Hi Everyone, I am new here. This month I took my 8th grade D to a top BS for campus visit and interview. It went pretty well. I suggested my D to write an thank you email to her interviewer afterwards but I guess she is a bit busy with her school work. To our surprise the interviewer wrote a nice follow up email couple of days later and encouraged her to apply to their school and keep in touch etc. My question is does everyone get such emails from their interviewers? Is this just their routine or could it be that they are really interested in you?
It could be a little of both, but IME, it’s fairly routine. Don’t read anything into it. Wait until college applications roll around; the amount of snail mail and e-mails that you can get from colleges is frightening and all of it is just marketing.
Having said all that, sit your daughter down and have her write out a thank you note today.
I think it’s a little unusual for the interviewer to voluntarily (vs in response to your follow-up) write a personalized email, especially if it’s one of the top schools that typically receive many applications. It could be this particular interview’s work style? It’s hard to imagine he/she would write an email to everyone interviewed. Are you from a particular region that is under represented in the school? Does your daughter have a strong EC that could be useful to the school community? In any case, if anything, it’s “initial interest”. They haven’t seen “anything” about her yet. I wouldnt read anything further than a sincere invitation to apply to their school.
Yes, everyone gets follow up emails, handwritten notecards, and Holiday Cards from BS admission officers.
Do not read into any of them, but yes, do send out thank you cards and stay in touch with AOs via emails during application process.
Two days after interview addresses to the individual, this doesn’t sound like the “mass email” the school sends out to everyone, but maybe I got it wrong. Never mind.
Thank you All. My D has sent out a thank you email to the interviewer.
Panpacific: we are not from an under represented region, as a matter of fact I think we are from an over represented region. I am not sure what kind of EC the school is looking for but the interviewer did mention he is very impressed by my D’s strong EC commitment.
Sorry if I sound cynical, but I don’t think “strong EC commitment” would get one any “preferential treatment”. Like I said, it could be the interviewer’s work style (a hard worker I’d imagine if he’s sending out personal email to everyone he interviewed).
Agreed. To paraphrase Chris Rock, that’s what you’re supposed to do.
Funny story about thank you letters. My DD sent one to her interviewer a week later and it was discovered in the AO’s CHILD’s mailbox by said child on acceptance day, many, many months later, when said child was giving my DD a campus tour!!! Needless to say, her personal thank you letter did not affect her positive acceptance! LOL.
While it feels very nice to get those notes, emails. etc. try not to read anything into them. The school my DD ended up attending sent nothing in the ways of notes and a school where the AO reached out to my daughter with a lovely email two days post-interview ending up rejecting her.
AOs from schools with a lot of applications can get crazily busy, so I don’t think they have the manpower to write personalized emails at this point when they see “nothing” yet about an applicant. Then even when they do, there could be many possible reasons, so I wouldn’t read much into it but if it’s a school you don’t have any negative feelings about so far why not make sure you apply to it “just in case”.
There were some schools that didn’t keep their words on getting back to me for specific issues, even after I sent reminding emails, which were not even replied. Then there is a school it’s president called me to encourage applying solely based on daughter’s strong EC (visual art), which was her portfolio link on the initial inquiry, saying that she is placed on his preferential treatment list. While I agree that it could be the AO doing her job diligently, I wouldn’t completely denounce it either.
I don’t think anybody is saying to denounce it; we’re just saying not to read much into it.
@skieurope, Yes. Sorry about the tone. I was thinking that I generally agree with the others, but it didn’t show on my reply.
No worries; I just did not want newbies to get overly excited about an email. 
On the other hand, my kind got those e-mails from every person he interviewed with, never wrote a single thank you, and still got in. So in typical fashion for this process, nothing is standard. Or so it seems.
Even at big schools if you visit/interview during September or October, the AOs have time to write personalized emails or notecards. Past Thanksgiving they are enundated with files and you may not get anything. If you interview god forbid during January you won’t hear anything for weeks. So interview, apply and send things early, not the day before deadline.
My son got those emails. Handwritten letters too. All before the application deadlines. The AOs are supposed to write follow ups to encourage more to apply and help with yield.
Don’t get too excited over this, happens a lot.
I think that AO’s want people to apply. The real task for interpreting AO communication is after the interview. I was pretty accurate in determining level of interest from the various schools except for 2 doozies which were a total surprise. The post interview AO communication is important in my opinion.