<p>What are the pros and cons of the off-campus interview? I'll be applying to at least nine schools and it won't be possible for me to visit all of them. I live in NYC, and I know that Deerfield requires an applicant to go there if they live within 350 miles from the school. I'm applying to these schools:</p>
<p>Exeter
Andover
Milton
Choate
Hotchkiss
Taft
Lawerenceville
Deerfield
Millbrook (still debating)</p>
<p>Right now, I'm thinking that I'll visit 4 of them at the most.</p>
<p>If you don't go to the campus but you live within reasonable traveling distance, will the school in question consider you to be 'not serious' about attending? And to those of you out there who have gone with the off-campus option, how did it go? Were you accepted even to the schools you did not visit personally? I'm just worried since the interview is such an important part of the whole admissions process. Thanks for sharing!</p>
<p>Honestly, yes. If you live a few hours drive away and don’t bother to come to the school over the 6 month application period, it will hurt your application. I’m actually not sure I would even bother with the fee. Just apply to the ones you can visit.</p>
<p>So if you live 2-3 hours away and don’t go, they will not even consider you?</p>
<p>i had an off campus interview…
i still got in…?
whats wrong with off campus interviews? the only con that i can think of is that id never seen my school until my revisit day</p>
<p>Based upon my son’s application process last fall and winter, I am convinced that on- campus interviews are much better than off-campus interviews for several reasons. First, on campus interviews show commitment. Second, with an on-campus interview, your interviewer will almost always be someone directly involved on a daily basis with the admissions process; you want those folks to know and love you. They pull more strings than some alum in your home town who is often clueless about the admissions game. Third, and most valuable, with an on-campus interview, you get to visit and interview the kids and the teachers on the very campus you may attend. People make a school; you need as much exposure to them as possible before you commit to that school.</p>
<p>For what it is worth, my son had 4 on-campus interviews and 6 off-campus interviews at the 10 schools to which he applied. He got into all but one of the schools where he had an on-campus interview. He was waitlisted or rejected at all but one of the schools where he had an off-campus interview. If we could have done just one thing over again in my son’s application process, it would have been to have arranged on-campus interviews at every school to which my son applied, even through we lived over 500 miles from every such school.</p>