<p>Came across an interesting blog entry about alumni interviews --</p>
<p>College</a> Explorations: Stanford's Pilot Alumni Interview Program: Where Are We?</p>
<p>Check out the comments -- it looks like Shawn Abbott (Stanford's Director of Admissions) personally wrote a response -- interesting! Why does Stanford feel the need to defend themselves against the blogosphere?</p>
<p>The blogger responded with this post --</p>
<p>College</a> Explorations: Stanford's Pilot Alumni Interview Program--Continued</p>
<p>A friend sent this my way, and I thought I'd forward it along to the College Confidential folks (haven't looked at this forum in years -- all done with college admissions now!). BTW, the blog looks pretty interesting on the whole for folks figuring out college applications -- collegeexplorations.blogspot.com</p>
<p>The blog was fairly misleading and skeptical and I can understand why Mr. Abbott (who actually seems like a really cool, chill guy) chose to respond. Just a question, is this the first time the admissions office responded to something like this?</p>
<p>I think the interviews are beneficial to everyone involved but not to a point that it actually gives an admissions advantage to those involved. For the interviewers and Stanford, it provides a great way to get “closer” to their applicants. As someone who interviewed at a lot of schools, I always felt that interviews helped me become A LOT more familiar with them. </p>
<p>As long as Stanford pledges to expand their area offerings, I don’t see anything wrong with this.</p>
<p>I’m surprised that he chose to respond. I met him before and he is a really chill guy, unless this is some huge important blog, with all the misinformation already out there it’s not a big deal. Anyway the interviews are not taken very seriously in the admissions process and you can’t just move from no interviews to all interviews in the span of a year (or even a few).</p>
<p>Maybe he was bored? Like, really really bored?</p>
<p>I’m not sure how the blog is misleading – it seems like the author more or less used the facts that Stanford was willing to release and just asked a few good questions. It is strange that Stanford wouldn’t release more information and that they would react so much to a blog.</p>
<p>Can’t say I’m too well-read in college application sites on the internet – is this a popular blog? It certainly seems well-researched (they found the “Faculty Senate” notes!) and posted-to fairly often by a college counselor, and it has quite a few comments. If I were applying today, I wouldn’t be too happy if I weren’t offered an interview but someone else was, solely based on where I live, especially without the option to drive to the closest interview city.</p>
<p>And hopefully “bored” admissions directors could find better uses of time making a great freshman class!</p>
<p>The problem with random internet comments is that you can not verify anything and should not assume anything. I can’t be certain, of course, but I highly doubt this is actually Shawn Abbott. An admissions officer would be very unlikely to word things in the manner of these posts. It is beyond me why someone would go to such effort to impersonate an admissions director, but I have seen much stranger things. </p>
<p>You simply can not be sure of anything you read in a comments section or message board (including the discussion section of CC).</p>