Posted: 1/7/2010 9:22:10 AM EDT
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I'm one of 60 finalists for an internship with 30 open positions. The positions are in 30 different cities and part of the application was listing our top 3 desired locations. That being said...
What are the odds that one of the 30 locations does not appear in at least one finalist's top 3? Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile |
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No guarantees, but this may be it, assuming all choices are equally likely: Take one arbitrary location L to represent one that is not chosen. The first applicant would have a 29/30 chance of not choosing L for the first choice, or 96.7%. For the second choice it would be a 28/29 chance since they have to choose something other than the first choice, or 96.6%. For the third choice it's 27/28 or 96.4%. Overall the first applicant's chances of not choosing location L are all three chances multiplied together or 90%. The chance of the first and second applicant both not choosing L is the chance of the first one not doing it times the chance of the second one not doing it, so 90% times 90% or 81%. You can generalize to say that with N applicants the chance of nobody choosing L is 90% raised to the power N. So for 60 applicants the chance is 0.18% or about 1 in 556, which arfcom should appreciate. |
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Well that's dandy. Thanks. Hopefully I get one of the 30. ETA: This is killing me. The coordinator said he wants to have the selections done by Jan. 20 and I have yet to receive and e-mail or call after sending in the stuff for the second round. It's making me antsy. I check my email every five minutes. I really hope I get this gig. |