Interview Slots

[Nlbs]

About how many interviews do schools do in relation to their available slots? Would an acceptance rate of ~25% from interviews be reasonable? 

[Z PA-C]

A lot of the schools I see tend to accept about 1/3 of candidates interviewed. So ya 25-35% sounds about right

[tuxedosheep]

Depends on the school, but I ran a few calculations on most of the schools in Texas (UNTHSC UTSW, UTMB, TTUHSC, Baylor) based on interviews given in the previous year. The average was 33% chance for acceptance if given an interview.

 

Kind of a round about way of answering your question, but it seems like most schools receive ~1500 applications, some with 2000+, and then roughly 150-200 are invited from that pool, so roughly 10% chance of getting an interview. Of course, this statistic is greatly skewed due to proportions of students that submit to schools without meeting the minimum requirements and are automatic toss outs (but not all schools function that way.)

 

To sum this up: there isn't a safe way to calculate how many interviews a school will give, just an estimate based on the year before. But you can make safer predictions (sans the estimated number of interviews given) of the chance of getting an acceptance after interview because of set number of seats and all are qualified.

 

I'm not sure I answered your question, but hopefully something I blathered helped.

[Nlbs]

Both very helpful, thank you for your responses!!!

[sushithefish]

I've encountered very few schools that had 2000+ apps. I think average would be 1k-1.5k. I would say that the acceptance rate for interviewees would be 30-50%. Definitely depends on the school. I applied to one school that "accepts" 30% of interviewees but interviews early, so a lot of the accepted students would pay the seat deposit and then cancel when they get into a better program. A lot of the waitlist people end up getting off the waitlist, so acceptance "rate" would be 50%. 

[MT2PA]

I've encountered very few schools that had 2000+ apps. I think average would be 1k-1.5k. I would say that the acceptance rate for interviewees would be 30-50%. Definitely depends on the school. I applied to one school that "accepts" 30% of interviewees but interviews early, so a lot of the accepted students would pay the seat deposit and then cancel when they get into a better program. A lot of the waitlist people end up getting off the waitlist, so acceptance "rate" would be 50%. 

 

That's kind of a misleading way to look at it, though.  

 

The OP wants to know how many are interviewed for how many seats are available.  By and large, and studies have been done (PAEA I think?), that there are about 4 students interviewed per seat available.  So around 25%.  All of the programs I interviewed at had roughly that ratio, regardless of how many applications they received (of which many were the ones receiving 2000+ apps).  With nearly 200 PA programs and most students applying to a subset for which they are qualified, we are all likely to have different experiences and observed generalities.  I applied to large, well established programs so it makes sense that they were the ones getting 2000+ apps.  They were also programs with class sized 30-60.  Programs that take 80-90 students may have a higher acceptance rate.  Or they may just interview many more students and still only take about 25% of the ones they see.  

 

Regardless of how many are 'accepted but decline' the # we all want to know is worst case scenario odds once we get an interview.  Waitlist acceptances vary wildly year to year.  One program I interviewed at said the previous year took nearly 20 off their waitlist while the year I applied they only took 5.  It just depends on who interviews and who accepts their seat.

 

Bottom line, though, is once you get an interview your odds increase drastically compared to acceptance rates based on # of applicants (around 5% there).