<p>I registered for a phone interview about a week ago and received this email:</p>
<p>You have been added to the waitlist for the following event:</p>
<p>First-Year Application Telephone Interview with Senior Interviewer on -</p>
<p>Should space become available, you will receive an email directing you to a web site allowing you to move yourself from the wait list. Please note the event's location, date, and time: </p>
<p>This means I DON'T have an interview, right?</p>
<p>it means you don't have one yet. </p>
<p>You're on a waitlist. It's pretty straighforward.</p>
<p>I'm in the same position as you, OP, and I have no clue. The email that you register from said that either it would be closed off or you would receive a confirmation email, so I just assumed that meant it was confirmed.</p>
<p>Did anyone else receive anything other than waitlist?</p>
<p>I didn't have an interview, so I guess this email was right. I was concerned that I would later be allowed to move from the waitlist near the time of the interview, which would catch me off-guard.</p>
<p>I got my actual interview tmr :O</p>
<p>OK is this is something new?? As a member of the ARC and one who does many interviews/year I have never heard of the "First-Year Application Telephone Interview with Senior Interviewers". Who sent you the email?? Was it the admission office or a member of the ARC. To my knowledge the admission staff or admission officers do very few if any interviews directly with the applicants. Was the interview supposed to be with a member of the senior class?? This would indeed be something new</p>
<p>Any info??</p>
<p>It was directly from the admissions office. They offered phone interviews with senior students at Columbia because they didn't have any ARC members available to interview.</p>
<p>G'fish
Thanks for the info. This is very nice. Small northeast LAC's such as Wesleyan and Swarthmore have been offering this for years (although it is usually done on campus) and it is nice to see Columbia has added some interested seniors to help the alums with the interview load. Some areas of the country have very small ARC groups while others can get to a significant percentage of the applicants. Our local area interviews anywhere from 60-80% of our area's total applicants/year which I think is a decent percentage.</p>
<p>^^aww that's really cool!</p>
<p>I'm the only interviewer in my area, and I had like 30 applicants. For whatever reason, I decided to interview them all--and burnt out by 15. Luckily another ARC friend was visiting who picked up the slack.</p>
<p>I'll keep this in mind for next year.</p>
<p>you have to apply for an interview???? i thought they will just call me</p>
<p>Do the phone interview people call you or do you have to call them?</p>
<p>Wait slow down everyone</p>
<p>These telephone interviews would appear to be available in ONLY a few select areas of the country that are undeserved by alums or have NO alums available. The vast majority of prospective applicants are still interviewed by the ARC, the alumni organization responsible for setting up and performing most interviews. These interviews still cannot be requested by prospective students but are generated by the alumni committee at the interviewers discretion. The bottom line - If you are not in one of these few geographic areas, telephone interviews, as far as I can tell, are not available.</p>
<p>Whew! Thanks, WiseOWL, for pulling this thread back from the usual "OMG Why haven't I heard this?!?!?!" precipice off of which threads like this tend to plunge.</p>
<p>You are welcome-always glad to help</p>
<p>Ha the username is such a fit for WiseOWL right now, offering his or her knowledge to (for the most part) freaking out teenagers.</p>
<p>Yeah, I scheduled my phone interview for tonight, got put on a waitlist, and no one called. I think it's safe to say that the waitlist is not a confirmation, despite the vague instructions in the email.</p>
<p>One thing about the interview. If they want to interview you, does that mean they have a little interest in you? So if they don't interview you, that means you don't really 'dazzle' them, so your chance of getting in is smallll.?</p>
<p>
[quote]
One thing about the interview. If they want to interview you, does that mean they have a little interest in you? So if they don't interview you, that means you don't really 'dazzle' them, so your chance of getting in is smallll.?
[/quote]
No. It's simply a case of limited resources (in terms of people available to interview applicants).</p>
<p>So do they choose randomly?</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure the way it works is that if there's an alumnus/a in your area, they are given the list of names to interview and they pretty much choose at random who to interview on that list. If there isn't one in your area, you may or may not have been contacted for a telephone interview with a senior at Columbia, and they may or may not have actually called you, even if you signed up for one and followed the email's instructions (grr).</p>
<p>This might be all total bogus, but it's true is that interviews aren't based on the strength of your application.</p>