<p>As Data10 knows from experience, there have been changes brought by Dean Shaw regarding the interviews. When he arrived from Yale, he found that Stanford did not pay attention to that part of the applications, and decided to increase the “relevance” of both alumni and faculty. He has stressed that the school did not a very good job in certain areas of the US, as well as many locales abroad. The efforts to reach out included the involvement of alumni, and this especially in the South and the Southeast. </p>
<p>On the anecdotal level, I can assure you that the applicants from my old neck of the woods who have been admitted to Stanford in the past decade did NOT do much in terms of alumni interviews. On the other hand, not much success has come from the interviewers’ participation. Go figure! </p>
<p>Well, those little boxes on the CDS are more than an afterthought than an expression of deeply analyzed reply from the school. Some junior executive in the IT probably fills that without much discussion with the adcoms. </p>
<p>Look at Vanderbilt! I would highly encourage you to google for the video posted by the director of admissions. Not only are they fabulous to watch, but it will help you see how different what is on the CDS is from the real world of admissions. If I remember well, he addresses the precise part of arranging an interview on campus. </p>
<p>Fwiw, my negative opinion of the interview process is limited to the ALUMNI ones. An interview on campus by an adcom can and should be helpful. The best analogy is that the campus one are talking to an Apple executive in charge of a program and the alumni tend to be akin to talking to … Siri! </p>
<p>For what its worth @xiggi I read a reply by a duke interviewer a while back that stated that the kids he rated a 4 almost always got in while the kids he rated 1s almost never did (or something to that affect). </p>
<p>In my personal experience, my duke interview was the best one (out of about 10 or 11 interviews) and coincidentally, it was one of the two reaches that admitted me. I tend to believe that some schools REALLY don’t care about the interview while others most definitely read the comments which gives a more painted picture of the applicant.</p>
<p>Sure, I do not doubt that interviewers will say or think that their participation played a role. But then … consider the source. What do you expect they might say!</p>
<p>Fwiw, one could take a cynical stance and simply look at the number of applicants that are both interviewed AND rejected. Cynical because it is obvious that the correlation will be higher at schools that accept 1 out 20 (a la Stanford and Harvard) and probably a bit higher at Duke (as an example) and probably higher in the ED rounds! </p>
<p>We believe what we want to believe, and I will gladly stick to my conclusion that one stands more to lose from interviewing than he or she might gain. At best, the interview will (and that is highly doubtful) play a small role and that such role is mostly … negative. </p>
<p>And, I would also gladly change my opinion about this charade for the cases where:
The school believes so much in the process that they forward the entire file with the application previous to the interview.
Trains and helps the interviewers to be able to appraise a candidate.</p>
<p>I think that it is prettty clear that interviewers who are not adcoms do NOT have access to the candidate files, and have to usually stick to opening platitudes such as “Talk to me about yourself, and why are you interested in XYZ school?”</p>
<p>OP,
I STRONGLY suggest you make SURE his application to USC is completed by Dec 1. That is the cutoff date for scholarship consideration, and with his strong stats he has a good chance of acceptance and of being awarded a scholarship [ and if he is a NMSF he will be automatically awarded a 1/2 tuition scholarship if he is accepted at USC]
USC invites about 500 early applicants who are especially strong students to interview on campus in Feb for scholarships. What ever you do , if he receives one of those coveted invitations- make sure he goes! </p>
<p>Of course, that does not say anything for applicants who did not interview. Nor does it mean that the interview rating was the reason why the applicant was admitted or rejected or was independent new information not otherwise found in the application. Depending on what was discussed, the interview rating could simply be highly correlated to the rest of the application.</p>
<p>Except for those he applies EA to, most interviews will be scheduled and conducted in early January and through February, not during football season. </p>
<p>Regarding the discussion about Vandy above, how important is doing an on-campus interview? I took my DS2, HS junior now, to Vandy this past March for a college tour that included Emory, and Davidson and a plane trip and rental car, etc. We live in CT, so it was a big deal to go all the way there for the tour and information session and it is unlikely the budget will allow another visit and he really saw what he needed to see. There were some more individualized admissions office programs, which involved being paired with a current student and going to classes, but Vandy is so popular these days, these programs were “full” and we were lucky to get to go on a HUGE tour and get a seat in the admissions office information program. Are the interviews for Vandy alumni ones? Do they interview all applicants or only selected ones? </p>
<p>Have him contact the school, explain his situation and ask if he can be interviewed locally. Sometimes an alum will conduct the interview but my D was also able to arrange had two interviews with two admissions officers when they were visiting schools in our area. </p>