<p>RD. Need to know about financial aid, etc.; we didnt want her applying anywhere early that was binding.</p>
<p>Just FYI, when applying ED asking for financial aid, the school will make an offer you can decline if it’s insufficient to support attendance. You must take it or leave it, with no chance to compare offers, so ED is appropriate only for the number one top choice, the dream school, when you want only to know if you can afford it. ED increases chances of admission somewhat at some schools, the ones that love being loved. 
FA calculators can give a good estimate, warning that you might be wasting your application fee.</p>
<p>Thank you for that information. We have a lot of financial balls in the air (as we have another child already in college and a third just starting to look), so the decision-making process isn’t clear-cut enough for us to go ED, but I can see where, under less complicated circumstances, what you say would make a lot of sense.</p>
<p>Same thing happened to my daughter - she got an email saying that there weren’t enough interviewers in our area. She is now a freshman at Tufts, so it didn’t seem to hurt her application at all!</p>
<p>Hi Rizado - thanks everyone, for encouraging the email to us. (And, thank you Rizado, for writing to me). We’re in the process now of figuring this out. </p>
<p>For everyone else: if you have an interview experience that leaves you feeling deeply unsettled, please let us know. It’s very rare, but hearing from you is how we can keep the experience productive for everyone.</p>
<p>
To elaborate, the admissions committee at least claims that there’s a higher yield rate of students who are interviewed. So, in addition to giving the committee a slightly wider perspective on the candidate, an interview gives the candidate a wider view of the school and gives them an opportunity to engage more directly with a member of the Tufts community in a (hopefully) positive manner. It also gives the alumni a way to give back to the school in a meaningful way other than just mailing in a check.</p>
<p>Also, I just gave my first interview today!</p>