Admission Interview

Colleges & Universities A-Z Harvard University
1

<p>Hi Everyone. Let me start by saying I am not a student, nor do I have a child applying to college. I am a Young Adult writer and am doing preliminary research for a novel I will soon begin writing. </p>

<p>My question is in regards to the admissions interview. From the research I've already done, it appears that interviews are conducted by Harvard alums. Is it ever the case that an Admissions Officer will interview an applicant in his/her office on campus. I'm thinking this is a purely Hollywood representation of the interview process, but does it really happen? Is it plausible?</p>

2

<p>With 35,000 applicants, admissions directors do not have the time to personally interview candidates, so it would be a rare occurrence if it were to happen. See:
[Harvard</a> College Admissions § Applying: Interviews](<a href=“http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/apply/application_process/interviews.html]Harvard”>http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/apply/application_process/interviews.html)</p>

<p>Interviews
Applicants Applying within the United States
When and where possible, applicants may be invited to meet with alumni/ae in or near their school communities. No candidate is at a disadvantage if an interview cannot be arranged.</p>

3

<p>Thanks, Gibby. Harvard’s website was the first place I researched. But my question is, does it ever happen? Perhaps with an applicant Admissions is on the fence about. Or for some other reason.</p>

4

<p>By all accounts, the interview is the LEAST important part of the college application process. I think you are reaching for straws to justify a scene in your novel. If a personal interview ever did occur between an applicant and a Harvard Admissions Director, the student hasn’t been bragging about it on College Confidential. As the admissions season is not yet in full swing, your best bet might be to call and speak with an admissions director.</p>

5

<p>Many colleges do have on-campus interviews by actual admissions people (or, more frequently, student aides working with the admissions office). Harvard really doesn’t. That has been true for a long time. I applied to college almost 40 years ago, and had on-campus interviews at Yale and Princeton, but not Harvard.</p>

<p>I know of a few exceptions:</p>

<ol>
<li> Sometimes, late in the process (i.e., late February, early March), the Admissions Office will ask a kid to come to a second interview, or sometimes set up an interview for someone who never got interviewed. Usually, these are still alumni interviews near where the applicant lives, although always with someone different than the first interviewer. Sometimes, however, for students in the Boston area, they will ask the kid to come down to Harvard and meet with someone, who will be actual admissions staff. And sometimes admissions staff will conduct the fresh interview by telephone.</li>
</ol>

<p>It’s usually pretty clear when this happens that Admissions is on the fence about the applicant, who is nonetheless getting serious consideration. (Obviously – it’s a big time imposition on lots of people when this happens, as the re-interview has to take place within a couple days at most.) The second interview tends to be relatively brief and focused on some aspect of the kid’s experience or activities that Admissions wants more information about. Sometimes it seems like what may be going on is that the first interviewer was either extremely positive or extremely negative, and maybe a second, more experienced person can give a more reliable sense of the student’s personality. Judging from what I have “seen” on College Confidential, well over half of kids given a second interview like this are offered admission.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>A few years ago, a kid I knew somewhat turned Harvard down on May 1, then changed his mind a week later and asked to be allowed to take back his rejection. He was told to come to Cambridge for an interview with a couple of admissions staff (who, at the end of the 45-minute interview, allowed him to accept admission).</p></li>
<li><p>I don’t know if this is true at Harvard, but it happens elsewhere, and it would be plausible to happen at Harvard. A powerful donor/alum – a “development” case, someone with both public renown and the ability to give tens of millions of dollars over a period of years – wants his or her child to go to Harvard. The Dean of Admissions meets with the kid, both as a sign of courtesy to the parent, and because admitting a student on development grounds will ultimately be the dean’s call, not anyone else’s. This would tend to happen way in advance of the application season – like, now, for someone who would be applying next fall, or even the year after that.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Sometimes the outcome of an interview like that is the dean explaining personally to the parent why it would be a bad idea for the child to come to Harvard. An attempt to salvage some part of a relationship that will be pretty badly stressed by Harvard’s likely refusal to admit the kid.</p>

<p>As I said, I don’t know if that ever happens at Harvard, but I have heard pretty reliable reports of it happening at Harvard peers.</p>

