<p>Although Yale has probably made all of its admission decisions, I was just wondering about one facet of the process: the interview. </p>
<p>Over the summer I talked to a graduate student there and he explained this 1-9 system that the interviewer grades the interviewee on. 1 means keep this student way away from Yale's campus; 9 means it would be detrimental not to have this individual included in Yale's community. The remaining numbers/grades fall in place accordingly.</p>
<p>With this system in mind, has anyone heard just how much emphasis the adcom places on the interview? If an applicant is on the border, will the interview decide his fate? What if an applicant has a sufficient background but a shining interview, what role does this formality play then?</p>
<p>the interview usually accentuates what the adcom already thinks of you. That being said, I think that if you get a 9 you have a 30% chance of getting in(read that on cc somewhere)</p>
<p>i believe that out of all the ivies, harvard and yale place the most weight on interviews. my own yale interviewer told me that the interview as a very important part of assessing the candidate and that it could bar someone from being admitted. i don't know how true her statement is though.</p>
<p>my interviewer told me that it was casual.... but then again, which interviewer doesnt say that. I feel that my harvard interview was the most evaluative</p>
<p>I was GRILLED like never before... but then again that may have to do with the fact that my interviewer was a lawyer whose job it was to question a witness</p>
<p>my harvard interview was intense. every statement i said she immediately asked "what do you mean?" and i had to go way in depth on the spot. it was stressful.</p>
<p>not having an interview does not count against you in any way.</p>
<p>i'd actually heard that harvard and princeton placed the most emphasis on interviews, as far as influencing decisions goes. not to say that interviews aren't very important and helpful, but they're not absolutely essential. it's quite possible to be admitted to yale without the benefit of an interview--speaking from personal experience.</p>
<p>my harvard interview was amazing. I had two guys and after the two hour debate about politics and such, they told me it was the "funnest" interview they have ever had... good times.. = )</p>
<p>If the adcoms smells something bad in your app, (with all the less then enthusiastic teacher and counselor recs) and the interviewee seem to sense this too, then that's bad.</p>
<p>But if your app is wonderful (including enthusiastic recs from teachers and counselors) yet had a bad interview, I don't think it wouldn't count that much.</p>
<p>Re the above: I know for a fact of one applicant for Harvard who had very good recs, but a very poor interview - Harvard arranged for another interview with a different interviewer, which went very well (he was accepted ED). So I guess if an interview doesn't tally with your application, you might be asked for another.</p>
<p>Wow, you guys have had some pretty gruelling interviews. My Harvard interviewer (physician) told me that all she wanted to confirm was that there was a personality behind the application and that unlike many other interviewers, she would not conduct an interrogation. It was the most INformal of all my interviews and lasted all of 45 minutes. It was my Yale interviewer (biologist) who went down the interrogative route, and the interview lasted 1.75 hrs.</p>
<p>I don't how yours went, so it really could be worse than mine, but here's my nightmare (Harvard) interview:</p>
<p>For some reason, Harvard asked my interviewer to travel down the 100 miles from Reading to Bristol to visit me at my school. So far so good. My high school is selective, and was conducting their own interviews on the same day...so, quite a few classes got bumped from their rooms without being told or put into the system. So, I book the interview room way ahead, turn up a few hours before to set up, come back later with my interviewer to discover...there's a class being taught their. So, we ended up having the interview in my counsellor's office (who did leave the room), and everything was going swimmingly until someone burst through the door (not realising their was an interview going on), slammed straight into my interviewer's chair (with a big bit of force...), and ran out again...although the interview itself did go quite well. </p>
<p>My Yale interview was interesting...it kind of peaked about twenty minutes in, and it looked like he was going to ask me to leave, until I discovered he held a passion for sci-fi (I'd just written a paper on sci-fi in the book we were studying at the time), and so managed to get a nice conversation going.</p>
<p>My Yale interview lasted about 25 minutes or so.....she was a poli sci major and I was her first poli sci applicant (she'd only been doing it for two years). When we were done she said that she thought it was a wonderful interview and that I wanted to go to Yale for all the right reasons. Most kids, she said, just give her these general reasons for wanting to go. With that said I am HOPING the interview will help me!</p>
<p>if the yale interview is truly evaluated like that, i dont think mine went well. basically he told me i hafta figure out which colleges i really want to go to. luckily i think my princeton interview went great.</p>
<p>My Yale guy told me it counted 1 point on a 100 scale so to relax. It went on for 2-1/2 hours, by mutual choice. It was a great experience, in contrast with the H i-view, with a pinhead who had no perspective and argued about minutia...I came home totally frustrated and angry and haven't given a thought to H since. BUT I look forward to the rejection so I can give them a certified letter piece of my mind about the guy. I applied to 14 schools and had 13 awesome i-views...turned me of to H totally.</p>