<p>Blech. I live about an hour (two+ hours with traffic) from San Francisco. I just realized that most, if not all, of these interviews will be in that area. The problem is: I may (no, WILL) have difficulty getting to San Francisco. In fact, it's near impossible.</p>
<p>Even if a college recommends that you have an interview, will it be totally against you if you don't request one?</p>
<p>And if you request one, and, say, can't get a ride to said interview and cancel it, is it really frowned upon?</p>
<p>If there's an alumna in your area (as in, my town...), then the school (if said alumna agrees) should allow me to have an interview with him/her in my town, right?</p>
<p>So far, the only interviews I see available are actually by admissions counselors.</p>
<p>Yes, the alumni interviewer will be chosen based on where you live so the alum who lives closest to you (and given scheduling works) should be the one interviewing you. </p>
<p>Interviews usually can only help you--I don't think they will see your app in a negative light if you don't have one. However, if it is in SanFran and you can't get to it, call the admissions office and tell them of your predicament so they know you would have been interested in an interview otherwise.</p>
<p>Yeah, I unfortunately live over 6 hours drive from the nearest MIT interviewer (bleh) so admissions waived the interview...hopefully doesn't make a difference</p>
<p>esgee makes a good point. Unless you really blow things up, the interview will usually have neutral effect on your file, sometimes a positive effect. For example, my HYP college rec'd two apps from kids at a well-known and rigorous inner-city HS. From many appearances, they were intriguing (and fairly qualified) files. However, both students' teacher recs were very staid and formulaic -- not reflecting bad on the students but just NOT INFORMATIVE. As this school regularly submits apps to my alma mater, this weakness was already known. </p>
<p>Each kid also rec'd an alumni interview. In both situations, the alum was able to glean lots of ultimately useful information. Their impressions of the kids' drive and prowess was conveyed in the interview report. These eventually nudged the committee into offering admits to both kids.</p>
<p>This is certainly a unique situation -- but sometimes the interviews DO matter.</p>
<p>Can you get a ride to BART? I live about 2 1/2 hours from San Francisco (about 7-days journey WITH traffic!) and I managed to make two interviews in the Bay Area in one day using BART. I got a ride (an hour and a half) to the BART station and rode to my 9:30am interview in SF (within walking distance from the BART station), got back on BART and rode to my next interview at 2pm in the East Bay (also within walking distance of the BART station). Go to your school's website and find out where the interviews are (they are often at hotels convenient to transportation), and see if they are near enough to BART to make it work.</p>
<p>If you really think you might have to cancel an interview at the last minute, it would probably be better not to schedule one.</p>
<p>The closest BART station is in San Francisco, and my problem is there's no one to take me to San Francisco! There's a bus system and it's really cheap (<$9 per one-way trip) but I imagine doing it six times. I've tried to figure out an interview schedule but no matter what it's gonna end up costing around $100 (including BART and bus to the hotel). It's relatively cheap for six interviews, but my parents have huge medical bills to pay and it's just something they'd rather not deal with when we're saving up pennies.</p>
<p>But, like a couple of people have said, an interview can make you, but it won't break you, right?</p>
<p>All six of your schools offer interviews? Only two of the seven I applied to did, and I scheduled them for the same day. Choose the schools you most want to be admitted to, and use the bus to go to those interviews.</p>
<p>I see you have asked about the UCs and Stanford - those schools don't offer interviews, so you don't have to worry about them.</p>
<p>Tocollege: Yeah, I think that's what I'm going to end up doing. (I'm applying to ten schools, six of which recommend interviews and one which requires one-but I already have that planned out.) Thanks!</p>