<p>OK, not that enormous. But a conflict. It's not with my Harvard interview, but since this seems to be the most interview-serious board with alum interviewers lurking, I decided to post my dilemma here.</p>
<p>I know that interviewers are giving up their personal time and that applicants should really, really try to fit their interviewer's schedule in any way possible, but:</p>
<p>My grandmother was recently hospitalized and although it isn't by anything life-threatening, I would really like to visit her as I also haven't seen her in a long time. The hospital is very far and the visit will take an entire weekend?the weekend of my interview. I can?t really take off any more school days since I?ve already maxed out on absences. If I miss any more days I may have my grades withheld, blah blah blah, all those other weird consequences our school enforces.</p>
<p>From hearing what most people say about the importance of respecting your interviewer and the interview, I am really afraid to reschedule. Would my situation be appropriate to ask for a rescheduling? How would I even go about explaining the situation, if my grandmother?s ailment isn?t too serious?</p>
<p>I think your situation is definitely worthy of an interview re-schedule. While you may not be able to take off of school to go visit your grandmother, could you take off of school to go to your interview? It would probably only take a couple of hours. A lot of kids at my school had big conflicts with interviewers because of debate tournaments and cheerleading competitions and things like that, so they would just schedule them for weekdays during 6th-8th period. </p>
<p>I think that if you present your situation the way you did here, the interviewer will surely understand. You can tell your interviewer that the situation isn't life-threatening, but you don't need to explain it fully. Just say that you need to visit her in the hospital and if your interviewer is a decent human being (which I'm assuming he/she is), he'll understand.</p>
<p>Yes, for situations like yours, it would be fine to ask for a reschedule. Interviewers understand family emergencies. After all, people like me are human, too. :)</p>
<p>Don't worry about it. One of my interviewers rescheduled THREE times!! And one of the reasons was family emergency...don't worry about it, everyone is human :)</p>