<p>momrath, thanks for letting me know, and thanks for the nudge.</p>
<p>I have never been a college inteviewer so I can't speak on appropriate protocol, but I always ask a similar quesiton to recruits to our firm, as in what other companies are you looking at....in most cases, the answer is rational. Every so often, a candidate, will say, I really would like to work for xyz company, which has a culture 180 degrees from ours. I think to myself, why is this kid wasting his time (and mine) to interview to a company where he will not be happy.</p>
<p>I think "what other colleges are you interested in?" and "Did you apply ED?" are two completely different questions. Though both are on the nosy side, the first is a good way of finding out whether the interviewer's college is in the same range or selectivity and ambience as the other schools on the student's list. The student can finess his/her answer so that they all appear more or less equal or that the interviewer's college is by far #1. The ED question, however, if answered positively will always reveal that the interviewer's college is not the student's first choice. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but in an interview situation where you're trying to be enthusiastic about the college at hand, it casts a bit of a shadow.</p>
<p>Momrath, D decided not to do anything. She drafted an e-mail to the interviewer and then decided it sounded way too awkward and would probably kill any chances at the rd school.</p>
<p>We tend to think the question was unfair -- basically asking whether the rd school is a safety (or, at best, a second choice school). An honest answer would have severely diminished her chances of getting in. If every school asked the question, we would be totally at the mercy of the ed2 school, because all of the others would shuffle D to the bottom of the stack (based on her lack of demonstrated interest, etc.). We have tried to think of a better answer than "no" and have had a hard time coming up with anything worthwhile.</p>
<p>She will wait the 2 or 3 weeks until the ed2 school makes a decision. If they accept her, she will go there and withdraw the other apps. If they turn her down, she will probably let the rd school know that she is in love with the school and that it is her top pick.</p>
<p>The interviewer also asked what other colleges she had applied to. She had no problem with that question.</p>
<p>For what it's worth, I think yield is still very important to colleges. They want an idea of who will accept admissions offers, how big the class will be and what it will look like.</p>
<p>Momrath:</p>
<p>I concur with the ED point (sorry, I was slightly off point in my earlier post), it would definitely make any interviewee uncomfortable, to say the least. And, I also concur that yield is important, even though USNews no longer counts it, but they still publish the stats, as does PR, Fiske et al. Moreover, if the Committee's work is anything like that as described in "The Gatekeepers," then it's only human nature that a regional adcom is only gonna push hard for applicants that s/he strongly believes will likely matriculate. Since geographic diversity is important, a regional adcom only gets so many 'must have' kids, and would likely relegate an questionable matriculating candidate -- despite gpa & scores -- down to the later rounds, where the room starts to fill up (as per Jamimom's excellent analogy).</p>