I just want to know if an interview is an important part of the application. If i choose not to do an interview, will it negatively impact me? Rochester is a target for me and I’m not currently available on the day that they’re interviewing in my area.
Ultimately it depends on how strong the other portions of your application are, but they do place a pretty large emphasis on demonstrated interest, the interview being a big part of that.
In my case, I live in Rochester, so perhaps it’s considered more important for me; Rochester is one of several schools that wishes to ensure its students have a clear liking for the school before admittance.
To summarize, I think that it depends on how far out you live and your capability to visit/get to Rochester. If you have a 4.0/2400, perhaps they would discount this but Rochester definitely doesn’t want just Ivy hopefuls who don’t really care about the school.
You don’t have to be able to visit to interview. They do off-campus interviews as well as phone & skype interviews at your request. When I visited they stressed that the interview is very important and said that something like 80% of accepted students interview.