Brown Class of 2022 Applicants Discussion

@TheOldTimer are you telling me the lack of an interview for my Dd means a rejection.

I am not an AO and I have no idea. Last year at Yale about 6000 made it to the final round (they had about 18000 completed interviews last year). (Brown and Yale are very similar in terms of the number of candidates.) I would imagine Brown has enough interviewer to cover the last batch of candidates. Of course, there are exceptions to everything. If you check Harvard thread, some admitted candidates were interviewed twice.

Don’t think anyone should be obsessed about the alumni interview, its weight is no more than another recommendation letter.

@netopspin altho i agree interview don’t matter much, that statement puzzles me. I feel like LORs are very important

Likely letters have come from brown ? I am reading Yale and Harvard but haven’t heard anyone from Brown !

@burghdad

I absolutely agree with TheOldTimer self recognition that “He is NOT an AO”.

His speculation about the holistic review process is just that, SPECULATION,

LORs are extremely important!! Obviously!! @caleegalee

Regarding interviews, I still guard my position as they matter
 seeing that they submit a document containing notes about what you say about yourself.

Read this:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/810532-brown-interview-faq-and-answers.html

P.S: The part where I kinda back my argument is:
“Are interviews a waste of time? Meaningless?
Many people feel the interview means nothing. I disagree.”

There is a prior thread on this with a quote from Brown’s admission page that the lack of an interview is not a factor in admission.

I would tend to agree just based on common sense that if an applicant is offered and interview and doesn’t have the interview with no good reason (like a schedule conflict), that indicates a lack of interest, which could be a small minus.

I have also heard from various admissions people in a number of schools (other than Brown) that the interview process is mostly to engage alumni and make them feel still involved with the school (which hopefully translates into donations) and to help the applicant by having an alum answer any questions they have.

It has almost zero effect on the admissions decision. The most likely rare exception could be if the applicant came off as extremely rude or disturbed in the interview. A number of friends I know do interviews for Ivy schools (again not Brown) and say that their interview reports seem to have no correlation to the admission of any applicants. They can write that the student is the greatest person they have ever met and the student doesn’t get in. Indeed, most interviewed students do not get in.

MODERATOR’S NOTE:

I can’t stress this enough. The above statement could be made in almost every college subforum and in all What Are My Chances threads.

@caleegalee : Letter of recommendations are extremely important. I am going to quote @BKSquared again. Pay special attention to the last two sentences.

"In several conversations I have had with our regional admissions officer (Yale) and senior AO’s, including Quinlan, on what makes someone stand out among all the perfect to near perfect stat’s candidates, they kept on emphasizing the LoR’s. This makes sense because it is a piece that is coming from a third party and is not subject to (or as subject to) coaching, manipulation or other forms of gaming that EC’s or personal essays may be subject to. We are also not talking about LoR’s that are a formulaic collection of superlatives. The types of distinguishing LOR’s that the AO’s cited were ones that were factually/anecdotally tied to desirable qualities and were consistent with the other parts of the candidate’s application. "

I found this post regarding interview from @BKSquared very helpful too. Take a look.

http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20949716/#Comment_20949716

For an unhooked candidate, if you can get into a top 20 school at RD without an interview, your file must be very strong. You must know that yourself. Among the admissions we received, we only got into two of them without an interview. None of them were Ivies. It is best to have an interview.

the sad thing about letter of recommendations is that they are sometimes more a reflection of the ability of the writer than the subject matter- this is where private schools have the advantage

@quinntheeskimo I don’t think teachers at public schools are any less-qualified to write a recommendation than a teacher at a private school. I am at a 2000 person public school where my teachers went to amazing colleges, are so intelligent, and highly qualified. Where we are at a disadvantage at a public school is in counseling. Yesterday, my counselor said to me “I didn’t know you were so involved in school. Do you plan to be this involved in college?” Really!?!? What did she write about in my counselor recommendation or in my midyear reports. How did she not know what activities I was involved in?

I think the public school comment might be aimed at the fact that public school teachers normally teach more students and are therefore more time constrained. Also, a lot of private schools are smaller than many public schools so teachers often know the kids outside the one class they taught them in.

@quinntheeskimo
I feel you. My high school has over 2000 as well (with 469 seniors).

Here is my SPECULATION but with logical analysis :))

As I read the languages from PLME and general UG interview instructions, I see the differences is obvious:

PLME interview: (https://www.brown.edu/academics/medical/plme/information-prospective-students/admission#interviews)

General UG interview: (https://www.brown.edu/admission/undergraduate/apply/first-year-applicants):

My interpretation is that: For general UG you don’t need to worry about interviews. However, for PLME the bold faced “but recommended” basically says yes we (Brown & Applicants) better to do it. Brown must protect her alum from failing to make/keep the appointments so they can not explicitly say interview is required for plme applicants, but they are indeed trying their best to arrange the recommended interviews for potential PLME candidates, even skype interview as in @caleegalee 's DD’s case – if interview is not important for plme, I think people from Providence have more important things to do at this point of the time.

Sure there was case(s) a plme student was admitted w/o interview, but. honestly, isn’t QuestBridge the de facto interviewer for Brown?

So if you are applying for PLME but has not had an interview, you better proactively give Providence a call.

@apdns19 oh, no
the kind of consersation that should’ve taken place before she wrote LOR. my D’s graduating class is more than 400 too, but they have like 10 counselors. and they regularly have to recommend their students for honors/awards, so they must know their students very well


@caleegalee We have 8 for 2000 students. They are handling scheduling, emotional issues, college, etc. There is no way they can do it all. I love my school but when I read posts about College Counselors calling colleges and sending in great recs, it totally bums me out. I think that extra push and support is a great perk when competing with so many qualified candidates.

@apdns19 I hear yah. Relationship management totally helps