[[Ten Questions for Adcoms]]

Question

To add to the MBA program database, we will be contacting adcoms with a request to answer ten questions. We will add their responses to our wiki.

Can you help with preparing a list of questions for adcoms? Lets call this the frequently unanswered questions.

Be nice. :oops:

togafoot · Answer

How about? Do you suck or blow? :lol:

only joking!!! seriously :- Generically speaking, what type of activities are the differences between poor extra curriculars(as opposed to none), average extra curriculars and excellent extra curricular involvment and for which types of applicant is this area more influential in the decision making process?

kryzak · Answer

I'm not sure if this is a good question, but it relates to the situation that many other GMATClubbers are facing right now.

Q1. Why are your deposit deadlines for R1 earlier than the decision release dates for many of your peer schools? While we understand that the earlier an admitted student makes his/her decision, the easier it is for the school to finalize their class composition, isn't it equally important that an admitted student make the best informed choice by seeing which schoosl he/she gets admitted to in R1 and R2 (where more people apply), attending the admit weekends, and then making an informed decision? If schools can make the applicants wait 3 months for a decision, why do some students need to make a decision within 2-4 weeks?

(sorry if this sounds a bit harsh, but some of the deposit deadlines just puzzle me)

R.E.D. · Answer

kryzak, my guess is that it is mostly yield game. When a school wants to raise its yield, applicants see changes in application rounds, first round admission binders and early decision dates. This is tactical, to improve yield for a year or two and to attract most of the applicants who see some school as their best choice. Higher number of those applicants creates more loyal students, who will be willing to promote school in future, among other admitted students and among prospective applicants next years. Then goes strategy - how to improve overall school ranking to return back to regular decision dates

Praetorian · Answer

Anyone else want to contribute?

riverripper · Answer

I have to think about this since there are a lot of things I would like to know but I am sure we can come up with some really good questions.

I think one great question would be a break down of how the rounds compare...they always say they are equal but we all know thats not entirely truthful especially since some schools give out some data like Ross did last year where it was clear R1 was much easier to get an admit than in R2. I would love to know how their total application are divided among the rounds (ie 30% R1, 60% R2, 10% R3) and how many of the admits come from each round (similar % division).

A few days of thinking about this and I am sure we can get some questions that ask stuff you cant find elsewhere.

livehard · Answer

While I understand the reasoning behind making the essays significantly different between schools: 1) they all have different ideas about whom is an ideal candidate and 2) they would like to be sure that you put a significant amount of research and effort into the application (as opposed to law school apps in which you can easily apply to 15 schools).

With that said, I would love to ask adcoms why they can't come together and create a single form recommendation letter. Asking very busy supervisors to write multiple recommendations (that all have similar but subtly different questions) virtually ensures that a large percentage of the candidates will write their own recommendations (and have the person sign off on them after the fact). For the supervisors that actually do write them, the amount of effort required makes it likely that the quality will suffer. Seems like a bad idea all around.

bsd_lover · Answer

Indeed livehard - in fact apart from the essays, all application information is identical, so why do we have to fill that stuff out each time ? Could we not just have a common place - say the GMAT guys - who could provide this information as a 3rd party to the school and all we have to do is send them the essays ?

wallspotter · Answer

Excellent point. I completely agree with this. Most of key points the schools ask for are very similar anyways.

I would also like to know why more schools don't adopt the Chicago method of formal mid decisions dings if you don't have an interview. I think this makes the process a lot more applicant friendly.

westsider · Answer

1)Can schools with an "invite only" interview process please admit that applicants that are invited to interview DO IN FACT have a better chance than those that are not. 
2)Also, enough of this "you have an equal chance in all rounds, but it is to your advantage to apply in the earliest round possible." Both statements can't be true.

Seeing them deny this makes me think:
1) Of a certain national politician whose name I won't say so as not to start a political debate =)
2) That if the adcoms and schools can't even tell the truth about their admissions process ( a.k.a. telling lies) how can they expect applicants to be honest?

Ok, I'm not really as angry as it sounds, but I would love to see one of them address these!

ncp · Answer

When we ask schools if they have quotas based on nationality/ethnicity, they really froth at the mouth and deny it ala another president. "I did not select candidates based on a quota".

But, I did some analysis on incoming class statistics at various top schools, and surprise surprise the number of students admitted from a country remains constant from one class to another. For one of the schools I did this research, I found that they admit approximately 40 Indians and 40 chinese students every year. This is based on stats in the last 4 years. I remember that other schools had similar trends.

I would love for the ad-coms to explain this.

westsider · Answer

Well played prasad! =)

bsd_lover · Answer

haha this thread is rapidly descending into "crack the ad-com bs" ... To be honest, I think I can't blame ad-coms for always trying to be politically correct. Its a tough market out there for them. The first school to admit any form of "quota" will see its rankings and reputation dip.

