<p>I was fortunate enough to receive a phone interview last week with an alumna from my area (in my area, but not close enough to conveniently meet in person). A school friend I have who also applied to Harvard received an interview many weeks ago, so I was a little surprised to receive a call at like 10:00 at night near the start of March! </p>
<p>I thought this was just a standard interview, and my name might have just been on the bottom of the list or something, but after reading a few posts by a Yale alumnus who performs interviews, I am not so sure. My interviewer said something along the lines of "I'm sorry it's so late and on such short notice, they just gave me your name!" and then scheduled the conversation for 2 days later. From what the Yale poster said, this sounds like it might be a last-minute interview for an admissions officer to get a report of me, an otherwise not-interviewed student? That I might be on the fence of reject/admit?</p>
<p>I'm not super worried or imprudently excited about it -- I just thought it was interesting and was curious! The interview went really well, and me and the alumna had a lot in common.</p>
<p>Could be better than on the fence. As in—hey we forgot to interview this guy. Better make sure he’s not a psycho before we admit him. In other words, a low hurdle to clear. Total speculation, of course.</p>
<p>Haha that’d be an ideal situation! It turns out my interviewer and I had similar scientific interests and conduct similar research (obviously hers being more advanced!), so I don’t THINK the word “psycho” will be present in my write-up. I wonder if anyone reading this knows for sure about this type of interview phenomenon?</p>
<p>It’s a typical psychological “trick” that the admissions officers rarely carry out. Normally, they are just trying to see how you respond to certain triggers, and if you can handle pressure and anxiety. They (the interviewer) will definitely tell you that the college told them to interview you last minute. If you have a lot in common with the interviewer, you probably fell to the ploy of a simple phenomenon that deals with the inner value of an applicant.</p>
<p>But seriously, @radsquared you’re most likely accepted. If they were leaning towards denying you, they wouldn’t offer you an interview, because I highly doubt that an interview can change the decision @ the admissions office, it can only slightly help it or reinforce what you displayed on your application</p>
<p>Similar thing happened to me - I was contacted on 2/29 and had my interview on 3/1. My interviewer didn’t mention being asked by Admissions really late to do the interview though…could it be that my alum had just been too busy to do it earlier? Or can I have hope that it means something? :)</p>
<p>I guess we’ll know if it means anything soon enough, @batfan and thomas.</p>
<p>@Manilafolder: What an interesting way of describing this. You seem knowledgeable; do you have any experience/know any of this for certain? And I think I may not fully understand what you are saying. This is a curveball admissions randomly throws out, but I – we – are probably in good standing?</p>
<p>Figured those were the two options. Was wondering what the chances of either being the reality are! haha. Not super important, was jw if there’s a trend I may not have known about (kind of like how I never knew about likely letters until deep in the process)</p>
<p>I just got contacted for an interview today… For what it’s worth, a student from my school was contacted the day Early Action decisions were sent out and was subsequently accepted EA. This is a few weeks earlier than decisions, but it could still mean something. I guess we’ll know in a few weeks :)</p>
<p>I also got contacted about an interview today…my guess is that it doesn’t mean much. It would be awesome if it meant that I might be accepted, but I’m skeptical. But, on another note, nobody in my school got an interview, to my knowledge…only time will tell I guess</p>