<p>“Random” was my EC’s word, not mine. But those algorithms could be handy…</p>
<p>A friend of mine’s EC told him the interview’s not all that important once you take it - that you read all parts of the application first then the interview report and sometimes don’t even read it. Now, my own EC said that they grade him on a scale of 1 to 5, meaning that you read all interview reports and that it’s pretty important to you - important enough to want complete accuracy. I’ll just assume my friend’s EC was just ‘talking’, shall I?
(PS - he asked my friend random philosophical questions like what would you ask Jesus if you met him. I fail to see how that has relevance to MIT. But perhaps it’s just one of his ways to read a personality, meh.)</p>
<p>^Well, everything we’ve been told seems to indicate that interviews are absurdly important for MIT admissions.</p>
<p>For one, schools like Cornell only offer them for several colleges/majors within the university, such as Architecture and Hotel Management. Others like Princeton and Tufts offer them to everyone and do their best to set you up with an EC, but again, both have said that they won’t penalize you for not doing so, and that it won’t hurt your chances.</p>
<p>MIT seems to do everything in their power to find one near you (even for international students), and their acceptance rates for people who don’t interview and people who do (or have theirs waived) are approximately 2% and 11% (rounded to the nearest whole numbers from my memory).</p>
<p>Perhaps MIT doesn’t spend a lot of time reading into the interviewers’ evaluations. After all, the essays are what need the most analysis time, because they have to glean from them the subtleties of our personalities; EC evaluations, on the other hand, are probably pretty straightforward assessments of us. But whether or not they spend a lot of time reading the reports, I’d say they care a lot about how you interact in person, and would like to be sure that you didn’t spend weeks overediting your essays just to mask that you’re actually rude/antisocial/dull/etc. in person.</p>
<p>Moral of the story, kids, go get an interview, yo.</p>
<p>I do occasionally get asked after an interview some variant of “How did I do?” to which the answer is almost always “Fine” and occasionally “Will I get in?” and I would certainly disagree with those who define it as the “worst question ever”. However, I certainly do not ever know, nor should I.</p>
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Remember that these numbers don’t, by themselves, indicate that having an interview is important – just that being the type of person who wants to have an MIT interview is important.</p>
<p>I would be really surprised if the difference in rates was quite that stark (I recall it being more like a three-foldish difference), but I can’t find any recent statistics.</p>
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<p>It could also mean that people who have their interviews waived are less competitive otherwise in a different way. For example, internationals are more likely to get their interviews waived than domestic applicants. And we know that international admissions is harder. Domestic candidates who live in the middle of nowhere and thus need to have a waiver may have less qualifications than the average domestic candidate. Both of these effects could push down the admissions percentage.</p>
<p>People aren’t penalized because of geography, but if an interview is available, you had better take it. Otherwise, it looks like you don’t care.</p>
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<p>Actually, the statistics (2.8% and 12.5%) were written in the interview guide, and as I recall I didn’t make them up. They’re directly from the MIT website (somewhere) - either they were posted directly or I calculated them myself using information there, can’t remember exactly which - but rest assured they’re accurate. Not quite sure which year they’re for though.</p>
<p>^Ohhhhh I think it was also in a brochure that I got at an MIT admissions presentation that came to town. I still am pretty sure I saw it online too though.</p>
<p>But yea mollie, that’s true. I mean self selection probably plays into it, but the numbers seem drastic enough that the interview probably does still play a pretty strong role. I doubt they turn people down left and right just because they didn’t interview, but it’s probably still really helpful. I mean its kinda like being able to write a 6th essay, that is reeeaally reeeally general and allows you to get out a lot of information about your personality and goals and such. Seems logical that that would help anybody who is a good fit to convey that they would be right for the school. (I guess the converse seems logical as well.). I dunno, just muh thoughts, yo.</p>
<p>I think your reasoning is exactly right. </p>
<p>I just want to be extra-careful to point out that not having an interview isn’t by itself harmful – I don’t want people to read the statistics as “if you don’t have an interview, the admissions officers will be angry! and throw away your application! and stomp on it!” Not having an interview means you are missing an opportunity to strengthen your application. </p>
<p>But sometimes people just can’t have an interview, and I don’t want those people to assume their applications are a lost cause.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I don’t really buy the idea that the interview is mega-ultra-super-important, except in the sense that everything is important for such a competitive admissions process. I don’t think the interview is important out of proportion to other aspects of the application.</p>