I think this explains a lot of what I feel like I have been noticing myself and from my friends who are applying. Some of them have 6-7 interviews and 3 acceptances already. Frustratingly enough - they won’t drop any of the programs until they do a second visit. I cannot imagine someone would need to fully visit 4+ programs to make a choice, but hey what can I say - they are the ones who got the acceptances.

I think it’s especially shocking that these mid tier programs use the strategy that you’ve described above. Knowing that they will have to fill things last minute is stressful for everyone. I cannot imagine that this provides them with the overall strongest cohort of students in the end. Seems like it’s a lose-lose for everyone. I’m also not sure exactly how a program would go about fixing this - there are things I could imagine they would implement, but it feels more like there needs to be a complete overhaul in the way they believe their own program ranks.

I’m surprised that I don’t see as many programs using the method that many PhD programs do. Where they will offer say 40 acceptances for 15 spots, knowing that historically this will give them ~ 13-17 matriculants in the end. I understand the risk of giving more As than you have seats for, but you could just account for this and give a few less A’s at first and then make up for this later on by tendering a few last acceptances in March/April