<p>I posted this on the Campus Interview sticky on the College Admissions forum, but got no responses, so hope you don't mind a re-post.</p>
<p>Just wondering...S had a few on-campus interviews recently. At one Ivy League school - his first choice, BTW - he reported that the interview didn't go well. He felt that he did well on his other interviews, but he said this interviewer basically had a "checklist" and just read through the questions. He (interviewer) was very flat and basically showed no interest in the interview at all. It was nothing like the other schools (another Ivy and 2 other highly ranked ones) and he's now concerned about how this will affect his chances.
Has anyone else had an experience like this? Could the campus interview (in a school with a very low admit rate) be "make or break"?</p>
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<li><p>Most of the schools with very low admit rates claim that they don’t take interviews into account, mainly because they don’t have the capacity to give consistent interviews to the tens of thousands of students who apply. No one really believes that, but I do believe that in the best (or worst) of circumstances it can’t count for very much. </p></li>
<li><p>My family’s experience is certainly that a fabulous interview isn’t “make” and an uncomfortable one isn’t “break”. My daughter was (and is) a very good interviewee, poised and articulate, mature, sensitive to the other person. Her experience was (and is) that when interviews count, she does very well. In her college process, she had two superfantabulous interviews, one with the head of her ED college’s local alumni club, and the other with a student aide at another college’s admissions office. </p></li>
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<p>The first was so good that the interviewer – whom I had never met, but whom I knew slightly by reputation and vice versa – called me up afterwards to tell me that she was the best candidate he had interviewed in the past 15 years, and that he had already faxed his report to that effect to the admissions office. She was deferred and then ultimately rejected. (This was one of those low-admit-rate colleges, where she and most of the other applicants were in range, but so what?) At the second, an interview was required and therefore taken into account in the admissions process. The interview went double the scheduled length. She and the interviewer were dressed like hipster twins. They emerged from the interview practically doubled over with giggles over a shared joke. Total connection. She was rejected in March. From an objective standpoint, this was a safe-match college, although it was in the process of becoming much more popular and selective. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, she had an awkward, slightly uncomfortable interview with an un-simpatico admissions aide at a third college, which accepted her early action and which she ultimately attended. (This was the college where her most knowledgeable advisors thought she would end up, and they were right. It was in between the other two colleges in selectivity.)</p>
<ol>
<li> You never want to have a bad interview. It can’t help, and it could hurt at the margin. But at all of these hyper-selective colleges, great interviews are probably a dime a dozen, given the number of leaders applying. And, at the same time, a common character at those colleges is the brilliant academic who can’t have an effective conversation with a stranger about where the nearest bus stop is. So, apart from the issues with fairness and inter-rater reliability, it stands to reason that the interview really can’t be make-or-break (with the exception, on the break side, of an applicant who shows himself to be truly obnoxious).</li>
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<p>It is impossible to say. I’ve known situations where kids were accepted after a bad interview and even more where they were not accepted after a terrific interview. From the sound of the way the interviewer conducted his session, it’s not going to be a deal breaker for your son. There was no big mistake or problem. It certainly isn’t going to tip the odds in his favor either.</p>
<p>Thanks…this is just one of those situations that is out of his hands. You can only do the best you can in the situation and can’t control what kind of interviewer you get. And I do think that most are pretty good. Just chalk it up to another life lesson! :-)</p>
<p>I’m a Harvard alum who also has headed my regional committee of alum interviewers. When it comes to Harvard, a bad alum interview will hurt. I’ve had admissions officers call to follow up after I gave low ratings to some stellar applicants. The low ratings were due to things such as my catching one student in lies. In another situation, the student consistently gave terse answers that sounded overly practiced, displayed the personality of a stone, and then before I had ended the interview (and while I still had more questions to ask), the student stood up, thanked me and left. </p>
<p>Some interviewers approach the interview that way. I did a bunch of alumni interviews for colleges this past year (including several ivies) and my Penn interviewer did the whole checklist of questions thing. I was worried but I ended up getting in (my GPA wasnt too hot so I can’t imagine the interview was bad)…and got rejected from several schools where I thought I had a great interview.</p>
<p>“He (interviewer) was very flat and basically showed no interest in the interview at all.”</p>
<p>Some people deliberately do that so as not to give cues about what kinds of things are impressive, and what aren’t. </p>
<p>I tend to be the most animated with students whom I find least impressive – the ones who are passive and who seem to need lots of reassurance and support in order to talk,</p>
<p>At Harvard, it’s the alumni interview that counts, not the on-campus. I’m sure that if you were rude to someone in the admissions office, they’d hold that against you, but the report that goes into the file is the alumni interview.</p>
<p>Interesting points and perspectives from all…thanks for the replies.</p>
<p>No matter what, at this point it’s water under the bridge. And I know that it’s just one piece of the puzzle, so he’ll just have to continue to do his best this last year of HS and let the chips fall where they may.
