Does being contacted for a Dartmouth interview mean anything?

[Anonymous]

My DC applied RD and was just contacted for an interview. I think she’s getting her hopes up and I’m not sure if this means anything.

Any insight?

[Anonymous]

No

It is a way for the school to make money off if you it by no means is an acceptance

Yes if you want to send your kid you must do it
But it is not going to change the acceptance

[Anonymous]

It means they would like to have an interview with her.

It’s not a rejection yet!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No

It is a way for the school to make money off if you it by no means is an acceptance

Yes if you want to send your kid you must do it
But it is not going to change the acceptance

What does that mean? How does an interview make money off of us?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No

It is a way for the school to make money off if you it by no means is an acceptance

Yes if you want to send your kid you must do it
But it is not going to change the acceptance

How does the school make money off a free interview?

[Anonymous]

Everything that's not an outright rejection will get one's hopes up, it's just human nature. She should keep in mind that interviews don't mean that much. All she needs to do is not bomb. The interviewer doesn't have much sway in the process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No

It is a way for the school to make money off if you it by no means is an acceptance

Yes if you want to send your kid you must do it
But it is not going to change the acceptance

What does that mean? How does an interview make money off of us?

I think PP might mean the interviewer is a donating alum. Universities like to keep them engaged with meaningless duties.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No

It is a way for the school to make money off if you it by no means is an acceptance

Yes if you want to send your kid you must do it
But it is not going to change the acceptance

What does that mean? How does an interview make money off of us?

I think PP might mean the interviewer is a donating alum. Universities like to keep them engaged with meaningless duties.

OH. That makes sense. How depressing.

[Anonymous]

It means you live near an eager, young alum who does interviews or a rich alum who enjoys doing interviews.

[Anonymous]

They are only filtering OUT, not filtering IN. She's fine as long as she doesn't bomb.

[Anonymous]

They encourage alumni to interview to keep them "engaged" with the school. I used to do interviews, had many highly qualified candidates, wrote them glowing reviews highlighting specifics about their extensive qualifications and not one ever got in. Stopped interviewing as it was too depressing. If contacted you need to do the interview, do your best to be impressive yet real, have a printed "resume" or personal statement that gives the interviewer what you would like to have highlighted in your review, have interesting things to say about those highlights, and cross your fingers. Good luck it is a great school if it works out for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No

It is a way for the school to make money off if you it by no means is an acceptance

Yes if you want to send your kid you must do it
But it is not going to change the acceptance

What does that mean? How does an interview make money off of us?

I think PP might mean the interviewer is a donating alum. Universities like to keep them engaged with meaningless duties.

OH. That makes sense. How depressing.

It's not depressing. Anything not an outright rejection is a good sign at this point. Can't hurt. It might help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No

It is a way for the school to make money off if you it by no means is an acceptance

Yes if you want to send your kid you must do it
But it is not going to change the acceptance

What does that mean? How does an interview make money off of us?

It makes money not off of you but off the interviewer

It makes the interviewer feel more connected to D and improves giving rates by interviewers to D

[Anonymous]

Meaningless. Alumni do the interviews, it's a way to keep them engaged. Unless your child is incredibly rude/awful, it's meaningless.

[Anonymous]

I don't know about Dartmouth but will make a general statement because many people are reading this with other schools in mind.

MOST schools do these interviews to keep alumni engaged and get their applicant pool excited about the school so they accept an offer if it comes.

SOME schools use the interview evaluatively. It's not a huge part of the application, but it is one they consider.

Universities also differ in whether they offer an interview to every applicant (or sometimes every domestic applicant) or if they do a first evaluation of the application and offer it selectively.

As examples, Yale says specifically on their website that interviews are only offered to a subset of kids where it would make a difference in their application review. On the other hand, Georgetown offers to all kids-- my kid had hers scheduled when she requested the application (they don't use the common app and you have to request an application) and the interview was completed before she submitted the full application. So clearly, they offer to all.

OP--I'm sorry this doesn't address your specific question about Dartmouth, but the university's website will probably give you a hint or perhaps tell you outright, as Yale's does.