<p>If a school offers an on campus interview, yes do it if you can. Alum interviews are nice but not really influential.</p>
<p>Now that you mention it, interviews were not mentioned at this session at all, except for auditions for music and performing arts, which they said were important (how they went, that is) for admission into those types of programs.</p>
<p>It really is all about the packaging and tying activities, academics, and essay to illustrate how that candidate will fit/contribute to the university.</p>
<p>mom-of-boston, the sense I got is that if you didn’t did not challenge yourself by taking tough courses and doing well in them, packaging was not going to help. On the contrary, if you have academic strengths, a less than polished and tied together package could be overlooked. Maybe I am generalizing too much, but the HS curriculum and performance was looked at most carefully. All the extracurriculars in the world can’t save you, at least not when applying to BU. The message was that you could do those anywhere, anytime, but that academic performance was a better barometer of success in college.</p>