Thanks again to all.</p>
<p>My own experience from my own university has had a change over the years in the importance of the alumni interview. It is a top college but not HYP. Anyway, 20 years ago there was a long form and it had alot of info on the student (if they had the info) and lots of room for comments. I thought that my positive input (on things not otherwise in the applications) may have helped a couple of students who might have been borderline in terms of scores etc., but I have no way of knowing. I was an area head in those days. Now I am involved in a different geographic area (having moved away) and the procedure has changed. All you get to say is 255 words max of your choice. The only info you get is where the student goes to school, and the address for contact. It is told to the alumni that their role is to be a positive spokesperson for the University, and it is implied that very little consideration is given to the content of the feedback, except for one thing. If the student does not make an effort to get together after contacted, they do want to know this. It is my opinion that this is not good for the student, but I don’t really know.</p>
<p>FWIW, my kid had an on-campus interview at Yale that seemed to go well, then was encouraged to also do an alumini interview, did so, and it went, well, strangely. My kid was getting over a very bad cold; the interview was in the interviewer’s home, which seemed an unusual setting; he gave poor directions that made us lost and late; he had a pet that my kid is allergic to but my kid didn’t want to say anything, so spent the whole time trying not to sneeze or scratch!!! Interviewer was awkward and didn’t make eye contact. After being pursued by Yale, the kid was deferred and rejected. I wonder if the alumni interviewer made a bad report–I thought of letting Yale know, but that seemed helicopter-ish. OTOH, my kid declined to do an alumni interview with Harvard and still was waitlisted, which suggests these interviews aren’t crucial for them. All of the others went well and all of those led to acceptances.</p>
<p>“OTOH, my kid declined to do an alumni interview with Harvard and still was waitlisted, which suggests these interviews aren’t crucial for them.”</p>
<p>I suspect that declining the interview raised a red flag and may have led to your S’s being waitlisted instead of being accepted. Harvard really does care about its alum interviews. From what I’ve seen, I also think that if Harvard is very interested in a student and gets an inconclusive or bad alum report --particularly one that gives weak reasons for low ratings – Harvard will call the alum and ask further question, and if there’s a chance that the alum wasn’t a good interviewer, Harvard will arrange another interview for the student.</p>
<p>From what I’ve seen, Harvard sometimes appears to use waitlists as a signal to the high school that the student was a strong candidate so the high school encourages other strong students to apply. For instance, the exceptionally strong applicant whom I interviewed who displayed the personality of wallpaper ended up being waitlisted and never accepted.</p>
<p>I assumed Harvard, with its great excess of well-qualified applicants, would have flat-out rejected a kid who didn’t bother with an interview. But that makes sense about WL a strong candidate to signal to the high school. What I don’t understand is how the high school would know whether a kid had been waitlisted (or accepted or rejected) anywhere. In our district it is entirely up to the kid to report results back to the high school–some do and some don’t; and I wonder if some kids embellish their acceptances (they don’t have to show letters to GC)–colleges don’t inform high schools, right?</p>
<p>I had a very similar experience with my Dartmouth interview, although it was an alumni one. I was applying early decision and was really hoping to have a good interview. My interviewer basically read through a checklist which was about the same as the application, and said it was so she could draw attention to what I wanted to highlight about myself. I thought it went really mediocre since I had heard so many stories about people having great conversations with their interviewers and all I did was restate my application. I ended up getting in early decision, and at an alumni event, my interviewer gushed about me to my parents. The moral of the story is that you don’t know the other person well enough to read them perfectly, and what you could have thought was bad could have turned out good.</p>