfying the state legislature that every instate applicant is given every consideration or satisfying alumni, faculty and other donors that "special interests" are given every consideration. There may be schools that inflate their number interviewed by at least giving an inteview to students/grads of their affiliated post-bac or SMP. Don't take the denominator at face value unless you know what goes into it.

Makes sense. I know at the end of day, I should be glad that I got IIs and focus on doing well on interviews. Thank you.

 

[Goro]

Just tacking on, you guys reading the whole app (LORs too) before you send an ii?

At my school, we don't pre-screen. I was referring to MD schools.