** Please help me put to rest a common myth **

Hmm, I don't remember my dates now but I'd be interested to see your analysis! I considered this possibility during R1 but I got a last minute interview from Booth after my last minute submission so anecdotally my case supports your belief.

However, why not ask for scholarship (yes/no) or (yes: more than half of tuition/yes: less than half tuition/no) to give you more data.

A strong positive correlation between early invites and scholarships would imply the strongest candidates were invited first.

Thats a very good point. I second that.

I wonder if we could use google docs to collect data... anyone done that before?

My personal experience suggests a correlation between invite date and odds of admissions. I received an invite from Yale and Darden on the first day they sent invites out and was admitted to both, but I didn't get an invite from Cornell until very late in the process and was waitlisted.

last year i had applied early for R2 at Chicago, CBS and got interview calls on first date. Final result- Ding at Chicago (had a terrible interview), waitlist at CBS (had a decent interview). I couldn't establish connection with either interviewer.
This year, I applied to CBS again and Wharton (again early in R1), i got interview invite on first day at wharton and had excellent interview. Final result- Admit at CBS, ding at W.

I agree with Rhyme, it definitely made me feel good/better when I got interview very quickly. Almost raised my hopes of a definite admit...please don't get encouraged or discouraged unnecessarily regarding this interview call date. Focus on the interview and hope for the best

haha so my one contribution to this thread was to include scholarship data...now I see Rhyme mentioned that in his original post.

Attention to detail..fail!

It took Ross so long to send me an interview invite (almost 7 weeks) that I had already chalked it up as lost. But I was admitted. No scholarship though. I was also one of the first people on this forum to get a R2 invite from Cornell...now I'm crossing my fingers until Feb. 16. We'll see what happens.

I'd also be willing to bet that different schools do it differently.

i was among the first batch of R1 invite recipients from HBS but was subsequently dinged.

i received an invite pretty quickly from CBS RD (< 2 weeks from applying), but they're rolling so i dont know if that's helpful or not
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I dont know but somehow it feels as if there is a connection. I have this imaginary review process that I always think of. Suppose there are three reviewers. For applicant A all the three immediately agree that A should be invited. And so as soon as A's application is reviewed he/she gets an invite. But there are many other poor folks like me. For those whose application gets maybe one yes and two No from the initial reviewers, I think they would be kept in a separate pile and the reviewers might think we will get back to these when we are done inviting the sure shot ones.

And then when all the better ones are invited, they would go back to the Maybe pile and then invite some people from there. Somehow I think its the Maybe people who get invited the last.

I could be wrong and but somehow it seems too logical/probable. I would be glad if it is not the case.

Feel free to tear my logic apart....

sometimes the sheer volume of application makes me think that there probably was not a correlation between interview invite date and admissions. For example, Stanford started releasing R1 invites before the R1 deadline...

I think in real life, there is probably a combination of both scenarios, adcom probably hold on to some borderline invites for discussions later, but at the same time, they are still reviewing the rest of the apps and releasing invites as they go. So ya, with the mix of things, the correlation is probably very low if any.