<p>IxnayBob, perhaps. He was absolutely fine and perfectly normal communicating with my husband, it was just me. </p>
<p>This was back in the early 90s, so we were not really aware of autism at that time.</p>
<p>Not to pile on, but after reading this thread, this flashed through my mind…</p>
<p>Four years from now…</p>
<p>OP: “I cannot believe all these companies want to interview me. It’s such a pain! Can’t they just read my resume and see how wonderful I am. After all, I’m a graduate of Big Name U! I have classes to go to and clubs to attend, don’t they know how busy I am? I can’t be bothered with researching all these companies and preparing for their questions. How important is the interview really?”</p>
<p>I think it’s OK. Just don’t expect to get accepted to schools where you declined the interview.</p>
<p>@PurpleTitan</p>
<p>It’s true that a few universities do really care about interviews. With that said those schools usually have the interviews on campus and conduct them even for transfer. Given the fact that some Ivys don’t even do interviews for transfer should signify their importance at those universities. </p>
<p>@bearpanther strong underneath is really interesting. IMO unless the school does interviews for everyone on campus, mathematically speaking it would be better just to decline the interview. </p>
<p>I am an interviewer for one of my alma maters which has an admit rate below 10%. I interview 10-12 students each year and typically one (or none!) gets accepted. Last year I was in contact with an applicant about an interview but we were not able to coordinate a time before the deadline. Out of all the students assigned to me for RD interviews, the one who didn’t do the interview was the only one accepted. I truly enjoy interviewing as a great way to meet interesting young people and to stay connected to/ share my pride in my university, but I don’t think for a minute that my interviews make a difference in who gets in. </p>
<p>Would you decline a job interview? </p>
<p>@bomerr, I don’t think you got the point I was trying to make, which is that the actual results of an interview may not matter much, but declining an interview very well could be a data point that counts against you. </p>
<p>It’s better to have a meh interview than to turn one down, which will reflect badly on the applicant. There are many cases of students who didn’t have the best interview being accepted, so don’t worry if you are shy or don’t like interviewing. On the other hand, the school may interpret a refusal negatively, as if the applicant can’t be bothered to take the time. While it’s true that they don’t count for much, refusing one sends a message that I believe does count.</p>
<p>@PurpleTitan
Look at two posts above yours. “Out of all the students assigned to me for RD interviews, the one who didn’t do the interview was the only one accepted.”</p>
<p>As I said. Unless the school ITSELF demonstrates that interviews matter, and usually those schools that do will interviews on campus for all students including transfer. It’s best to decline. </p>
<p>Little kid mentality = I need to do everything I am told and give the college every bit of optional info.
Adult mentality = I’m confident and wise enough to decline situations which are not in my best interest. </p>
<p>@bomerr, feel free to believe what you like. Yes, some applicants are so compelling that they’re accepted even if they turn down an interview. Most are not.</p>
<p>Also note that that applicant did not turn down an interview; he/she wanted one but was not able to set one up.</p>
<p>@PurpleTitan
Samething.</p>
<p>If that person wanted to do the interview bad enough they would have made time. </p>
<p>It is clearly not that important for the admission decision but, turn it around and consider the interview as a way of finding out if the school is really for you. The reality is that the interview is just as much about you interviewing the alum as the other way around. This is a way to find out about possibly interesting people who live in your geographic area whom you might well want to know when you graduate in 4 years. This is the first step in building a network, take advantage of it.</p>
<p>However, if you have the attitude that it is just an annoyance to do the interviews, then don’t even bother. You are not getting any benefit from it.</p>
<p>I feel for you, OP. My daughter also is feeling very put out by all these interviews. Really, it’s a bunch of people being fake and selling themselves. She didn’t like a couple of the interviewers (one seemed depressed, one seemed obsessed with scores and salary and wanted to know which neighborhood she lived in) and it made her question the school-- (do i want to turn out like this?) but really is that fair? These are great schools. It’s the interviewers who were off. Honestly I think it’s a waste. Look up the common data sets and let yourself out of them guilt free if they do not actually have consequence on the decision.</p>
<p>@bomerr To clarify, the interview assignment came to me just a few days before the deadline and the student was going out of town for some type of competition so there really was not time to meet. I’ve never had an applicant reject an interview, but I do know of students who were never offered an interview and were accepted (currently my alma mater is not able to offer alumni interviews to 100% of applicants). </p>
<p>@MrMom62 @ricck1 Now obviously if these were job interviews where the outcome truly had an effect, I wouldn’t mind one bit. But the fact is these alumni interviews don’t have a significant effect at all. But for some strange reason they count it against you if you don’t go, even though once again it has no significant effect, as other people have demonstrated in this thread. Also consider that they proclaim these to be “informational” and to “know the applicant better”. I’ve even seen some of the documents for interviewers that say “do not mention the word interview or make it seem like one”. Sooo, all in all, these interviews just reek of nonsense to me and have no clear purpose. If one has already done research on the school, talked to alumni or through this website here where there’s a wealth of information available for each university, poured their heart out in the supplements and Common App, visited, etc etc what purpose or benefit could this interview possibly have? </p>
<p>@pranayama Which school did you interview for? I thought the schools contact all the applicants a month ahead of time before the deadline. </p>
