My son applied for early decision and suppose to hear the acceptance by Dec 15th. he didn’t get any call for interview. Is interview is first step to get in?
@Pam1972 You may get a response if you post your question to the Columbia university forum in this thread.
This forum is for BS/MD program.
Moving
For Columbia College, an interview is not a required step in the admissions process. A few applicants will be interviewed by admissions officers, but most may or may not get an interview with a local alum. The local alumni clubs run this. Some areas have more applicants than available alumni interviewers, so many applicants don’t get an interview.
The admissions office says a candidate’s chance of admission will not be affected by not having an interview. To me, this means logically that they’re not even reading the alumni interview reports. It’s a mechanism to keep us connected and in a mood to donate 
As of today, with the ED notifications due out next week, for those applicants it’s too late to do interviews anyway.
GL to your son. He has no reason to worry from not having interviewed.
@Morningsider Thanks a bunch!