<ol>
<li><p>If you were accepted to a fly in, how much greater are your chances for actual admissions? Assuming you did well on your interview at the flyin, sent appropriate thank you notes, etc. do you usually get in if they flew you in in the fall for the visit? Also, if you were rejected from a fly in and don't get any outreach from the school (they don't send you a fee waiver, etc.) are you wasting your time applying for admission?</p></li>
<li><p>When the Ivy leagues you apply to contact you for an interview does it mean anything at all? My friends and I think it does not because everyone has started getting email about interviews from Harvard, Penn, etc. But my best friend is holding out hope that maybe not everyone gets asked to interview?</p></li>
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<p>congrats on your acceptances so far! I was wondering if you got any money offer from Pitt since you didn’t mention that one? I don’t know anything about fly-ins but I think that interviews are offered whenever they have an alumni interviewer within a reasonable distance.</p>
<p>I went to a columbia fly-in and we heard that the acceptance rate of people to went to the fly in was 98%</p>
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<li> For Ivies, interviews are granted to everyone possible – without regard to eventual results. There’s no time to pre-sort applicants. Both shoo-ins and zero-chancers are put on the interview list.</li>
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<p>Your BF is correct: not everyone is asked because the spots are limited. But it’s random, not because it’s any indicator of the strength/weakness of the applicant. Both shoo-ins and zero-chancers miss interviews as well.</p>
<p>“went to a columbia fly-in and we heard that the acceptance rate of people to went to the fly in was 98%”</p>
<p>WHOA!! An adcom said that? I wasn’t aware that Columbia had a fly in program. I am going to go look it up.</p>
<p>I didn’t find anything on Columbia fly-ins when I searched threads here, through a google search, or even searching Columbia’s site. Was it a personal invite, and what was it based on? Thanks.</p>
<p>^ I’m definitely sure it was e-mail invite to apply, then they have to accept you. I wish they had one for non engineers, I would have applied :-(. I did go to a “secret” fly in for a top 10 school though. Apparently many schools (and some ivies) have “secret” ones. One of the people I met on one of my fly-ins said they checked the questbridge Facebook for info on them, even though they weren’t doing questbridge. Many of the fly-ins have high acceptance rates.</p>
<p>@hsgrad, interviews don’t mean much. I was contacted for an interview from one of my schools about three days after handing in my application (only the member questions part, not even the full thing) so they couldn’t have gone over it yet. It truly is by availability.</p>
<p>I will add that an adcom did not say the 98% figure it was one of our student leaders who worked in the admissions office. </p>
<p>I’m hesitant to believe a number that high but it is possible. It was an email invite then you have to be accepted after you apply for the program and the acceptance rate for the program was around 10% as well so it is a self selecting pool. In addition Columbia I think is the most diverse ivy( not 100% sure about that) and SEAS has a higher acceptance rate anyways than the college I think it could be possible.</p>
<p>Yeah a couple of kids in my school ended up at flyins the rest of us had heard nothing about (top school) and not seen advertised anywhere. So I guess secret ones do exist. </p>
<p>@planner: No money from Pitt yet. I have been following that thread and it looks like the full tuition ones are starting to go out. Hopefully I will get lucky again.</p>
<p>Yeah we guessed interviews were just there if available. So my next question is if you don’t do an interview if offered is that really, really bad?</p>
<p>hsgrad-
In all of my researching here, college guides, books, ect. I have never read any solid evidence that the interviews really matter much…maybe in the old days when you actually interviewed on campus with an adcom, but hundreds of volunteer alumni interviewers all with their own biases? Doubtful impact imo. I did read an article that one of the main purposes of the interviews was to keep the alumni engaged and connected (and contributing)to their alma mater. Sounded reasonable to me.</p>
<p>Long time interviewer/recruiter here. In my experience, two strong reasons for alumni interviews</p>
<p>1) it’s good PR for the college. alum volunteer interviewers generally show a good face to the applicant. Even though my alma mater has single digit admit rates, we still are courting the students. Having a real person connected means a lot when it comes to getting admitted students to matriculate.</p>
<p>2) in rare situations, an alum report can make a difference. Posters previously have written how negative reports can influence things. Here is how it can be a positive:</p>
<p>Two solid applicants from my nearby large urban district applied a few yrs ago. On paper, they looked very good and caught peoples’ attention – but the teacher recs were bland – not negative but just poorly written as can be the case w/schools unaccustomed to writing rec letters to Ivy-type schools. Without this being a strong positive, the admissions committee remained non-committal. But both guys had great interview write ups. Based on those, the committee was tipped fwd and decided to offer admits to both guys. </p>
<p>Here’s my caveat however: people have and will continue to do this: blow it spectacularly at their interview – be it some socially unacceptable behavior (dude dripping stuff out of his nose and not aware enough to wipe himself), racist or intolerant remarks (“yeah we shoulda nuked Mecca”), or secret message conveyance (“my mom is forcing me to interview. I’m hoping to be rejected”), or just plain shallow and stupid (“I applied because of the prestige”).</p>
<p>It happens. And these are noted. I’ve not had a doozey in many years but you hear about them.</p>