I am an international student in a limited interview alumni country… did not get an interview. since there is speculation Harvard prescreens international interviews, does that mean I am 100% rejected? Like obviously I don’t have hopes for Harvard, but I want to kill any tiny hope I left before the end of March.
I would not consider myself rejected anywhere until I received confirmation from a school that I was rejected.
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According to Harvard, interviews happen before applications are read. So it is unlikely that they are screening applicants before they decide on interviews.
Moreover, the interviewers are not employees of Harvard’s Admissions Office. They are Harvard alumni who volunteer to do this. So a large part of the reason for the interview is to keep the interviewer connected to Harvard, and Harvard is not paying for their time. That means that there is no need to restrict the number of applicants who will be interviewed, so long as there is an interviewer at that location, and the interviewer has time. What usually determines whether a person is interviewed is whether there is an interviewer available at the right time and place for that applicant.
Here is an overview of the process:
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The most likely explanation is that there does not happen to be an Harvard alumni in your area who is willing to do interviews right now.
I think that this tells you almost nothing at all about your chances for admissions. Of course Harvard is a high reach for nearly every international applicant.
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I think it is always very important to know how few students get into Harvard each year from a country. This data source is helpful Statistics | Harvard International Office
To use it correctly, select students in the first drop down, the country of interest in the second, and Harvard College (important) in the 3rd. If you do this for India, you see that 24 students are currently enrolled at Harvard. This implies that about 5 per year get accepted from the entire country.
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