Sometimes a student rep is assigned to a prospect on the mailing list and reaches out for conversations, questions, even zoom meetings.
Sometimes the college website has an array of student reps that you can reach out to.
What’s your guess or knowledge about the question of whether this registers somehow as demonstrated interest? I assume it is far better to interact with your admissions counselor in this regard, but do think or know if these student reps report back in any way?
This is what my D did, but I have no knowledge how it was viewed by Admissions. After the interaction with the student rep (usually a Zoom), she followed up with a short thank you email to the student and cc: the regional AO. I believe this was suggested by her high school college counselor. ETA: She did the same after interactions with faculty.
Typically, student reps are asked or required to report back all contacts with prospective students.
Some schools tell you they don’t track demonstrated interest (i.e. Boston College and Villanova) and some say they do (i.e. Boston U and Tulane). A rep from a school my D is interested in is coming to our high school. Even if their website is correct that they don’t, it’s still a good opportunity for her to get info and see if the school is a good fit for her.
Not a direct response to your question so sorry in advance.
We were able to meet the regional AO at an accepted students event at one of my son’s more competitive schools. I commented that we had been unable to visit and that I had been concerned it might have harmed his application.
She responded something along the lines of, he showed a great deal of specific demonstrated interest in his essays. She then went on to discuss a portion of the essay and how she agreed that the school could help him achieve his goals that he had discussed. It was clear she knew why (insert school name) from the totality of his application and that it mattered to her more then a campus visit would have.
I came away realizing the level of detail the AOs went to when accepting a student (I suspect it varies depending on how far you get in consideration). The term “show vs tell” seems a bit over used but also seems to apply in our experience when showing interest.
I also realized checking boxes was best case irrelevant worst case probably an annoyance. She seemed exhausted!
Not sure if this is the case everywhere but it was one of the many surprises I hadn’t appreciated previously.