<p>I think it came across in my interview that my high school has a weak math program, and my interviewer was kind of flabbergasted. I think he knew it wasn’t my fault, but could this still affect me negatively? Does it even matter?</p>
<p>The interview can’t hurt you unless you give off the impression that you are a criminal or a psychotic break waiting to happen.</p>
<p>It can hurt you if what you say doesn’t match your application or it seems as if you don’t know what you’re talking about or why you want to go to Brown.</p>
<p>I think the interview can usually only add to the impression that the ad com is already making about you. (either negative or positive) and then not usually enough to sway things much. I have been told that my interview report has pushed someone who otherwise would have been turned down up into the wait-list pool in the past, and there is one memorable applicant in the past who from everything I knew would be unlikely to get in, but I wrote a long and detailed report about the kid (his family had been in the local gossip circles) explaining things that I was pretty sure were not in his HS reports (unless a teacher rec may have addressed them) and which we talked about in the interview. I was very pleasantly surprised when he did get admitted. Did the interview report make or break his admission. While I would like to think so, no one except the ad com ever knew.
Some things that might hurt you “significantly”:
1.coming to the interview really not knowing anything about Brown. Particularly if the interviewer gets a strong sense that the student is only applying to Brown “because it’s on the list”.
2. Being extremely rude, disrespectful, or anything in that “criminal” /psychotic category above . Even then they still might throw out the interviewers comments if they didn’t know the interviewer from reputation of prior reports. Some interviewers like me have gotten to know the regional ad com for our area and they have read dozens of our reports. They get to know who gives “all superlatives” and who are the “tough graders”.</p>
<p>Does every applicant gets an interview? Cause my daughter hasn’t been contacted for one.</p>
<p>Not every applicant receives an interview offer and it doesn’t hurt you if you don’t interview.</p>
<p>Best of luck to your daughter! Brown Class of '17 for the win!</p>
<p>She might still be contacted. For example my area had assigned everyone so I was just tapped to Skype interview someone from an area with fewer interviewers.</p>