TotD

You must always know the odds, but you must never rely on the odds.

In early 2012 when I was applying to faculty jobs, I got 5 interviews from top universities (3 from MIT, 1 from Harvard, 1 from Stanford). Because I knew how many other candidates were being interviewed at each department, I quickly calculated my probability of getting a faculty offer to be:

Pr(Success) = 1 – (1-1/3)^2*(1-1/4)^2*(1-1/6) = 19 / 24 = 79.2%

I remember thinking that these odds are about as high as one could reasonably expect, and I was mentally celebrating early. However, my good friend Mingjie at the time ominously said that “But these probabilities may not be independent.”

I didn’t get any of those 5 faculty positions, because for whatever reason 3 of these 5 departments ended up not extending offers to anyone that year. As a result, I had to wait to start my faculty career until the next year, where I duly applied to 40 departments (instead of 8) and did 12 interviews instead of 5.