Decision Day 2010: Let's Hope It Was Sunny

If you find out this afternoon that you didn’t get into Harvard, blame it on the weather.

A recent Canadian study has indicated that medical school applicants who had their interviews on rainy days received lower evaluations from their interviewers than those who interviewed on a sunny day, according to Book of Odds.

The study said that interviews “are prone to subconscious biases from extraneous factors unrelated to the candidate.” (These researchers know what they’re talking about since they hail from Toronto, which averages at 145 rainy days a year.)

Another study conducted at University of Pennsylvania in 2006 yielded similar results. They concluded that an applicant who has an interview on a sunny day will have a higher predicted probability of being admitted.

If you’ve been paying attention in Psych, you know this could be attributed to interviewers’ misinterpretation of core affect, or what Freud would call a “projection bias.” When admission officers feel gloomy on a rainy day, they are more likely to interpret the gloominess as an indication of an unimpressive application.

In an interesting twist, cloud cover during a college visit makes it more likely that a student will choose the school.

So for your sake, Bill Fitzsimmons, we hope prefrosh weekend is full of clouds.

Photo by Joseph L. Abel, Crimson Staff Photographer.

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

CORRECTION: April 2, 2010

An earlier version of the April 1 post "Decision Day 2010: Let's Hope It Was Sunny" incorrectly stated that according to a recent Canadian study, students who visit or tour a school on a sunny day are more likely to choose the school than if they had toured on a cloudy day. In fact, the study states that cloud cover makes it more likely that the student will choose the school.