Alumni Interviewers

<p>How much do alumni interviewers know about you? Do they have access to your entire application? Do they have access to your application at all?</p>

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<p>If you search this forum for the word “interview” 14 pages of responses pop-up. If you go through them all, you will read:</p>

<p>1) Interviewers are only given your name, high school and contact information.
2) They do not have access to anything else in your application – not your tests scores, transcript, essays, teacher recs or EC’s.</p>

<p>Absolutely true. Nevertheless, if you spend your interview time just rehashing with the interviewer, you’ll be squandering an opportunity to do better. The admissions office hopes (and good interviewers hope) that the interview may highlight positive information about you that the committee wouldn’t have known otherwise.</p>

<p>Some interviewers do ask students to bring a brief resume that describes their high school education, extracurricular accomplishments, work experience (if any), etc. But to the extent that you can direct the conversation when you interview, use that as a jumping-off point for the discussion, and not as a target.</p>

<p>Some of them do ask for your test scores during the course of the interview, however. Be advised.</p>

<p>I’m pretty sure Harvard gives out a standard sheet to all of those being interviewed that asks for you’re standardized test scores, GPA, rank, activities, etc. It helps them fill out a performance sheet that they eventually turn in to the admissions committee.</p>

<p>They didn’t do that a few years ago, when I was interviewing. If Harvard does it, it’s new. </p>

<p>Another possibility is that some local Harvard Clubs may distribute such a form to interviewers in their area. I live on the border between two different Harvard Clubs, and while I was interviewing, I learned that the chapter I live near had a lot more on the ball than the chapter that I actually interviewed for.</p>

<p>The report form that interviewers currently fill out for Harvard has places for recording all sorts of scores and grades, but completing that section is entirely optional.</p>