<p>@rhandco Why wouldn’t you recommend doing more than 2 in a day? I would really prefer if I could get them over with in 2 days tops and not have to strenuously worry about them. And I’m not particularly cynical about the process, just annoyed. These schools have lower than 10% acceptance rates and continually tease the applicants through fancy pamphlets and interviews like these that have little to no bearing at all but supposedly is damaging if you don’t attend. It just makes no sense to me and is stupid. That’s all.</p>
<p>@PromotionMan , you live in NYC. More than likely, total time door to door for the interview will be what, 2-3 hours? Why not do a couple and see? You might actually enjoy it, as so many applicants have. There are some few bad interviewers and some unlucky mismatches between applicant and interviewer, but our experience with DS and his cohort is that for the most part, the interviewers are skilled at making it a low-stress and rewarding time. </p>
<p>ETA: especially at the selective schools. </p>
<p>ETA2: DS had two interviews (senior and alum) at his first choice and enjoyed them both. They were a factor in his decision to attend. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It has been my observation that admission to top schools is often a very narrow thing, one where you don’t know where you are in the Big Sort. You have no idea if you’re a shoe-in or will barely make it past the finish line. And it makes no difference, because in the end, you’re either in or out, coming in first or last makes no difference, you just want to make the cutoff.</p>
<p>My daughter went through the process last year and having gone over the data the school released about her class, I can tell you in all honesty, she barely made it in. But she made it. A friend just made it this year, and she scraped by as well. They’ll both do fine at the school, but I can’t think of a single thing these two overdid to get in. As far as I’m concerned, every little thing, from interviews, campus visits, letters of rec, alumni recommendations, and legacy status to APs, ECs, essays, test scores, and GPA all combined to get them over the finish line. And since you don’t know where you stand, why not do everything you can possibly do to get into a place that the vast majority of people will not get into? </p>
<p>Never be so arrogant to think that you won’t be the last person to get in and that you got in because you did one more thing right than the other guy who didn’t.</p>
<p>I do alumni interviews for an Ivy. That’s why I know what weight they can have, at least at my alma mater and the others. If you are not borderline, one way or the other, as long as you don’t mess up (like mention how you love Cambridge to the Princeton alum or be totally uninterested, the latter which I have experienced and commented on how the person would NOT be a good fit - they didn’t get in), it won’t matter too much how the interview goes.</p>
<p>We get assignments on a rolling basis. And since many alumni work full-time (isn’t that the point of going to college?), we don’t have the ability to conform to a student’s schedule. If a student says “I can fit you in Monday at 2 pm or 3 pm” and that doesn’t work for me, and he shot down the times I offered, I would wonder how much the student cared about attending my university.</p>
<p>To be honest, if you can’t schedule something easily, ask for a phone interview. It might be easier for you to prep for each individual school by having all the materials in front of you, which would look odd at an alumni interview. Some universities offer Skype interviews as well.</p>
<p>I am feeling like you don’t understand that each college is putting a huge investment into each student it enrolls. You are “annoyed” that some colleges find that alumni interviews help them break ties between two equally qualified applicants. </p>
<p>You know that you can look up what does have bearing for each school’s adcom. Some schools value test scores more than GPA, some value academic GPA over overall GPA, some consider references more strongly. If you find that of the nine interviews you were offered, five schools say “not considered” for interviews, decline them. Because they only offer the interviews for you to learn more than you can find in a Google search or on CC. </p>
<p>Or better yet, don’t apply to nine schools that recommend interviews if you don’t want to sit and talk about the college for a half hour.</p>
<p>The way you say “they” about “all elite institutions” is like there is some kind of cabal out there where they are laughing at applicants who don’t have a chance. </p>
<p>The purpose for me to do alumni interviews is to share my love of the university and get an idea of the level of interest the student has in the university. I do not care about their test scores or whether they are highly qualified or have no chance. The adcom doesn’t even tell me that. The student could have figured that out on their own. I have a sense of the student body when I went there, and how it is now through attending alumni events and reading up on it. One of the student’s who got an academic LL from my college showed interest in how environmentally friendly the campus was, and I was able to link my days at school to alumni events, and how there has been a continuous tradition of being environmentally friendly. Isn’t that better to hear from a person than in a marketing brochure?</p>
<p>Decline or request a phone interview. To answer your question, “it’s okay to refuse interviews if you want to risk that having a bearing on your acceptance”. And that does depend on the college.</p>
<p>@PromotionMan
“what purpose or benefit could this interview possibly have?”
That is because they are NOT designed to benefit you. Like one of the posters above said, they are using this interviews to see if there are any huge inconstancies in the applicant. It’s a weederview; they are trying to weed you out. </p>
<p>People are weak. By feeling guilty and believing their chances of admissions will drop if they refuse, people get suckered into interviews by emotion. Instead it’s best to logically analyze the situation. Unlike a job interview, the interviewer isn’t able to allow admissions. So unless the admissions officer has a great respect of trust in the opinion of the interviewer, they’ll just evaluate you themselves through the application. </p>
<p>As I said, some colleges do value the interview heavily. Those ones you should do. Reject the rest. </p>
<p>Gosh @bomerr, aren’t you just a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day!</p>
<p>I don’t do interviews, but I’m a shill for the great conspiracy that suckers weak applicants to “weederviews.” Seriously, did you have an unfortunate interview that you blame for an unfortunate outcome? It’s okay to view interviews as optional, if that’s truly how you feel, but do you think you’re being helpful to OP with response #38?</p>