<p>I got a call this afternoon from a man who said he was a recent grad from Cornell and now lives in Chicago (I live in the suburbs) and asked me if I had any questions about Cornell. His call woke me up but it was 12:45 so I was too embarrassed to mention that but I was really out of it and caught completely off guard. We talked for probably 20 minutes at most, me listening to his explanations only enough to be able to ask a follow-up that would eat up some time while thinking of the next question to ask. Needless to say my questions were really vague (oh, did you study abroad? what was that like?) but apart from my high school and intended major, he didn't ask me any questions but he was a local alum and I have not been contacted by any other Cornell alumni for interviews or anything, so was this my alum interview?? Is he writing something about me to the admissions people or was this just a courtesy to help applicants out? Does this mean anything and does my possible seeming lack of interest in Cornell hurt me??</p>
<p>I don’t think that was an official alumni interview.</p>
<p>If I’m not mistaken, aren’t evaluations for interviewees were due February 22nd? If so, that means if this was an interview it was purely informative. He couldn’t have sent your evaluation late.</p>
<p>Well I don’t know, I’m just a kid applying to Cornell. My interviewer told me evaluations were due 22nd and someone on this forum said it as well.</p>
<p>Maybe it was just to inform you.</p>
<p>I had an interview last week; it was a phone interview and it sounds pretty similar to yours.</p>
<p>Only difference is I was told about it beforehand</p>
<p>The CAAAN guidelines do indicate that the only purpose of the first phone call to an applicant should be to ask if the applicant would like to meet and to set up the appointment.</p>
<p>Evaluations were due on February 22…but maybe the alum was behind on his meetings or just forgot about the deadline.</p>
<p>wellisntthatnice - the same thing just happened to me! he called, told me he was asked by cornell to contact me to see if i had any questions. he left his number and told me i could call him back if i had any questions, at any point. it seemed optional, low-key, and really bizarre. i was most curious about whether he would submit a write-up to the admissions office following our conversation, but cornell admissions office was closed when i just called so i still don’t know! i can’t imagine him being able to write something after a short conversation whose sole purpose is seemingly for the applicant to gather information. and also, he made it seem optional… so idk what he’d do if i just didn’t call him back.</p>
<p>and the fact that we’re getting contacted SO LATE seems weird, too. i bet they’ve made a large portion of the admissions decisions by now…</p>
<p>do you have any idea if the alum submits any sort of evaluation?
is this definitely INSTEAD of an interview? i.e. will we definitely not additionally have an alum interview now?</p>
<p>any knowledge would be greatly appreciated! thanks!!</p>
<p>plumsnow - Same thing here. The interviewer told me if I thought of any other questions to call him and gave me his number. He never said or even implied that me calling would lead to an in-person interview and made it seem like calling him was something that I didn’t really need to follow up on. It was really weird and I don’t see how he could’ve wrote a thing about me unless he told the adcoms what questions I asked…which would be sort of strange.</p>
<p>BUMP if anyone knows what this is all about</p>
<p>I have an alum. interview scheduled for this Thursday, March 5. My guy must be way behind or have no idea about the ‘deadline’. Oh well.</p>
<p>SOOOO…</p>
<p>i called cornell undergraduate admissions office to ask about this whole thing
the representative with whom i spoke told me that:
cornell does not offer any “interviews” (with the exception of a few particular schools, including the hotel school)
all that cornell does is give alum lists of applicants, whom they should call and ask if they have any questions
then, it is up to these alum to decide whether they want to meet their applicants in person or whether it should just be a brief/optional phone call
the rep said that these conversations/“interviews” are not evaluative and that there is no write-up or anything following them
they are purely for the applicant to learn info about cornell!</p>
<p>assuming this is all true…
we have nothing to worry about!
and the questions we ask can be as stupid and pointless as we want! 
i still haven’t called my alum back… hmmmmm</p>
<p>What plumsnow said is correct, save for the fact that alums were given until Feb. 22nd to send in a narrative report of their contact highlighting anything that they thought was pertinent to an applicant.</p>
<p>Narrative reports were due on the 22nd, as Dew mentioned. At the same time we can contact students until the 5th to see if they have any questions or concerns about Cornell, but there will be no write-up.</p>
<p>Not having a contact can’t hurt you. Nor would having a contact after the 22nd.</p>
<p>In my committee, we were able to make contacts with all but three students before the 22nd deadline. For the remaining students, we made a call much like the OP received.</p>
<p>Please don’t lose sleep over this.</p>
<p>Thank you plumsnow and Cayuga. That’s a big relief.</p>
<p>Like CR said, things can get sent into Cornell. My interviewer wrote some things down and send them in on a form.</p>