<p>My interviewer let it slip that I was marked a high priority candidate. What does this mean for my admissions chances?</p>
<p>Must be really good!</p>
<p>I think it means your the cream of the crop CC candidate</p>
<p>It likely means you’re certainly still under consideration. Given the huge nos. of kids cut after the first read, this is a good place to be in. Not that it guarantees anything – but I’m sure you know that.</p>
<p>High priority for interview could have all sorts of reasons. Enjoy it. But.</p>
<p>A friend who interviews for Harvard has told me about this. Based on her experience your admission chances are higher than that of the typical applicant.</p>
<p>How does the interviewer find out about though, explicitly?
And do they really start evaluating everyone so early (as in starting deciding who has a relatively higher chance and who has a lower chance)?</p>
<p>hcar: Harvard does initial read thrus immediatly. Thus, they can target Likely Letter recipients. THen with the rest of high likelihood admits, they can informally ask the area alumni groups to “Yeah we know we sent you a list of fifty, but can you really make sure you cover these five?”</p>
<p>(caveat: I’m not stating that those w/o an interview have already been rejected. Fact is there is almost always too many applicants and even these *special focus<a href=“i.e.%20very%20interesting%20to%20Harvard”>/I</a> kids may never be interviewed)</p>
<p>It’s important not to read more into this than what you know- ie, for some reason, they wanted to ensure the alum actively sought this interview. After first cut, they likely have well more than 10k kids to go back over, several times. The interview notes often provide a needed first-hand take. If this happened to my kid, with what I know about admissions, I’d say: be proud they took this interest, but understand it’s just one part of a lengthy and layered process. Best wishes.</p>
<p>Xed. I can’t believe that this can’t be anything but really good for you. Don’t listen some some of these others. It can’t be “just part of the lengthy and layered process”. You may not get in, I mean don’t count your chickens, but this is still a sure sign that Harvard thinks your special! So, you must be special. Well done!</p>
<p>congrats xed</p>
<p>Very interesting thread. I thought every applicant got an interview. So, does getting an interview, usually mean an applicant made it thru the first cut? In other words, is among the 85% or so of applicants who will be considered in the admissions process? </p>
<p>thanks.</p>
<p>perazziman: for my school (another Ivy), situations like this indicate the following: My school (and Harvard) do attempt to interview everyone. So
is almost always, NO. The vast # of initially assigned interviews are done on a very tight time constraint and no pre-screening is done.</p>
<p>However, the reality is that applications outnumber volunteer slots. A huge wave of kids get assigned initially (without any sort of pre-screening). But it leaves a handful of un-assigned kids. Cambridge will contact the local alumni groups and “suggest” a set of names off that list of un-assigned kids. It’s understood that these kids indeed have made a “first cut” b/c Cambridge is still interested. I imagine this is what’s occurred in xed’s case.</p>
<p>But you see, most interviews get assigned in a huge flourish w/o any knowledge of the applicant’s eventual viability. These “late” interviews are the curious cases.</p>
<p>But it’s also possible that some kids who are initally un-assigned are so strong that admissions doesn’t need a “high priority” interview and the decision to admit has already been made.</p>
<p>Thanks T26E4 that makes a lot of sense. Is it fair to assume that the biggest wave of applicants hits around the RD deadline, so interviews set a week or two after that date are generally considered late interviews?</p>
<p>Other than xed’s actual confirmation of “high priority” status, i wouldn’t read into requests for interviews later in the season to automatically be these “high priority” interviews. After all, they may just be due to the busy lifestyle of the interviewer not getting around to contacting the student until late.</p>
<p>Thanks for clarifying T26E4.</p>