Is this true? Interviewer can influence the admission?
I feel compelled to write on this topic. As a Cornell/Hopkins/Harvard alumnus, I have interviewed for Cornell for 26 years. I am also the alumni coordinator for my county, an affluent community in the Baltimore-Washington corridor. Both of my children are Ivy League alumni. I receive about 150 applications for students who are eligible for interviews annually in my county. Of those 150 candidates this year, about 20 will receive invitations to attend…
Every official contact with an elite school matters. Every official visit, every summer school course on the campus, every contact with a professor at the university matters. One dirty little secret of the Ivy League, and the other elite schools, is that they cannot possibly interview every person who is interested in attending. So, they make the interviews “informational”. Moreover, there is a tremendous variance in the quality of the alumni doing the interview. So, it is publicly treated as “off the record”. Privately, however, these encounters are different matter.
All of the elite schools are looking for optimum “yield”. They want to know that, if they accept a candidate, that candidate will attend their school, and not some other elite school. (Most candidates that get accepted at one elite school will probably be accepted at two or more). So, if you show a passion for one school, by visiting, by talking to alumni, and by attending alumni events and college fairs sponsored by your favorite school, understand that these impressions are being monitored, and that they enhance your chances of acceptance.
So, do informational interviews matter? Hell, yes! Don’t be an idiot. Your eagerness, your level of interest in the school, your passion for a particular field of study, make all the difference in your acceptance. Conversely, your lack of interest and knowledge is also noted.
In the past 10 years, not one student who met with my disfavor was accepted. This I attribute to the development of my knowledge in the university’s criteria, and in the school’s increasing trust in my judgment. They now know and trust my experience and expertise.
Most students will never get a chance to interview. This has more to do with the availability of local alumni than it does with your candidacy If you have an opportunity to make an impression on a school to which you would like to be accepted, don’t be an idiot. Don’t blow off the opportunity if you are one of those who gets the rare privilege to interview. Take it seriously.