<p>I interviewed two days ago, and planned to mail a thank-you note to the interviewer yesterday. But I never got his mailing address, only his number and email. Should I email and ask for his mailing address so I can send a handwritten note, or would that come off the wrong way? I've already sent him a brief email note thanking him for his time.</p>
<p>As you already sent a thank you email, what more could you say in a hand written note? That said, I bet you could google your interviewer and find an address. Or, use the “reverse phone directory” to see if an address is available.</p>
<p>I’ve heard that the proper etiquette is an immediate email note, followed by a handwritten note the next day.
If he didn’t provide his address, would it be appear creepy if he just recieved a note out of the blue? He’d realize that I looked up his address, which might come off stalker-ish.</p>
<p>Do you actually have to send a thank you note. They’re corny and stupid IMO.</p>
<p>quarterpast: Not sure where you are getting your thank you note etiquette, but it’s not necessary to send an email and a hand written note – one of them is enough. Otherwise you are going to come across as an Eddie Haskell (Google the term) with your thank you’s.</p>
<p>@EricMetubiev2</p>
<p>You are certainly not required to send a “corny and stupid” thank you note to someone who VOLUNTEERED roughly an hour (not including travel time) of his or her time to meet with you. You also don’t have to shake their hand when you meet them or use words like “please” and “thank you” during the conversation. These are all idiotic social conventions that don’t apply to you.</p>
<p>@Falcon1</p>
<p>If it was a hassle for them they… wouldn’t do it. They likely do it for a nudge for a relative later on, or to feel powerful. If they really wanted a way to feel connected to their school they could just visit it.</p>
<p>Anyway, if kids say “thanks you ohhhh so much” are they actually that na</p>
<p>I mailed a handwritten note the day after my interview (well, actually, 2 days after, since it was on a Saturday and mail doesn’t go out on Sunday). I didn’t email my interviewer though.</p>
<p>@Ericmetubiev2</p>
<p>I find it hard to respond to your last two posts. So, you’re a cynic about why people choose to find ways to get involved and give back to their alma maters and why kids write thank you notes. For you, it’s all about ulterior motives.</p>
<p>It’s sad to think that at 17 or 18, you have such a jaded view of the world. It’s hard to imagine what you’ll be like as an adult.</p>
<p>I was going to address what you said about interviewers or why thank you notes should be written but I realized with a kid like you it’s a hopeless cause. Instead, I think in your next interview, you should tell the interviewer that he/she is only there to help a relative get into the school and mention how thanking him/her for the interview is waste of your time so they shouldn’t expect a follow-up note. Oh wait, you’re going to be a hypocrite and not to do that because after all you don’t want to jeopardize your “interview grade” do you? Good luck!</p>
<p>Falcon: i actually feel sympathy for someone who has not experienced an event or an organization or the gratefulness for the assistance from others enough to freely desire to give to others w/o regard. EM is sitting squarely in that pit.</p>
<p>I guess he thinks we’re just “suckers” for assisting others. Very sad.</p>
<p>@quaterpast: an email thank you is fine. Don’t google his/her address and mail him/her an actual note – that is stalkerish. I would find a handwritten note somewhat unsettling unless I had given the student my business card. It’s all good – the presence or not of a follow on thank you note makes no iota of difference to me (and that’s with +200 interviews).</p>
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<p>My final question to my interviewer was this : Why do you interview kids on early Saturday mornings, what is it about Yale that compels you to give back?</p>
<p>Smiling, she told me that Yale is not only the best school in the world, but also one that allowed her, a girl whose parents were lower middle class, to take expensive summer abroad trips and basically live in a castle for four years eating the best food with the best people (all gratis).</p>
<p>Of course, not all people do it for this reason —T26E4 probably does it for the privilege of being snarky (kidding!)— but most interviewers are probably highly appreciative of their alma-mater, a school that has the option of only admitting super wealthy kids and raising its endowment but chooses not to so as to give back to the nation and reward honest,hardworking 18 year-olds.</p>
<p>
Original.</p>
<p>
- I personally know of people who have quit interviewing once their darling gained admittance at their ivy. </p>
<p>2) If it wasn’t about ulterior motives in the entire college admissions process, Yale’s 20 billion dollar endowment would look much more like Oxford’s £3.772 billion endowment. </p>
<p>Yale 'grads love their school enough to “assist” much more than Oxford grads, right?
