In a post on the Stanford MBA Admissions Blog yesterday, Admissions Director Derrick Bolton shared that his office has extended interview invitations to 275 second-round candidates.

“We will extend an additional 100-125 interview invitations to second-round candidates in the next couple of weeks,” Bolton continued. Some first-round candidates who were waitlisted without an interview may also receive invitations to interview in the next couple of weeks, he said.

Interestingly, the number of second-round invitations extended this year is much lower than the number of first-round invitations. In another post back in December, Bolton shared that his office had extended 400 invitations to interview to first-round candidates and expected to extend between 150 and 200 more as part of the first round.

The disparity in the number of invitations to interview from one round to the next raises some questions. Was the round two applicant pool significantly smaller? Historically, it has been even with if not larger than round one. Or were round-two candidates less competitive this year? Bolton’s mention of returning to the round-one waitlist could support this theory.

Chatter on the BusinessWeek Forum’s Stanford GSB R2 thread suggested a third alternative, namely that the yield from round one was greater than in past years, leaving less room in next year’s class for applicants from later rounds. But a subsequent post pointed out that Stanford can’t yet know how many students admitted in the first round have opted to attend next year since the deposit deadline is still several weeks away (March 19th).

Any of these possibilities marks a departure from admissions trends at Stanford GSB over the past several years. In fact, the school itself has suggested that applying in round one is less competitive.

“If you are considering applying in either Round 1 or Round 2, we encourage you to consider Round 1,” reads the Application Deadlines page of the Stanford GSB website. “Over the past few years, we’ve noticed more applicants applying in Round 2 and, as a result, this round has become bigger and a bit more competitive. You should never rush your application. But on the margin, earlier is better.”

Did you receive an invitation to interview in Stanford GSB’s second round? Have insights of your own about what might explain why they issued fewer invited this round than last.