College interviews have an impact?

Applying to College
1

Does college interviews from an alumni have a significant impact on your overall college app?

2

No, def not.

3

Not even the slightest?

4

I didn’t say that.

5

OP, you asked if it was a significant effect. @BrownParent is saying that it’s not very significant.

6

An interview won’t be the deciding factor. However, at some schools, especially small liberal-art ones, interviews are more important. Check with each school.

7

It depends – the above note about LACs is noteworthy. But for Ivies and such, I replied to a similar question earlier:

[quote]
In post #122 SirPepsi asked the purpose of interviews since not all applicants can have them and they’re not penalized if that’s the case. True. And in the vast majority of cases, even the interviews that DO happen, don’t matter (since they are randomly assigned, the shoo-in is as likely or unlikely to be interviewed as the zero-chancer).

Most that do occur – won’t have any affect. Why? Most kids are clear rejects, a handful are clear accepts, and some are in the grey area (being considered). For the first two groups, the interviews are irrelevant (unless some huge red flag causes a “clear accept” to be questioned). The clear reject kid, no matter how he/she shines in the interview – is already DOA – no shining write up will resurrect the dead.

Thus, only the kids in the grey area — might a glowing or muted interview write up matter.

I’ve seen this assist two kids from a rough, inner-city high school in my area who had promising apps, who had caught the attn of the admissions committee — but they weren’t ready to vote yes/no due to the fact that the teacher recs weren’t stellar. They were positive but formulaic and spoke in banalities. As is often the case, some teachers simply don’t write LORs that top schools really can use. The committee waited for the alumni interview write ups. Both came back extremely positive – and it was enough to push the committee to offer admits to both kids. The write ups were the final justification needed to offer admits to these young men.

But this is very rare, as you can imagine.