<p>Recently, a couple of my friends that have applied to Yale told me that they had interviews in early February. I'm the valedictorian of my class, have a solid ACT, have leadership positions in two clubs and national honor society, and I haven't been contacted about an interview yet. I'm a bit worried (well, a lot worried) that I haven't been contacted yet and my friends have, and I'm not quite sure why. (I know one of them has an ACT score 2 point higher than mine, and the other has a sister that went to Yale - not sure how much of an influence either of those could have?) It also might be important that I have had the chance to visit Yale, but I was only able to visit after they were done doing on-campus interviews. </p>
<p>So, what does this mean? I read somewhere that not getting an interview can be a colleges way of rejecting applicants who don't show much promise (at least, in areas where interviews are available for applicants who still don't get them) so does this mean I'm out of luck? How do they decide who does and doesn't get an interview? And if it doesn't mean I've been rejected, does not getting an interview still hurt my chances of getting in? I've considered contacting the person in charge of interviews and asking how they are determined, or if maybe I was contacted but missed a call (we only have a landline, and it got replaced a few weeks ago and a few messages might have been deleted?) but the webpage says that applicants may not request an interview, and I don't want to seem annoying. Does anyone have any advice/insight? </p>
<p>"I read somewhere that not getting an interview can be a colleges way of rejecting applicants who don’t show much promise " For Yale, that’s 100% incorrect.</p>
<p>Interviews are randomly assigned. When you and your friends’ names were given to the local coordinator, no one likely had even looked at any portion of your file except to check it for completeness. The goal is to interview everyone. But applicants > volunteers. Thus, having/not having an interview is irrelevant and won’t affect your eventual decision. This is gospel.</p>
<p>Some applicants don’t check the email address they gave Yale or don’t check their junk mail. Sometimes an applicant just wasn’t offered an interview. Sometimes an applicant has received an offer via email and they don’t see it.</p>
<p>Although there is some randomness to the process, many coordinators assign interviews in waves. If I hear about your completed application on December 10 you are going to stand a better chance of being interviewed than if I hear about you on January 1. The goal is to interview as many as possible but nationally that number is about 75% with wide variance even within large metropolitan areas. Clearly the alumni interviewing pool has not expanded commensurate with the exploding application numbers. Many kids not interviewed will be accepted.</p>