<p>Is anyone planning on giving an interview?</p>
<p>When I did Sleeping Bag Weekend at CMU they offered interviews but said that if there is a class you are interested in at the same time as the interview then to go to that instead, so I'm thinking that they don't see interviews as being very important. I could be wrong though.</p>
<p>i did my interview over the sleeping bag weekend. you do it with your regional admissions officer. i thought it was really really helpful to me. if you're good at interviews, and you have ECs that are in depth and stand out, that you can talk about well it can really help. it puts a face to your application with one of the people that will be reviewing it, as long as your are memorable in a good way, while it won't get you in, if you're marginal (my stats are similar to yours) it might help tip the scale. I'll find out if it did for me by Dec. 15 though.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you're not great at interviews (but reasonable) get an alumn interview. Alumni interviews do not have much weight in the process. Basically they use them to filter out people that might look okay on paper but... (you know what I mean). So if you're not stellar in the interview it won't hurt you, you'll be put in the "good" category, but then again if you do stellar it also won't help you nearly as much as if it was with the admissions officer who is going to be reviewing your application as there's still not that face to name to interview to application connection you could have hopefully built in your direct interview.</p>