More like, the idea of legacy and donations are nearly nonexistent at Oxford, thus there’s no impetus to ‘help out’ their beloved school. </p>
<p>
There’s a difference between being anti-social/a jerk and having typical manners in real life. There’s also a difference between being polite, by using ‘please and thank you’ throughout the interview, and being excessive and sending a thank you email after you just said thank you in real life. It’s like giving the teacher an apple instead of just saying ‘you’re a great teacher; thanks for the year.’</p>
<p>^^ @EM Oh brother.</p>
<p>So you’ve got it all figured out haven’t you? I’ll bullet like you:</p>
<p>1) I’ve been actively involved with my top Ivy alma mater for over twenty five years in a number of different ways. My daughter is at another top Ivy and never even chose to apply to my alma mater. My other kid won’t be applying either. I just last month picked up the phone a pledged yet another decent-sized donation to my school. All but one of our donations to the school have been anonymous, so my wife and my continuing contributions to the school in terms and time and financial support don’t fit in your tidy little box of quid pro quo - it’s just called being grateful and wanting to help others to have the opportunity we did. However, I guess the cynical you would say that we are just paving the way for our potential grandchildren to apply 25 to 30 years from now. Oh wait, they will be legacies at Harvard and wherever else from their own parents so what to do then? Also, instead of giving our money away, no doubt our potential grandchildren would be better off if we just put the money in an investment account for them and let the money compound for 30 years.</p>
<p>2) MIT and Caltech don’t consider legacy status yet they do extremely well with alumni contributing back their time and money. How does that happen? You also have no concept of money. Beside the fact that Yale has a very loyal alumni base they also had extremely successful investment returns for a long stretch in the 2000’s, as such their endowment is much larger than almost all other endowments out there. Other schools consider legacy too so why aren’t their endowments anywhere near the size of Yale’s? Where’s those rampant ulterior motivations you speak of “in the entire admissions process” or by that do you only mean HYP? Make yourself clear, because Oxford’s endowment is actually quite large in the scheme of things but again you have no concept of money since you’re still a kid.</p>
<p>3) My daughter had only two interviews last year. The second was from a very top school that schedules interviews even before you submit a formal application. Her second interview occurred one day before she learned that she was accepted to her first choice SCEA school. Nevertheless, she wrote a genuinely heartfelt thank you letter to the second interviewer. She truly appreciated having the opportunity to meet with the alumnus and learn about the school and she politely wanted to let her know that she would not be moving forward with her application. It’s called having manners and was done despite the fact that she had nothing to gain from writing the letter. As T2 points out, it doesn’t score brownie points to write a thank you note to your interviewer but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done. I believe interviewers do appreciate that kids take the time to express their gratitude for them taking the time to meet with them. Also, when I interview people for jobs, I am always interested in hearing what the applicant’s take-aways from the meeting were.</p>
<p>Anyway, I am glad we are not talking about my alma mater here. I’m pretty sure having a know-it-all kid like you on campus would not be a good thing.</p>
<p>EricMetubiev2: Sending thank you notes after an interview – be it a college interview or a job interview – is the expected norm. If you google “Sending thank you notes after a college interview” you will find many sites, including this one from the College Board that suggests you do so:
<a href=“https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/get-in/interviews/what-to-do-before-and-after-your-college-interview-admissions[/url]”>https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/get-in/interviews/what-to-do-before-and-after-your-college-interview-admissions</a>. </p>
<p>Here’s are several other articles for you to read, all from respected sources, saying that you should send thank you notes after your interview.
<a href=“Thank-You Note Enters College Admission Game - The New York Times”>Thank-You Note Enters College Admission Game - The New York Times;
<a href=“USA Today Educate - Teacher & Student Resources & Guides”>USA Today Educate - Teacher & Student Resources & Guides;
<a href=“http://www.compasseducationstrategies.com/2011/08/why-college-bound-teens-should-still-send-handwritten-thank-you-notes/[/url]”>http://www.compasseducationstrategies.com/2011/08/why-college-bound-teens-should-still-send-handwritten-thank-you-notes/</a></p>
<p>You can argue all you want against it — and even not send them yourself – but you’re out of touch with a reality here in the world of college admissions.</p>
<p>EM: It’s funny how you can’t perceive of things outside your little bubble. It’s a good trait to acquire. For the record, none of my kids are or will apply to Yale. Frankly, their academics won’t match up. There is no “legacy” boost that I will ever achieve for them. And I suspect the grey heads who interviewed me or populated the Alumni club when I was President had any notions of getting something back from Yale.</p>
<p>You ascribe evil and subterfuge to people’s motives and cannot imagine simple altruism. Like I said before, I’m very sad for you EM. If you ever get to Yale, I think you’ll be lost – because you won’t believe the care and concern of your instructors, admin people, deans & masters, even the janitorial staff around you. All you’ll see are money-grubbing worker bees.</p>
<p>Yikes–it’s arrogant people like that who scare me out of attending a fabulous school like Yale. Hopefully such an attitude is truly a rarity.</p>
<p>EricMetubiev2 - He sounds like Harvard material to me - will fit right in.</p>
<p>I sent an E-mail, but don’t know his address. Is it necessary for me to follow up, or will it look creepy since he didn’t give me his address in the E-mails?</p>
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Nah, you should be fine. The only reason I sent a handwritten note was because the interview took place at the interviewer’s house.</p>