<p>My opinion to said question is that colleges want to see if the student wants to show himself in another aspect. I think that if a college is within a few hours driving distance, and you are determined to get accepted, or at least trying your best to make a shining application, then there's absolutely no good reason as to why you should decline to attend an optional interview. I also think that if schools see that a student goes for an interview, it will help very much, even if the guy totally bombs it, because he cared enough to get the interview, thus showing a strong interest. However, if you go for an interview, bomb it, and don't have anything outstanding on your application to make up for it, then you just lowered your chances of getting accepted, obviously...so be careful about that. But all-in-all, getting interviewed is the single best thing you can do for yourself to get accepted to that college. Now, tell me what you guys think!</p>
<p>“But all-in-all, getting interviewed is the single best thing you can do for yourself to get accepted to that college”</p>
<p>Well that would fly in the face of the known fact that a 60-minute encounter between a nervous applicant and a relatively untrained and humanly prone to bias interviewer has serious shortcomings. And I’ve been doing them for almost twenty years.</p>
<p>From my experience, the salient point you make is the ability to “show another aspect” of yourself that isn’t in the application. This is about it.</p>
<p>As you seem to wish to deem it as a “test” of willingness which receives a subsequent favorable response by the college, I’d say you’re off-base as about 1/4 of the acceptees to my HYP alma mater didn’t get interviewed.</p>
<p>Last year was the apex for me: 15 interviews including 5 Earlies. I considered one of them the single best interviewee I’ve had in all 19 years. All were declined. That’s how the numbers stack up and I wasn’t surprised and didn’t allow myself to be too disappointed.</p>
<p>(Also, my college offers interviews to all applicants – no pre-screening shoo-ins or zero chance applicants.)</p>
<p>But back to your original question. Here are the viable reasons:</p>
<p>1) as stated, to allow the applicant to inject another aspect previously not included in the application
2) good public relations: applicant feels “taken care of” by the college. Helpful alum or admissions officer answers questions and shares nice anecdotes. Even if applicant gets dinged, he/she still leaves feeling good about the school. The high schools feel good about top college interviews being conducted with their kids. They feel pretty sharp too.
3) Cynically, to keep alumni interviewers happy & involved in helping the school (and more inclined to give).</p>
<p>I know that last year, two guys from a decent school in my area were seriously being considered by my alma mater. Their files looked strong but the teacher recs were lacking. While supportive, they were written rather formulaic and without enthusiasm. The admissions office took this to be the fault of the teacher and not the students. Alumni interviews with both confirmed the strong areas of their files. The alumni each were very supportive and gave lots of anecdotal details to back up their praise. These were crucial in tipping the committee into offering both acceptances.</p>
<p>More likely it is because the board or committee at the college that made the decision could not come to a definite conclusion when the issue was voted on because half the members thought interviews were useful, the other half thought they were useless, and they compromised to make it optional. For not so high ranked colleges, it is often just an opportunity for the college to recruit. Possibly useful for borderline candidates.</p>
<p>“Well that would fly in the face of the known fact that a 60-minute encounter between a nervous applicant and a relatively untrained and humanly prone to bias interviewer has serious shortcomings.”</p>
<p>I disagree with the above. In the event that a school requires an interview, if the student ends up getting interviewed by an “untrained and humanly prone to bias interviewer”, what good would that do? If it has serious shortcomings, why is it required, assuming the school KNOWS it has shortcomings? If the school, for a single moment, would have the nerve to say “nah that interview wasn’t very useful now was it…” then it isn’t a very good school is it? I had an interview a Bucknell and my interviewer was a 24 yr old alumni of the school. I was the first student she ever interviewed, and it took about 15 minutes and I swear she didn’t learn anything about me. She asked nonsense questions, which in a way proves your point. Bucknell required an interview from me, so I had no choice. So can it be inferred that a school’s quality is partially based on the quality of the interviewers?</p>
<p>You make a good point. For some schools “demonstrated interest” factors highly in their willingness to make offers. For some schools, this means nothing. I think you’ll find that interview-optional schools treat the write ups as I’ve described above. For those schools that factor in “demonstrated interest”, I agree that an applicant should try to have the appt. as the willingness would be a swaying factor in the decision process.</p>