that sounds great! They’re probably really interested in you
@desie1 how so? Isn’t that the normal length of interviews?
I keep hearing that a lot of them are only 30 minutes. Particularly with busy admission officers.
@desie1 Hmmm… If that is true, it would be quite strange. I had two interviewers, and they had definitely read my application. They asked a lot of questions about it, and said that they had found it “very interesting”.
@soheils You’re so lucky tbh. Did they say what they found particularly interesting? Was it the essay? And best of luck, I’m sure you’ll get in haha
@mas9797 thanks, but let’s not forget that this may mean nothing. Deference and rejection are still very likely. I am not familiar enough with American etiquette to say if she was merely being polite or actually meant that. And even if she did, it is still no guarantee.
No, they said nothing about why.
I wanted to know the reason for such an early interview. I asked them, and after laughing mysteriously, they said that since scea is really compressed, they interview those whom they find interesting around this time, and that may app had been very interesting and had made them want to meet me . I am not sure about what that means. An American’s input would be welcome.
Those are all really positive signs. Admissions officers often say that successful applications are the ones that make them want to get to know the applicant better. And this is a really busy time of year for admissions officers – they have about three weeks (with a holiday in the middle) to make all of the SCEA decisions, while they are still handling issues for RD applicants and promoting more RD applications. So having two of them give you an hour of their time means that you are getting serious consideration.
Think of it this way: The average rejected application – representing the majority of all applications – is probably read by two people for about 20 minutes apiece, and maybe gets a scan of a summary sheet from a more senior person. That’s 45-50 person-minutes per application (which still represents well more than 600 person-weeks of work just to handle the easy cases). You have already gotten a lot more attention than that. It doesn’t mean that you will be accepted – Harvard’s applicant pool has lots of really interesting people in it, and not all of them can be accepted – but I think it means that the admissions officers believe you are a strong candidate for admission.
@JHS thank you for the information. I appreciate the data, and the American feedback :).
We also laughed a lot. I mean, they laughed so much at some of my anecdotes that my mother, who was in another room, heard them through the headphones (or so she claims). Should I consider that a good sign? Was that just politeness?
Most interviews are good interviews. Most students applying to Harvard are smart people with interesting things to say, and all interviewers are people who like meeting smart high school students. So it’s usually pretty easy for them to make some kind of real human connection, including laughing at each other’s funny stories.
That’s why you can’t read anything into it – most interviews are like that, and only a few interviewees get accepted. It’s not just politeness. They probably really liked you and your anecdotes. But if liking you at the interview were the test, Harvard’s admission rate would be 80%, not 5%.
@JHS i understand. Thank you for clearing that up.
Let us see how my app turns out. Thank you for all your answers guys.