<p>wowmom - I assume more IIs? Congrats!</p>
<p>Yep, and a small pool at a school she’s very excited about.</p>
<p>DD on her way to her first II. I asked if she was nervous and she said she is trying to think of it like dating. If it is meant to be, it will be. Hope she can remain that relaxed tomorrow!</p>
<p>congrats wowmom. I have an inkling which school it might be ( I got one couple of days ago- small pool category)
best of Luck to spring 162 's D as well.I am sure she will be fine.
So far my interview experiences were pleasant and not a terrifying experience at all. All questions were about academic interests and research projects , ECs.
I also got to meet some very intelligent candidates . Many of us are going to meet at various places- which is kind of interesting.</p>
<p>^^But, if you should cross paths with her, for my sake, just pretend you have no idea who she is. </p>
<p>Glad to hear your interviews experiences have been pleasant so far, Piggle.</p>
<p>will do. I never reveal who I am & what I know . </p>
<p>One of the small pool schools - got the interview date and still debating whether it will work with my exam schedules and whether I can endure cold climate if I get in.</p>
<p>If you are interviewing at YSM and the interviewer uses the perfectly acceptable word “y’all”, just smile.</p>
<p>or a “Howdeee”</p>
<p>Ok, what exactly does small pool mean?</p>
<p>Small pool means your application has been selected for final consideration for an II. </p>
<p>Adcoms review and rank applications, and the highest/higher ranked applications get put into a “small pool” for further consideration. I assume everyone who isn’t small pooled either gets rejected or placed on indefinite hold.</p>
<p>wowmom - can you elaborate on that? I kind of understood that few people get interviewed but is there some thing like 2000 people apply and only 200 get interviewed for 100 spots which means one may have a 50% chance from interview to admit?</p>
<p>Is there a list of such schools somewhere?</p>
<p>curmudgeon…I’ll definitely smile, since I just got an invite from them this afternoon!</p>
<p>RE: post #690</p>
<p>I’m not sure if I can.</p>
<p>I guess you can think of this way (Warning: completely made-up numbers!)–</p>
<p>Suppose a school gets 5000 applications to fill a class of 120 students. Obviously the adcomm can’t interview everyone so they use a series of cuts to reduce that number. The first screening is done by computer using a set of proprietary prarameters to reject half of those. So now 2500 applications are left. Real live adcomms now read these applications. each adcomm member ranks each application based again on proprietary factors (diversity, ECs, PS–whatever). The adcomms scores on each application are compared and the top 20% (or 10% or 50% or whatever each school decides) of applications are held for further consideration. The rest are rejected or put on hold. This 20% is the small pool. But 20% of 2500 is still 500. And 500 is still more applicants than the school wants to interview, but 500 applications to carefully review is a much more manageable issue than 2500. The adcomm reviews the 500 application again and decides to invite 50% (or 30% or whatever) of those to interview. </p>
<p>Say half get IIs, so that’s now 250 interviews and the adcomm will again meet to rank and review the interviewees and offer admission to 150 (or 160 or 175) in hopes that 120 will accept and the school will have full med school class.</p>
<p>I don’t think there’s a list of schools that small pool. More accurately, they probably all do, but most don’t send out announcements to applicants telling them they’ve been advanced to the small pool.</p>
<p>Thanks. So when we discuss small pool school, the school mentions in the invite that they are such a school?</p>
<p>In D2’s case, the school sent her a congratulatory email notice that her app had been advanced to the small pool. But other schools use other ways to handle small pooling.</p>
<p>One school posts where your application stands in the process on their website. It doesn’t use the term “small pool”, I think it’s called something like a ‘second review stage’. At other schools, you find out you’re small pooled (though the school doesn’t call it that) when they request additional materials (an extra secondary essay, more LORs) from you.</p>
<p>Small pooling is first level screening of applications after taking in the secondary fees. Vermont is one those schools that I know of, that does small pooling. I like the schools like Vanderbilt, UCSF that do first level screening for free 
Son decided to add UCSF yesterday afternoon and by this morning he got his secondary after screening. They send secondary invites to 1200-1500 of their >7000 applicants. Kudos to them for not robbing $80.00 from ~5500 of their applicants.</p>
<p>^^I thnk different schools handle things differently. D2’s email specifically said she was small pooled for II consideration and most of small pooled applicants would be getting an II.</p>
<p>any idea why they “small pool” rather than just outright give the II? seems like a major bummer if you’re not one of those majority who gets an II.</p>
<p>^^As my second son used to say - same difference, unless they invite all small pooled applicants for interviews. UCSF invites >500 of the 1200-1500 secondary invitees for interviews too. The main point I was making was that, unlike these other schools that do small pooling, UCSF and Vandy don’t charge a fee for that.</p>
<p>I have no clue, kristin.</p>
<p>First visit to the thread since the end of July. DS, now interviewing up in my native state, was home for a few weeks, and spouse and I decided to kick back and enjoy. So much has happened in the interim: mrpenguin and TatinG’s D are now verified; Pinkstuffz’s committee letter was finally sent out; mcatflow went from verification to multiple IIs; Piggle is juggling 9 (!!!) IIs of his/her own; jc40’s D had her first interview; phillipb22 finished submitting secondaries and is now raking in the IIs; plumazul, soon to test the Texas heat, has added additional II feathers to her cap; mammal’s S has completed all secondaries; kal123’s S and spring 162’s D are now interview-bound; and WoWMom’s D—well, just wow!! Congratulations and continued good luck to one and all.</p>