Interviews and thank you notes - please help!

Fully agree - it’s a no brainer and a professional courtesy to send a thank you note via email. It will only help with admission chances, demonstrate interest, etc.

Every one of my son’s interviewers volunteered and took time away from their jobs or private lives to talk to my son, answer questions, and then inform the schools of the interview. I made my son send an email the day of the interview letting them know he did appreciate that they did so. Imho this just isn’t optional.

I have heard that schools will print the thank you email or put a copy of it (if forwarded by the interviewer) into the student’s admission file.

My child sent emails to every alumni interviewer when she was applying to college last year.

When she interviewed with college faculty for scholarships she sent them all paper thank you notes.

Also, she has BOXES of thank you notes/note cards and a pack of stamps at school. She has been in the habit of giving/sending a paper thank you note since middle school. When I see thank you notes on sale, I buy the nicest and most deeply discounted boxes. It amazes me how something so small makes her stand out so much, and it takes, at most, 10 minutes of her time.

None of my kids sent thank you notes. I think the idea made them feel obnoxious. They still write thank you’s to relatives for gifts and so on but not after college interviews, I don’t think. I don’t think after job interviews either. They have all done fine and aren’t rude. They just didn’t want to be pushy. I understand your sons’ reluctance. I would leave it up to them.

@2mrmagoo I think this is a myth. Certainly my college has no pathway for such a IMHO inconsequential data point to a kid’s application. Colleges are already having to beg and plead with alumni volunteers to get them to interview at all – given the high rates of rejected kids. To infuse the importance of a Thank You note into the interviewer’s mind would be crazy.

If my college asked me and my area volunteers to do that, I’d have some sharp words with them. “Read my d*** reports and recommendations. Don’t log thank you notes!”

I have a close relative who does college admissions. I asked him what he does with a thank-you note. He wrote, “I keep it among the other thank-you notes I have. But that pile is small so they are special.” I asked whether he noted them in their files, and he said, “I note it in my head.”

So, does a thank-you note make a positive impression? Yes. Is it going to make an inadmissible kid admissible? Not likely. Is it memorable and a nice thing to do? Yes. Is there a downside? Can’t think of one.

@surfcity See Post #5

Never said such a thing! I am all for thank you notes or emails for gifts, special events, etc. But not for interviews. Just my opinion. And my world I guess.

I’m with alooknac. And the motives for these thank you notes are both suspect and transparent. My kids got into top schools without any thank you’s. They continue to write nice handwritten notes for gifts and so on. Also, at their age, I feel it is up to them. If there was a particularly nice interviewer who connected with one of my kids, and one of my kids felt moved to write, fine. If not, fine. As it turned out, the interviewer felt a connection and wrote my kid.

DS#1 brought thank you note stationery with him to interviews on campus and left a hand-written not for the interviewer before he left. This was a great idea.

This is what Askamanager.org says about thank you notes:
http://www.askamanager.org/2012/10/youre-making-these-5-mistakes-in-your-interview-thank-you-notes.html

“And the motives for these thank you notes are both suspect and transparent”

compmom, my son’s interviews (well 6 out of 8) were not with ad coms at schools, but with alumni volunteers. These were all professionals taking time from very busy lives. One met my son at the hospital where he is a surgeon and spent 1.5 hours with him. That meeting played a large role in my son choosing the school for ED. That merits a sincere thank you. I don’t think you should assume that all who send thank you emails have some ulterior motive. Maybe, just maybe… they are genuinely thanking them for taking the time.

One caveat I would give for Ask A Manager, any similar websites, or most “career experts” in general (especially those who work in a university career center) is that their perspective tends to be biased very strongly towards action, even when said action is wasteful and just exhausting. Unlike what most such people would say, “Hi I’m XXX and I’m interested in your company’s YYY positions.” is a perfectly valid and useful way to approach a career fair or other career event. Similarly, seldom would you hear “meh it’s not a big deal” for thank you letters and how to send them because that’s just not their approach to this sort of thing.

Part of the reason is that most of these people have a business background. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that - there is a lot of good, important work that goes into business administration and there needs to be people who are trained in dealing with people in various capacities (e.g. in the career office, or in academic advising). The only thing is that they often prescribe a “business major solution” where it isn’t appropriate, a sort of “if all you have is a hammer then everything looks like a nail” situation. The other factor is of course that such people need to justify their existence and they have every motivation to make their work look more complicated.

You will often hear very different suggestions from people whose job it is to speak frankly than from something like AAM. And that’s not to say that AAM and the like aren’t useful (far from it), but just that they don’t take a no-nonsense approach to this thing, and occasionally it really shows. In the context of thank you letters, this means that AAM and ilk are likely to overemphasize and overcomplicate the matter because that is in the owner’s best interests.