C’mon…c’mon…I’ve been waiting forever! According to a current HBS student who talked to someone on the admissions board they weren’t planning on getting started with any interviews until mid-November. But that was almost three weeks ago! And as much as I had previously decided that I would not get anxious or agonize over waiting to hear anything I find myself inexorably pulled into thoughts of figuring out how many days they can realistically schedule interviews for, how many students probably applied, what percentage will be interviewed at all, the wrench in the whole works which is the statement from HBS that some applicants might be informed on January 17th not that they were accepted or rejected but that they will have an interview at a later date, and what this all means as far as my potential acceptance. Of course, what this all means is a mystery to me. I have no clue and can do nothing but stew.
But here’s how I figure it. They probably started looking through applicants as soon as the deadline passed, so they had roughly two weeks of just reading applications until Nov 15th, and I suspect in busy years they might still be reading applications past the time when they are notifying applicants whether they got in or not. However, since the economy is good right now I suspect there are fewer than average applicants, which helps my chances of getting in, and which means they should be able to do all the interviews they want to prior to the January 17th date.
Since there are a few holidays during this time period, let’s assume that we can remove 3-4 days from the total process. Assuming they only work on applications on weekdays, that means they’ve got almost 60 days to do their work. If it’s a slow year, they might get 7,000 or 8,000 applicants for a year, and let’s assume just under half (40%) of those apply in the first round. That’s 3,200 potential interviewees, if we want to be conservative.
Add to this that apparently they don’t start scheduling interviews until they have been reviewing applications for 15 of those 60 days, and I assume they don’t schedule interviews immediately but at least a day or two out. So let’s say that interviews start 20 days into the process. That leaves a total of 40 days in which interviews can be conducted. If they interviewed all 3,200 applicants that would be 80 per day. If you were interviewed halfway through the process, or 40 days into the 60 day process, or around December 20th, you’d be ahead of 1,600 of the applicants for that round.
My guess is that they begin interviewing applicants before they’ve finished reading all the applications. I can’t see how they could afford to wait. I’m assuming a small number of applications are discarded immediately, others are put on a fast track for interviews, and others are put somewhere in between. But even with an optimistic view of the process it would seem there’s a good chance that a candidate with a 100% chance of getting into HBS might not even have their application read until late in December or even into January, and so of course they wouldn’t get an interview opportunity until after that time.
In other words, should I be nervous? Of course not. But am I? You betcha.
Has anyone received an interview call for round 3 yet?
Is interview rejection emails sent at the same timeline as interview acceptance emails?
No. Rejection notices are all sent out at once, whereas interview notifications are sent out during a period of a few months.