<p>So Stanford's coming into town today, and as you can guess, is holding an information session. I don't really feel like it's worth my time to go because I've already been to one two years back, but I already RSVPed. Will they reward me for going, penalize me for staying home, or not do anything at all?</p>
<p>Here’s stanford’s common data set, [Stanford</a> University: Common Data Set 2011-2012](<a href=“http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cds/2011.html#GeneralInformation]Stanford”>http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cds/2011.html#GeneralInformation) scroll down and see how much they care about the level of applicant’s interest.</p>
<p>This pleases me. Now my parents can’t yell at me for skipping out.</p>
<p>I wish other universities had common data sets like Stanford.</p>
<p>EDIT: Oh **** just found some</p>
<p>so it also says that they do not consider it even if you do an interview?</p>
<p>According to the CDS, correct.</p>
<p>Sometimes those CDSs are incorrect. I have seen admissions officers directly contradict the info there. </p>
<p>However, schools like Stanford generally do not care about demonstrated interest. Very little weight is given to interviews either, though my opiniion is that if the ask for one, you don’t decline it. I think they can do more harm than good. I know a couple of interviewers and former interviewers and they’ve mentioned that a lot of kids think they did great, which they try to make the kid feel, when they were really just typical. Most of them are just typical. A good friend was waitlisted when she applied to a very selective program for which she had an in house recommendation, and when her recommender found out, he went straight to admissions to find out why and to throw his significant weight around. Yes, they accepted her on the spot when he huffed in there, and he found that she was WL due to a non sterling interview with an alum. Actually she probably would have been rejected except for the reference and letter from her inside proponent. That gave her a courtesy WL status which was upgrades when he turned the screws.</p>
<p>CPT, it’s unclear if you’re good friend was waitlisted at Stanford or not. Like you I think interviews don’t do much at very selective schools (they get too many apps to really have an even interview process).</p>
<p>Our family friend was not wailisted at Stanford but at an ivy league school. The interview was what made her a no go according to a professor at the school that gave her an excellent reference and push for admittance. The remark came right out of his mouth in my presence and what was said by the interviewer on file was also disclosed. We watched her go from WL to accepted in real time on the computer. </p>
<p>I also know another situation personally, where a student was denied at a school , and the parent called to ask why as the resume was sterling. The interview did not help him was what the admissions office told them, among some other things. Knowing the very quiet, shy young man, I could believe it though it shocked the parents who felt that he would be just fine in an interview and that it would have helped him. That school does not ordinarily even give interviews and they do not count them according to the Common Data Set. The family did cancel other interviews for him after that ED experienced. Other reasons were also given for his not being accepted but the interview was specifically brought up. </p>
<p>The fact of the matter is, that at highly selective schools, the admissions office is an oxymoron in name. Their job is to disqualify and to do so efficiently since the % accepted is so small. There are so many applications and only so many man hours that admissions can give them. Any negative can make an applicant a non accept vs accept. With so many qualified applicants, the job is to look for somehting to eliminate them. So yes, a bad interview can make a difference, Actually a bad write up from an interview would be a flag. Most interviewers do write up theri interviews in a positive way, and they look at it as an opportunity to answer questions and give a personal touch to the process and not an evaluative thing. The kids are not interviewing to be evaluated, but if the session is truly not a good one and the interviewer so mentions it, it can be an issue in terms of acceptance where there are so many kids with great check marks in every single column. I don’t think that an outright reject would occur and in fact, most schools will say that, but the difference can be a WL instead of consideration for acceptance. A great interview even will not get a kid into these selective schools. Most of them have great interfview. </p>
<p>That said, most highly selective schools do have an interview process. I know personally of three kids who got into schools and they did not interview, two inadvertantly as their interview dates got moved and they were accepted before a mutally agreeable date could be scheduled. So much for that.</p>
<p>Stanford says plainly on their admission page that they do not take demonstrated interest into account. Many other schools also disclose their info on their admission web page.</p>
<p>edit: actually I think Stanford does care about your interest, but they have a much more clever way of gauging it. They have a supplement to the Common App. First off, this screens out people who don’t want to take the time to fill it out. And for those that do, they get to take a look at how your answers compare to the standard essays on the Common App; that gives them an idea of how much care and effort you put into those essays, which is a measure of how much Stanford means to you.</p>