I know that receiving an interview means nothing, since if Stanford’s able to offer you one, they will. I just had mine last Saturday, and thought it went really well. I connected with my interviewer really well, about sports, our shared heritage, and he seemed to be pretty impressed by some of the things I’ve pursued. At the end of the interview, he told me he’d love to see what I can do at Stanford, and that he hopes when the admissions team gets my application, they “put on their thinking caps” and let me in.
My question is, how much does any of that matter? I know it’s not the difference between a good and bad application, but how much impact can the interview have?
The interview can only hurt you not help you. It will not push the needle to your favor if you do well but it can very well be the reason you get rejected if it ends up being terrible.
How are interviews assigned to applicants? I ask because D18 and several other kids from her HS had interviews while one of her friends, who has higher stats and ECs, did not get an interview. Naturally, the friend is worried. It makes me wonder about the selection process for interviews. D18’s interview invitation email arrived a day or two after she submitted her REA app (she submitted the day of the REA deadline). There was no time for anyone at S to look at her application and say, “hey, we should interview this kid”, so it must be an automated process. I can’t imagine them wasting their alums’ time interviewing kids with absolutely no chance of acceptance, so there must be sorting of some kind involved based on scores and objective facts.
Of course, her friend had a perfect ACT 36 … so maybe they didn’t want to waste time interviewing a kid who was already high on the list of applicants.
As far as chance of admission goes, it can either help or harm, like any other component of the application. However, in general it does not have much influence on decisions. Beyond chance of admission, the interview gives the student a chance to ask questions and learn things about the college that may not appear on Stanford’s website.
You can view information about the interview program at https://admission.stanford.edu/apply/freshman/interviews.html There are many possible explanations why a student might not get an interview request such as limited alumni volunteers in the area, the alum assigned to the interview didn’t send an email to student, the interview request email is in a junk/spam folder and was not seen, etc. I’d be really surprised if there is any kind of stat filter in who gets interviews. You could try contacting your admissions rep, but the REA interview cycle ends this weekend, so it may be difficult to schedule in time. Fortunately the interview is optional. You can decline an interview without being penalized… sort of like not submitting the optional 3rd LOR.
@data10 – thanks for the reply. I read the Stanford link a while back and it says that everyone is eligible for an interview. Maybe the invite went to her spam folder. It probably doesn’t matter because, from what my D18 says, I think the friend will have no trouble getting into several elite schools (not only is she academically very strong but she also has been recruited by some schools for soccer).
One other oddity. Most of D18’s friends had their interview up here north of Atlanta (within five miles of the school). D18’s interview was all the way down in Atlanta.
@droppedit I’m intrigued with your story because of the several kids from my son’s HS who applied, it is the highest scoring legacy candidate who did NOT get an interview. Puzzling.
I really hope the interview doesn’t count for a lot. My son said his was terrible and that the interviewer kept challenging his responses and not in a good way, more like trying to trip him up. He left the interview feeling really down and like he had failed a test of some kind. Then he had to pick himself up and drive over to his MIT interview 30 minutes later!
Wondering if your son got the same person my dd interviewed with. She said he continued to challenge all of her responses as not good enough. In the end they had a very long, meaningful conversation because she had to dig deep. She was exhausted by the end.