My son applied to Yale SCEA. He signed up online for an on-campus interview, which, I understand, is conducted by a senior student.
This morning he received an email from a local alumnus offering him a local interview.
Is there any advantage to choosing one or the other of these options? Should he cancel the on-campus interview and schedule the local interview, or stick with the campus interview? We live about two hours from Yale, so not terribly inconvenient to go there. FWIW, the local alumnus is the dad of a student in my older child’s HS cohort.
Does the dad know your son? I’m an alum interviewer (different college) and they specifically tell me not to interview anyone I know. I would expect Yale to have similar “rules”. But to clarify, the dad is not the parent of someone in the this year’s applicants class, correct? That’s usually a no-no as well (you’re generally supposed to sit out that year).
If the dad doesn’t know your son, I’d take the local interview, just on the basis of convenience, unless you really feel like making a(nother) visit. General consensus is that the interviews are for information, but don’t really impact admissions in any case.
I was too late to post this, but alumni interviews MATTER (not sure how much senior student interviews matter though by comparison). If you don’t, check out these Yale sample alumni interview reports given to alumni: https://asc.yale.edu/samplereports
@donnaleighg No, the dad does not know my son, nor does the dad have a student in my child’s (the applicant’s) HS class.
@gibby My son says applicants are not permitted to do both on-campus and alumni interviews. Have to pick one. You still recommend the alumni interview over the campus interview?
I don’t think picking one over the other has an admissions advantage. Since the on-campus interview will be most likely with a senior, your son can pick up more intel as to what is going on at Yale now. An alumni interviewer will be in a better position to tell your son how Yale has influenced him/her over a longer period of time. If it were me, I’d go with the alumni interview just for the convenience.
As a Yale alumni interviewer, I would recommend taking the interview from the alumni interviewer. Based upon your description, it does not appear that the interviewer knows your child personally so that tenuous connection should not make a difference. We are not supposed to interview students we know directly or students applying in the same class as our own child. My D actually had both and I definitely would go with the alumni, especially because of the distance.