Yes, the early admissions deadline was Sept. 30, and the interviews were early November. I believe Emory also went ahead and did another early round of interviews in Dec. as well. Basically, if you are invited for an interview during early admissions, they can choose to accept you early or put your application back into the regular admissions pool for later this spring. I beieve other schools have been doing the early admissions for years, but this is the first year Emory did it. Emory told us that they have found that generally students who get all of their application materials in early really have their act together and are the best candidates, so it's definitely worth applying early if you can.