Stanford GSB 2013 - Calling all Applicants

Despite the fact that there is no official driving variable behind an invite or going out or not, every day we are correct to be more pessimistic about being invited. Every time that someone else is invited, it consumes an interview spot, thereby reducing the number of spots by one and the number of people seeking spots by one. If we were to be invited, we would be told so immediately. However, if we were to be rejected, we are not told so until the entire invitation period ends. As a result, odds decline over time. If invitations are issued linearly from the application deadline to one week before notification, our odds would look something like this:

10/3/12
~1000 invitations to be distributed
~7000 applicants
=14% chance of being invited to interview

11/19/12
~254 invitations to be distributed
~6254 applicants yet to be invited
=4% chance of being invited

12/5/12
0 invitations to be distributed
~6000 applicants yet to be invited
=0% chance of being invited

The probability function is actually very simple: It is the probability that your application has not yet been reviewed times the probability of any given application getting an invite (14%). So that the start you have 100% x 14% = 14%. At the end you have 0% x 14% = 0%. If you think half have been looked at and you haven't heard you have 50% x 14% = 7%. And so on.

I know you guys are all implying this, but thought I would just spell it out for anyone who was interested.

It's the aftermath of GMAT I guess.

It is relevant. As my expectation of going to business school rises, my propensity to do certain things around home such as purchase new furniture that would be difficult to move or renew college football season tickets declines.

Initial expectation of an interview is 14%, not 7%.

Yes, my personal anecdote re: a decision on whether to renew my season tickets by last Friday's deadline was not material, but there are other deadlines that are. Let's consider an applicant who is considering submitting a round 2 application to Haas (due 11/29/12):

In this case, the applicant experiences the following possible outcomes:

Admission to both schools: 1%
Admission to Stanford and not Haas: 6%
Admission to Haas and not Stanford: 11%
Admission to neither: 82%

But if the odds of admission to Stanford are reduced to 2% based on my analysis above, the outcomes change to:

Admission to both schools: 0%
Admission to Stanford and not Haas: 2%
Admission to Haas and not Stanford: 12%
Admission to neither: 86%

So in essence, there is a marginal increase of 1% in the student's probability of ultimately attending Haas. If we presume that the value of the MBA to be the simple sum of the increase in applicant salary for the number of post-MBA years worked**, the value of the Haas MBA is $88,819/year for 35 years to retirement, or $3,108,665. 1% of that would be $30,109, so the yet-to-be-invited applicant should be that much more interested in applying to Haas than before.


*I'm well aware that there is probably some co-variance between admission to various schools. I've never seen a good study on it, so we will have to just assume that there isn't any.
**This would require wage growth to equal the discount rate, which, although not necessarily accurate, is reasonable.

The point he was making was to stop obsessing. It's a meaningless pursuit and the statistical probability doesn't mean you should adjust your behavior or thinking.

I don't know man. (woman?). This admissions process, just like dating, is far too subjective to put effort into doing any sort of mathematical analysis. A lot of what is involved on the adcoms' part is intuition, gut, and an overall sense for how attractive a person's candidacy is - which is not always quantifiable. Just do the best you can in your apps, apply to where you want to go, and that's it.

Wow...this just doesn't appear to be a valuable use of time. There is a point were the formal analysis ends and sense kicks in. No class, not even at Stanford, can teach you where that line is.

OK, people who submitted for R1, who else got a heart attack after reading the sender and the first three words of the subject line of today's e-mail reminder about Round 2 deadlines?

Although I was in the same position losing hope not long ago, looking at last year's posts there do seem to continue to be interview invites going into early December. They'll just have to finish those interviews in a shorter time frame. Not all hope is lost for those waiting.

My status too read 'Your application is currently under review.' Not invited to interview yet. I think adcom just realized they hadn't updated status as was stated in their Dec 03rd admissions blog!

truth. happened to my friend last year.

It was maybe 2-3 days, but a friend of mine had something like this happen to him last year.

They say that, but in the past, decisions get released in the morning. I imagine its to prevent the office being inundated with calls from people trying to check their status...

LET THE WEEK OF RECKONING BEGIN!!!!!

Don't think I agree here. The time has passed

Hi people...this is Richa from India...I also got a call from Derick..Stanford..yaey