<p>I want to go to schools where showing interest can greatly increase your chances of going in. Unfortunately, I live 1,000 miles+ away and visiting campuses is not an option. I know of several ways to show interest.
1. score an off campus interview (quite doable).
2. directly email your regional admissions officer (??????).
I will definitely go in for the interview, but I also want to email AdCom. Unfortunately... I have absolutely no idea what to write. Do I ask questions? What kinds? Do I just tell them "Hello, I'm _______, class of 201#, and I'm very interested in applying and attending your school."???? What do I say?</p>
<p>(1) After introducing yourself, explain that you live many miles from campus and ask whether the school has admissions officers travelling to your city/state/region for college fairs or presentations; if so, and you are able to travel to meet with them, ask about the procedures for registering to do that.</p>
<p>(2) If there are no travelling admissions staff, ask whether there are local alumni who interview applicants for the school (I know several people who have done this for their Ivy undergraduate schools). If so, ask about the procedures for setting up such an interview.</p>
<p>(3) If the answers to the above are negative, ask whether admissions interviews are required or allowed, and, if so, is the school able to do Skype/video/telephonic interviews.</p>
<p>If nothing else, the telephone call to the admissions officer about your interest in meeting with admissions staff should put you on their radar screen. Good luck.</p>
<p>Excellent ideas above. I would suggest you send and email instead of calling but that is personal preference. IMO email gives 1) you the chance to word things exactly as you like; 2) a record of your contact and 3) allows the admission officer to reply when she/he has time to consider and research your request and see what options are available as well as contact you easily should anything change. You should also put your name of the mailing list for the school which is easy.</p>
<p>^ Yes, I guess that I am a little “old school” with the suggestion about a telephone call! But if you do make a telephone call then definitely follow it up with an e-mail, for the reasons that happy1 states.</p>
<p>My daughter is a rising senior currently working her way through her applications. We’re finding a couple of things. The main one is it may be easier than you think to show interest. Just calling or emailing to set up an interview will do it - “I’m applying to your school and I would like to set up an interview. How would I go about it?” suffices…</p>
<p>The other thing my daughter is discovering. These AO are either very lonely people or they just like talking to people. She emailed a school about their honors program and an AO called! (D missed the call but called back). They chatted about the honors program, meaning he spent several minutes talking about it with D asking a few questions here and there. </p>
<p>Call or email, the contact is logged. Good luck.</p>