<p>Uusually ive heard that students get matched up randomly for interviews...for example, someone interested in journalism, lets say, gets paired up with an engineering major for the interview...not that it matters, because its just random, right? </p>
<p>but what, lets say, if you want to be a journalism major (even wrote your essays on it), and you get paired up with a newspaper journalist who is a harvard grad for the interview. does this mean anything? my counselor at school has said it means that "harvard wants to see if you're really serious about it." Is this true? Personally, i think the interviews are random and its just a coincidence you got someone from your major. whats your guys' opinions on this? if you have a good interview, could the interviewer's comments help you tip the scale in your favor, esp. since he is of your major and can tell harvard if youd be "what they're looking for"? and yet, harvard cant have possibly read a student's application before assigning interviews...can they? </p>
<p>As the interview is the least important part of the application(this is not for debate), it's likely in my mind that whoever Harvard has coordinate interviews wouldn't bother finding candidate specific interviews in addition to all of the other things they need to arrange (take from that what you will).</p>
<p>It's random. It's hard enough finding alum willing to take time to interview without trying to also match their interests/backgrounds with the applicant. My viewpoint comes from my experience of having been my region's alum interview coordinator.</p>
<p>Harvard doesn't care if you're serious about your prospective major. It knows that most students will switch majors a couple of times after being at Harvard and exposed to many things they hadn't been aware of before.</p>
<p>Harvard does not have an undergraduate concentration in journalism. (In general, Harvard has liberal arts majors in the broadest sense, but not preprofessional majors.) It graduates a lot of alumni who go on to great careers as professional journalists. Many of those alumni worked on the Harvard Crimson or other student publications as an extracurricular activity.</p>
<p>I don't know, but I'm a prospective Classics major and out of my interviewers, I've had more English majors and Harvard Grad School alums than I anticipated.</p>
<p>Who the alums get to interview depends on the alum heading the regional committee of alumni interviewers. In their instructions, Harvard asks them not to try to match students with interviewers. However, some committee chairs follow that suggestion, some don't.</p>
<p>I think they do match to the best way as they can. Obviously, it is not always possible to match due to many factors such as availability of alums, where you are located, etc...</p>