You could also ask them that why is it when someone asks for the importance of the GMAT, the stock standard ad-com response always stays: "GMAT is one of the many criteria that we look at in assessing <bleh bleh>...", whereas in reality, for most people, scoring below the 80th percentile of a school is pretty much game set and match. Why not just admit it; say something like "We DO admit people below this score but it is advisable to get a score between   and   given the competitive nature of the admissions."

aceman626 · Answer

I would like to ask them:

Why do many schools invite 50% or even 60% of all applicants to interview, knowing perfectly well that most interviewees will not even have a chance?

For example, if acceptance rate is around 20%, you should interview at most 30%. The 10% who are not admitted are people who bombed their interviews and also the people who get put on the waitlist.

Everyone who is invited should have a decent chance to get accepted.

Ozmba · Answer

Terrific Q --I think this should be definitely asked

sudden · Answer

There is a reason the schools do this. Even the top schools know that a certain number of interviewees who they want to accept will be interviewed by other, higher ranked schools and accept offers elsewhere. This is why the interview rate at Wharton is higher than the rates at Stanford and Harvard -- Wharton KNOWS that it is going to lose some of the candidates it wants to the other schools (you see this by looking at the yield figures). This same scenario plays out to some degree (probably a greater degree) across all schools not in the top 3, so basically the schools need to have a higher interview rate to ensure that they screen enough good candidates that they can round out a solid class of people they want who are not socially defective. It's maddening from an applicant's standpoint, but there is a method to the madness.

I personally do not think this should be one of the questions. A little intuition into the publicly available math tells the story here.

I personally do not think this should be one of the questions. A little intuition into the publicly available math tells the story here.

livehard · Answer

Sorry, but this does not counter aceman's point at all. Sure Wharton knows that a relatively consistent percentage of students will choose to attend other schools, hence they purposely accepts more candidates than can attend (others are waitlisted to deal with fluctuations in yield). However, this does not explain why Wharton interviews 60% of candidates with the full knowledge that greater than 2/3 of them will be dinged. I find it very hard to believe that there isn't a significant percentage in that group that they know will be dinged regardless of interview performance.

To further counter your argument you need only look to Haas. They have a lower yield than Wharton yet interview only ~25% of candidates.

sudden · Answer

No, it perfectly counters aceman's point, which is that schools should invite the smallest percentage of candidates possible, thereby maximizing the acceptance rate for those offered interviews. His is a very candidatecentric view that could only occur in an ideal world. Let's be honest though, the schools really do not care about what is good for the candidates -- they are doing what is good for the schools. By minimizing the number of candidates interviewed, a school would maximize its own risk of failing to develop the best class possible. The schools are risk averse, this would never happen.

Your point is flawed as well. The top schools have repeatedly stated that ~80% of candidates are qualified for admission. If you wanted to make the best possible class, you would be interested in choosing the best possible portion of that 80%, and the way to do that is to interview the most interesting group of that 80% that is available to you, adjusting for whatever demographic or quota system the schools have in place. A reasonable way to do this would be to interview the top 50% (60% seems too high for Wharton -- I am going to assume it is closer to 45-50% unless you can provide a credible source) of candidates in each demographic and then weed out all but the best performers in each group. Some groups will be larger than others of course, so for ex. they probably interview more management consultants than nonprofits. This assures that the schools both select the best possible group from those available on a demographic adjusted basis as well as maintain a bench of qualified people "in the cue" in case they get stolen away by other schools. This is supported by the fact that Harvard and Stanford interview a smaller number of people because they basically know that almost none of the people given offers will turn them down.

I can't prove this, but I suspect that one of the reasons that so many people get dinged after the interview is because, even if the school interviews the top 50% in one demographic, the demand for a seat in that class may be much higher than the supply of seats for that demographic. For example take Wharton again. How many engineers apply every year? Out of the 6,000+ applicants, I would not be surprised to see 1,000 engineers apply. So assume 800 are qualified and they interview 400. There are simply not 400 seats for engineers in the class. Maybe they have 200 seats, so they admit or waitlist half of these people. They waitlist people who are good enough to get in but not so oustanding that they are "must haves." This allows the schools to see what the applicant strength is in the later rounds, thereby freeing them up to, again, create the best possible class. This is why the schools have repeatedly and vociferously indicated that the waitlist is not ranked--they pull from the waitlist on an opportunistic basis, as in, "Oh? We lost our best chemical engineer to Harvard? Let's pull our second choice off the waitlist. There, we filled the class to the best of our ability."

