For colleges and universities that “track demonstrated interest”, how much credit does an applicant get for showing interest? Is a college visit enough? Is there a single “point” added to your score if you show interest at least once, but no additional points if you do 5 things that show interest? Or should you do as much as possible to show interest - open emails, visit campus Junior and Senior year, attend classes, email admissions department… Does everything you do count? At some point it becomes less meaningful to the applicant and much more about playing a game to get admitted. Any admissions counselors out there who can shed some light on this?
Hard to know for any given college. Presumably, they do not want to announce their criteria too openly, because then applicants will game it. Level of interest is probably more of a factor if you appear to be “overqualified” for the college based on academic stats.
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1626043-ways-to-show-a-high-level-of-applicants-interest.html is an older thread on the subject.
There is no one rule to fit every school. My D applied to LACs where demonstrated interest was tracked and she did things that made sense to her (ex. visits, interviews, attended presentations the schools gave at her HS when she could, read emails etc) and that seemed to be plenty.