<p>I am just curious about the importance of off-campus interview. Since it is about person to person, there will be a good match and a bad match between the student and interviewer. Is the interviewer report going to be critical or supplemenal? I think that on-campus interview could impact a lot compared with off-campus.</p>
<p>yeah i have the same question
i had an interview today and the interviewer and I didn’t really hit it off.
I tried to make conversations but she was quite and it got awkward.
When I was talking, her eyes kept drifting else where…it was pretty bad
Would an off campus interview make a huge difference?</p>
<p>First off, a disclaimer, I’m not an AO, so I can’t know for sure . . . But I would expect that schools know something about their off-campus interviewers. In other words, they are going to know if a particular interviewer generally gets along easily with all the students she mets, or is more stand-offish. This would be reflected in the interview reports. The schools know these interviewers don’t do it for a living and may not, despite good intentions, have the best interview skills.</p>
<p>So, if you didn’t “click” with your interviewer, don’t take it too much too heart. A really good off-campus interview might be helpful (or it might not, depending on the interviewer), but a bad off-campus interview probably isn’t the kiss of death. I’m sure the school with take it “with a grain of salt” (meaning, they won’t put too much weight on it).</p>
<p>And there are reports on here all the time of kids not getting accepted after really great interviews (both on-campus and off), and getting in somewhere else after what seemed like a really bad interview.</p>
<p>So, don’t worry about it too much. The one thing you can do now is send a follow-up note to thank the interviewer. And, if there’s anything you’d like the interviewer/admissions office to know, that didn’t get covered in the interview, this is your chance to mention it. I’m not talking about the 10-page story of your life, but rather a brief, “You know, the one thing I forgot to mention is that I’ll be competing in the state — competition next week. I’ll let you know how it goes!” You never know, maybe you and the interviewer will get along better in paper than you did in person!</p>
<p>Don’t worry about the “didn’t” click issue. The same thing could happen if you went to an “on-campus” interview. </p>
<p>Also - some interviewers are very good at keeping a poker face. It helps keep the student from “reading” too much into the interview. For instance - the students who post here because they “hit it off” or got a call from a coach - and then were rejected.</p>
<p>So just go with the flow, do the best you can, and don’t worry too much about you. The interview is only one component of a much larger evaluation. And yes - the school’s do know the personality of their interviewers really well. Some of them still remember us from when we were students.</p>
<p>My son had 3 different interview experiences - on campus with AO, off campus with alum and on phone with AO. The best experience was the one on campus, but that may have been because that is the school he really wanted to go to. The one by phone was fine, even though he was nervous about doing it that way, because the AO was comfortable with it. He asked good questions and was able to learn more about my son. The off campus interview with an alum did not go very well. The interviewer didn’t ask a lot of questions - he mostly gave a sales pitch about the school. My son did not feel very comfortable with him, and felt for sure that he would not be accepted after that “bad interview”. He was accepted at all 3. I see the interview as an important part of the process - not just for the school to meet the application in person, but for the child to experience interviewing with a stranger. I don’t see it as a make or break as far as acceptance/rejection goes. If your child is not a good fit on paper, he/she probably won’t be in person either.</p>