Admittedly, the demographic argument is a bit of a black box, but it makes a lot more sense than your argument, which is basically that the schools are being unfair to people by getting their hopes up, as if the adcom is sitting around saying, "Hm, let's figure out how to crush this guy's hopes... oh, let's invite him for an interview even though we would never admit him." There is absolutely no motivation whatsoever to do this, and there is actually a disincentive in the form of not wanting to waste their own, their students' and their alums' time, not to mention that the last thing the adcom wants to do is create more admin work for itself. The fact that they interview so many people is a biatch, but there you go, that's life.

Citing Haas, which is a small, quirky program does not prove or disprove anything. One school a trend does not make. Besides, Haas may be like Tuck in that they approach yield by making very sure that they only interview people that are deeply interested in Haas so that they do not become a back up school for people who fail to get into H / S / W. Some of these people will inevitably get into H / S / W anyway, hence the lower yield. I don't know that much about Haas, but this would not surprise me. If you still believe that one school breaks my argument, you need to provide a convincing reason.

Anyway, good discussion -- hopefully we can agree to disagree if nothing else.

kryzak · Answer

good discussion guys... though I have a slightly different opinion from both of you. I believe that the people interviewed at schools like Stanford, Haas, and Anderson are those who are weeded out based on their other parts of the candidacy. The interview I don't think makes that big of a difference, since the interviewers are all so different, and the quality control of the interview writeup is very non-standardized (versus a set of very thoroughly trained adcoms reading all the applications and discussing). Therefore, the interview, in my opinion, is there to make sure the person can tell his/her story in person as convincingly as they did on the paper application. It's also to make sure the person is not a hermit or hired someone else to write all his application and essays. In my very very rough guess, I'd say at most 10-20% of the interviewed candidates will have their decisions reversed (admit to reject, reject to admit) based on the interview. Again, that's just my gut feel with no real substantial proof.

As for schools not caring about student's feelings, Derrick Bolton of Stanford clearly stated in this year's blog that they are interviewing fewer applicants so that they can admit more students after the interview than in past years. I think he said it was a move to make it easier on the applicants so they know they have a very good chance of getting in if they get an interview. As a result, Stanford is interviewing much fewer people this year than last. Haas has always kept a 60-70% admit ratio after interviews from what I've seen, and Anderson seems to be the same way, with most people interviewed getting in. I don't know about others, but I believe an interview at MIT is also a good sign, as well as Ross. Correct me if I'm wrong. That's just my feel from Admissions 411 and our GMATClub results. Anyway, who knows what they adcom really thinks? Maybe 1/2 the schools interview more to reduce risk, whereas the other 1/2 interview to just confirm the stories and weed out weirdos. That's why I believe while sudden disagrees with aceman's reasoning, this is still a good question to ask. Then again, I don't think the adcoms would really give us a straight answer, like usual.

livehard · Answer

Great discussion and very well articulated sudden. I agree with the vast majority of your points.

I agree completely. Schools are interested in minimizing their own risk and the candidates are an afterthought.

I left out the parts of your quote that I agree with. However, this statement is not born out by the numbers. Below you will find a table I compiled that includes the top 20 schools' interview percentages, acceptance rates, post-interview acceptance rates (acceptance rate/interview percentage), yields, and US News rankings (all rates were pulled from the most recent business week stats). Note that I did not include schools that did not provide their interview percentage (Harvard, Stanford, Chicago, Tuck, Darden) or schools that interview all candidates (Kellogg and Kenan-Flagler). The one exception is Wharton who was included with an estimated interview percentage of 50% (as it was the basis of much of our discussion).

https://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i78/adgray5148/stats-1.jpg

You can see from this table that the post-interview acceptance rate does not trend with yield or ranking as has been implied. You see top schools with high yields like Sloan and Stern on one end and top schools with high yields like Columbia and Wharton on the other end.

Further, the fact that lower ranked schools know that more candidates will turn them down would affect yield, not the percentage of interviewed candidates that are dinged. Unless you are arguing that schools use interviews in a large part to determine which top candidates will not attend (and ding those). If so, interesting premise and one that would be difficult to prove one way or the other.

I have no counter to the argument that it makes no sense for them to interview candidates with no chance of acceptance. They are likely looking to reduce risk and, hence, invite candidates with an almost zero (but not zero) chance of acceptance.

Well looking at the table I compiled, schools such as Stern and Sloan (far from small and quirky) have a similar strategy to Haas (and in fact have an even higher post-interview acceptance rate).

I do agree with you that schools like Wharton and Columbia interview such a high percentage due to risk aversion. However, it still seems unlikely that they don't know with 99% certainty that a good number of those have no shot. Especially considering how other top programs are able to be successful while employing such a different (and more applicant-friendly) strategy. For this reason, I'd still like to hear an adcom explanation.

[[Ten Questions for Adcoms]]

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