6

<p>During the athletic recruiting season, when student-athletes are on their (invited) official or unofficial visits to Harvard (Sept. and Oct.), some are given the opportunity of interviews with ad coms in the Admissions Dept. </p>

<p>Of course, they have been pre-screened by the athletics dept in terms of their test scores, transcripts and athletic achievements.</p>

7

<p>D is recruited athlete and had ad com interview as noted in the above post as did most of the other athletes we know. One of her HS classmates is well connected and interviewed with Fitzsimmons.</p>

8

<p>Are you saying that Fresh Prince Will Smith’s on-the-spot acceptance by a Princeton interviewer was just Hollywood? Aww maaaan!</p>

<p>Youtube search for it for giggles.</p>

9

<p>I wouldn’t be surprised if someone had felt they ought to interview Natalie Portman personally. Or Emma Watson. Or Rivers Cuomo, for that matter. Not just because people in the admissions office would enjoy meeting them on a somewhat equal footing, but because in dealing with a significant celebrity, it would really make a difference how serious the person was about going through with the whole college thing, and how realistic in his or her expectations. And it would generally be pretty hard to rely on a random alumni interviewer for that judgment.</p>

10

<p>Thank you, everyone, this is very helpful. My main character doesn’t need to go to Harvard, it can be any ivy league. I chose Harvard for the setting, but it can easily be Yale or Columbia or another that has an admin officer/dean interview process. The point is that she’s dreamed of going to xyz college for her entire life (she’s not an athlete). And she’s done everything possible to ensure her acceptance: first in her class, super high SAT scores, extra-curriculars, and so on. </p>

<p>Her interviewer informs her that she is there because her application is two-dimensional. Meaning, her resume doesn’t show any personality. Her extra-curriculars have clearly been chosen for there merit and not because of her interests in them. Over the course of the interview she fails to shed light on her true character and ultimately is denied admission. Or at least this is what I was planing to write. This is the catalyst for the story, so I am looking for believability. </p>

<p>Having never had a similar experience myself, I may post another related question :slight_smile: Thank you again!</p>

11

<p>Anyone who has recently been through the college application process would view the above scenario as unrealistic. Thousands of students apply to all the ivies and are two dimensional; they are simply rejected – end of story. There are hundreds of other students who leap off the page. There has to be another reason for her to be granted an interview with an admissions director.</p>

12

<p>With a little allowance for dramatic license, I think the above scenario is perfectly realistic, and in fact describes what lots of interviews are like. (Of course, no one is rejected at the interview.) The scenario doesn’t even have to be a college admissions director – that scene could perfectly plausibly occur between a student and an experienced alumni interviewer. The basic elements are that the student’s “perfect” resume is two-dimensional, the interviewer is looking for a real person with real passions behind the numbers and bullet-points, and the student struggles with expressing who she really is (as opposed to who she thinks the college wants). And that ultimately the student feels defeated by that, is denied admission to her dream school, and (I hope) learns a Valuable Lesson from the experience.</p>

<p>What’s not believable about that? I venture to guess that tens of thousands of students have an experience very similar to that during their college application process.</p>

13

<p>Nothing is implausible about that scenario if, as you said, it takes place with an alumni interviewer and a student. Were it to happen with an admissions director on a college campus – that is where I stop suspending my disbelief.</p>

14

<p>Know personally a kid who had an interview set up at Yale with a Yale senior (that’s how they do their on-campus interviews) and the senior didn’t show up. 15 minutes after the scheduled interview he was still waiting in the admissions office. An admissions officer noticed and asked if he needed any help. He told his story and she called him into her office to do the interview. She happened to be his regional rep!
Several top colleges will have admissions officers interview legacy applicants, partly so that they can prepare the alumni for rejection if their kids are not good candidates…</p>

15

<p>Wake Forest requires interviews and they are with admissions officers. Washington and Lee requires interviews…they can be with admissions or with regional alumni rep…these were the ones we applied to that were required for regular admissions and not part of some scholarship process.</p>

16

<p>Thanks, JHS, that is exactly what I was looking for! Thank you, to everyone else who shared their thoughts.</p>