Hello. So I applied to Stanford REA with an arts portfolio in Dance. My friend also applied EA. He got a stanford interview, but I didn’t? Could this mean anything?
One thing to consider: He is intending an engineering major, Whereas I put Statistics, Physics, or some sort of research science. The alumni who contacted him is an engineer from stanford.
He has the same stats as me, but if anything, I have more credible extracurriculars so I was confused.
Could also be that your interviewer have not contacted you yet, they are given a deadline for that but they are given plenty of time. I would say stay patient.
There are several possibilities. One of the more likely ones is that the number of applicants exceeds the number of available interview spots. This happens regularly in my region. My regional coordinator will sometimes send a mass email midway through the interview cycle, asking alumni interviewers to increase the number of desired interviews in their profile, so she can assign more applicants to interviewers. If this happened in your region as well, then some applicants will get the option for interviews and others will not.
Interviewers are assigned by location. I always get assigned to students from nearby high schools. Aside from location, I’ve found little pattern to who I get assigned. I was an engineering major and work in engineering, yet the overwhelming majority of students I interview are interested in fields other than non-CS engineering. Many students I’ve interviewed seem exceptionally well qualified. A few appeared to be notably lacking. I can’t distinguish the assignment from random.
Another possibility is someone was assigned to your interview, and he has not yet contacted you. The interviewer may not regularly be checking the email listed in his profile to see the interviewer assignment, or the interviewer assignment may have been caught in a spam folder, or he may have been busy this week and be waiting until next week to do interviews.
Students are not penalized for being unable to interview. Stanford has not yet expanded their interview program to most SF bay counties – San Francisco, Santa Clara, Almeda, San Mateo, … so it is quite common for applicants to not have interviews in their file, and a good portion of matriculating students are admitted without getting an offer to interview. I believe that in the previous admission cycle, 52% of applicants were given the option to interview.
When it’s Stanford, so highly competitive and with high expectations, it’s wise to check your resources, to be the sort who does review the situation before freaking. From their web:
“It may be that we do not have enough volunteers in your area to interview each applicant. Please do not worry if you are not contacted, as your application will be considered complete without an interview. Applications are not pre-screened for interview eligibility.”
Kk?
Thank you everyone!!
“Applications are not pre-screened for interview eligibility.” Seems like that answers the question. It’s random.
In general, among a number of tippy tops, interviews are managed by Alumni staff. Beyond that, we don’t know how that group chooses. They have no acess to your app. If you’re in Southern CA, it’s very possible there are more applicants than interviewers.