<p>So a week ago, i received an email from a Dartmouth alumni asking from an interview. However, I did not really want to have an interview, and as it was not required, i just ignored it. However, now he's calling me and texting me for an interview. Its no longer polite to ignore those, so I've responded, but is it common for interviewers to go that far?</p>
<p>Also, how do I kindly say no to an interview?</p>
<p>The interviewer probably thought that his email went to your spam box and wanted to be sure you knew that you got an offer. I think that you should have just told him no thanks from the beginning. I wouldn’t sweat it about this too much. He wasn’t try to spam or stalk you haha :)</p>
<p>Best of luck!</p>
<p>Seriously?</p>
<p>A volunteer (who is an alumnus, by the way; the word alumni is plural) emailed you to offer you an interview slot that most applicants would want, and you ignored the email. He persisted in trying to schedule an appointment with you–since most applicants would be eager for the opportunity–and now you’re complaining that he hasn’t stopped. Even though you never told him, “No, thank you”?</p>
<p>You are seriously in the wrong here. You should tell him “No, thank you” immediately, and you should apologize for not having done it sooner.</p>
<p>And I don’t think it would be unfair if this whole episode were to reflect badly on you in the admissions process.</p>
<p>I agree with Sikorsky. It is one thing to be worried because you were not offered the opportunity to interview (this would not hurt you). </p>
<p>However, to be offered the opportunity to interview, then turn down the opportunity (and complain that you are being spammed because an alumnus wants to make sure that he does right by you) will not reflect well on you. </p>
<p>He wil just turn in a report stating his efforts to contact you and either your non-response or your declining the opportunity to interview.</p>
<p>No, you misunderstand. Now that he’s personally called me, I’ve decided to have an interview with him. Its just his email seemed really general, like a “send this to 100 people” sorta email, so I decided not to respond. My first question is just plain curiosity. My last question is for future references.</p>
<p>Then kindly send him an e-mail letting him know that you are getting spam from his e-mail. Do know respond to him in one of the spammed e-mails (once he changes his password, he should be fine).</p>
<p>Ok thank you for helping me. One reason i forgot to mention is that he lives at least half a day away and as interviews apparently have very little effect on the admissions process, I decided not to travel that far.</p>
<p>This was before he called me. We compromised then.</p>
<p>This takes the cake. It really does.</p>
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<p>Interviewers don’t send out general requests to a hundred people. They have lives.</p>
<p>I’ll admit, now I really don’t understand your story, but if I jumped to a wrong conclusion earlier, I apologize.</p>
<p>If his email has been compromised, and you’re now getting emails for watches and Viagra from his address, you should tell him. If, on the other hand, you ignored his initial email to you because you thought it seemed generic, you made an error, and you owe him an apology for not having answered.</p>
<p>You seriously just ignored his email? How rude no matter how generic the email seemed. Unless he is literally sending you spam, you should have replied as soon as possible, in any case if he was sending you actual spam you should have notified him. Were you afraid of an interview? Declining an interview by simply not responding could possibly be just as bad as having a really awful interview. It makes you look bad.</p>
<p>Okay, truthfully speaking, I was a bit afraid since I have very little interviewing experience (not none). Also, I live rather far away (12+ hours) from the place where he suggested. As an interview also has little weight with admissions, I decided when I first received his email to not reply. As the email was generic, I was thinking that not replying would not bother him at all.</p>
<p>I’ve already apologized and we’ll be meeting in mid-February.</p>
<p>So, the moral of this story is that ignoring something because you find it a little intimidating is a bad plan.</p>
<p>Here endeth the lesson.</p>
<p>Sent from my DROIDX using CC</p>
<p>You can drive over 700 miles in 12+ hours which for most people is about three states away. You “compromised” with your interviewer? He is going to drive over 6 hours each way just to interview you? In this situation, normally a telephone interview would be suggested. Something sounds really fishy here. Interviews DO matter, btw, especially if you do or say something that cause the interviewer to believe the school would make a huge mistake in admitting you. Word of advice, answer all important emails promptly.</p>
<p>OP, are your parents involved with your college application process? perhaps a trusted adult could help you and ease some of these “fears”. Feel free to come to the forum and ask any questions. Good luck.</p>
<p>I know this thread is a couple weeks old, but wanted to post in case anyone else came upon this later on.
You likely received a generic email the first time around because the organizer of your region is a single person and they don’t have time to write an individual email to every single applicant. My region alone has over 80 applicants. The college attempts to have an alumni interview every applicant, so everyone has a level baseline and the same opportunities to prove themselves.</p>
<p>Now, since you did not respond to the initial email, and your interviewer still needs to report something back to the college, whether you interview or not, he or she paid you courtesy of a phone call. Most would stop there, some would still give you a THIRD chance after not calling them back via text, just in case you just missed the communication. After that, these interviewers and coordinators have their own lives and families to attend to, and we get the impression that if you don’t care enough to reply to us, you probably only applied to our school because your parents told you to or you were just checking off colleges from a random list.</p>
<p>After all these tries, we report back to the college that we attempted to contact you, but no responses to our requests were given.</p>
<p>The interviews are there for a few different reasons:
<p>In summary, we interviewers are not trying to keep people out of our school - we’re trying to get more people in! The number of interviewers that come back to me and discuss how their interviews went with the phrase “This kid was amazing” is insane. We love meeting you and seeing your enthusiasm for the school, or helping you feel better about your entire college process, even if Dartmouth isn’t your #1 choice.
There’s not really a whole lot you can do to have an alumni interview singlehandedly block your admission, but there’s a lot you can do in it to help your standing in the process. We’re human. We understand when and why you’re nervous. We’re not grading you on public speaking. We’re helping to define for the college who you are, so there’s no wrong answers in being yourself.
Ignoring us when we do everything we can to give you a hand up just tells us you don’t care about the school. And from our perspective, there’s about 18,000 other high school seniors who really do.</p>