I was contacted by the admissions office early this month via email telling me to expect to be contacted by someone for an interview. My application was completed late December but I haven’t received anything from the interviewer yet. Should I contact him first?
No, I think you should just sit and wait. The interviewer will contact you when he or she has time, and somewhere I read it said that Princeton offers interviews to an overwhelming majority of its applicants (on a website it specifically said 99.8%) so I would not worry too much.
Also, if your interviewer never contacts you at all, it does not indicate that you were rejected, nor will it hurt your chances. Because Princeton is in charge of setting up an interview and not you, the school knows that you have no control over the situation. I know several people who got in without having an interview.
I also got an e-mail to expect an alumni to contact me for an interview. I haven’t heard from him till now either @bananaflower
I differ. It’s been a month. A simple email requesting follow up is not intrusive. Email the person. Good luck.
I got an email from Princeton on the 13th of Jan. saying to wait for another email, and on the 15th, I was contacted by an alumnus regarding the interview. I had the interview last week and the interviewer (who was super nice btw) told me that on the down low, the interviews are a way to make sure that the applicant is really who he/she says he/she is, and that the information is just used as a supplement to the application. And its made out to be a ‘big thing’ (because you’re actually meeting someone connected to the school and its fucking scary), but my interviewer said that its one of the least important aspects of the whole application, at least for Princeton.
So yeah, pretty sure I haven’t helped in anyway, but I just wanted to say that if you don’t get an interview, it shouldn’t matter at all so don’t stress too much, especially if you have a solid application.
I still have not been contacted by an interviewer, and I submitted my application four or five days early
Please check your spam emails. The interviewer sent me a response on the 13th when I had waited a month after the initial “you will be contacted soon by an alumni” message…
It was only by fortune that her follow-up did not go there!
I never even got an email stating that I would be contacted. I got one stating that my application was complete, one that they opened a file for me, and one that I was registered for access to the application tracking system
Scheduling the interview is left up to the individual interviewer. The deadline for submitting the report is March 1st , so many interviewers may be too busy to schedule them in January and will wait until February to do them.
I agree that the interviews don’t have much effect on your chance for admission. The real point is just to find out a little more about applicants as people. If there is something unusual about your experience that wasn’t addressed in the rest of your application, this is a good time to discuss it.