Ivy Alumni Interview

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yale only interviews if in the running.

If you're in the top 2% (athlete or donor etc) , they don't.

If you're in the bottom 80% (not really a possible admit), they don't.

so it's a good sign

This isn’t true. I’m an alumni interviewer for Yale and have interviewed kids with likely letters for sports. It is true that they don’t interview everyone, but I have no reason to think they don’t interview the very excellent students.

I find this hard to believe. I interview for another Ivy and was once assigned a committed athlete. I thought that was strange, and sure enough I received an email from admissions telling me it was a mistake…but if I wanted to talk to the athlete I could answer their questions but shouldn’t ask the athlete any questions because I could ask something violates NCAA guidelines (which they did not expect me to be familiar).

I reached out and asked if the kid if he wanted to talk…as expected he said no thanks.

I don’t know why there are posters that are hell bent on saying alumni interviews are meaningless…they literally are for some Ivy schools now…but for others like Harvard, Yale and Princeton (at least)…they do mean something on the margins.

I would be shocked to see if any kids are accepted with terrible alumni interview reports…which of course doesn’t change that most with tremendous interview reports are also rejected.

The thing is the people in this thread are semi-nobodies. Despite graduating Ivy, they are nobodies in the grand scheme of these schools. So they are assigned nobodies who will never get it.

Do you think Malia Obama was interviewed by User 12.17 on DCUM? No, and others like her will be assigned the high ranking alumni who actually do have some kind of influence.

This is why they are saying they have been interviewing kids for 10 years but none get in. It's a false fallacy. i.e. Because noone I interviewed got in, this means the interviews don't matter.

There is some rich and successful interviewer out there who knly conducts 4 interviews and 75% get in every year.

On this issue, their point of view is determined by their status in society.

NP: those famous kids are not getting in BC of the interview, so again, the interviews are largely meaningless.

The one exception I know was an ivy interview and then an (same) ivy rotc interview. I knew when the rotc one came, the kid was in.

Sometimes interviews do matter for the famous kids.

If there are 5 famous kids at the same school, interviews can be used to eliminate a few.

I don't know about Harvard or Yale but I know Columbia does this for NYC privates where half the class comes from an elite background.

Uh, no. 5 famous kids aren’t being rejected.

Former Dalton

Elite kids get rejected and end up at other schools.

NYC is not like DC. There is major money, major elitism and major power there.

The whole class can't be admitted into 8 ivies + Stanford. It's impossible.

Some get rejections.

This is not answering about a whole class or about exclusive privates. It is about famous kids. A Seinfeld and an Obama are both admitted to where they apply.

There are classes with 60% Seinfield types in the NYC top schools.
This is how I know you are just arguing for the sake of arguing.

There may be a large percentage of wealthy kid or kids from “famous” people, but I mean really famous people only. Otherwise, Lori L and Felicity H. Wouldn’t have had to buy their kids in. No, there are not classes with 60% of the kids of kids I am talking about.

Well the point was elite students get interviewed by elite alumni.

If a school is full of elite children from different families politics, banking, entertainment, foreign etc... Interviews can be the deciding factor because they can't all go to Yale.

By the way, there are children whose parents' name you have never heard of who can snap a finger and get a spot.

Malia was just an example, didn't think you would need this much explanation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yale only interviews if in the running.

If you're in the top 2% (athlete or donor etc) , they don't.

If you're in the bottom 80% (not really a possible admit), they don't.

so it's a good sign

This isn’t true. I’m an alumni interviewer for Yale and have interviewed kids with likely letters for sports. It is true that they don’t interview everyone, but I have no reason to think they don’t interview the very excellent students.

I find this hard to believe. I interview for another Ivy and was once assigned a committed athlete. I thought that was strange, and sure enough I received an email from admissions telling me it was a mistake…but if I wanted to talk to the athlete I could answer their questions but shouldn’t ask the athlete any questions because I could ask something violates NCAA guidelines (which they did not expect me to be familiar).

I reached out and asked if the kid if he wanted to talk…as expected he said no thanks.

I don’t know why there are posters that are hell bent on saying alumni interviews are meaningless…they literally are for some Ivy schools now…but for others like Harvard, Yale and Princeton (at least)…they do mean something on the margins.

I would be shocked to see if any kids are accepted with terrible alumni interview reports…which of course doesn’t change that most with tremendous interview reports are also rejected.

The thing is the people in this thread are semi-nobodies. Despite graduating Ivy, they are nobodies in the grand scheme of these schools. So they are assigned nobodies who will never get it.

Do you think Malia Obama was interviewed by User 12.17 on DCUM? No, and others like her will be assigned the high ranking alumni who actually do have some kind of influence.

This is why they are saying they have been interviewing kids for 10 years but none get in. It's a false fallacy. i.e. Because noone I interviewed got in, this means the interviews don't matter.

There is some rich and successful interviewer out there who knly conducts 4 interviews and 75% get in every year.

On this issue, their point of view is determined by their status in society.

NP: those famous kids are not getting in BC of the interview, so again, the interviews are largely meaningless.

The one exception I know was an ivy interview and then an (same) ivy rotc interview. I knew when the rotc one came, the kid was in.

Sometimes interviews do matter for the famous kids.

If there are 5 famous kids at the same school, interviews can be used to eliminate a few.

I don't know about Harvard or Yale but I know Columbia does this for NYC privates where half the class comes from an elite background.

Uh, no. 5 famous kids aren’t being rejected.

Former Dalton

Elite kids get rejected and end up at other schools.

NYC is not like DC. There is major money, major elitism and major power there.

The whole class can't be admitted into 8 ivies + Stanford. It's impossible.

Some get rejections.

This is not answering about a whole class or about exclusive privates. It is about famous kids. A Seinfeld and an Obama are both admitted to where they apply.

There are classes with 60% Seinfield types in the NYC top schools.
This is how I know you are just arguing for the sake of arguing.

There may be a large percentage of wealthy kid or kids from “famous” people, but I mean really famous people only. Otherwise, Lori L and Felicity H. Wouldn’t have had to buy their kids in. No, there are not classes with 60% of the kids of kids I am talking about.

Well the point was elite students get interviewed by elite alumni.

If a school is full of elite children from different families politics, banking, entertainment, foreign etc... Interviews can be the deciding factor because they can't all go to Yale.

By the way, there are children whose parents' name you have never heard of who can snap a finger and get a spot.

Malia was just an example, didn't think you would need this much explanation.

I don’t need any explanation at all. Never did.

[Anonymous]

^^ That's because PP
was roght. You are arguing just for the sake of arguing and you actualky don't know what you are talking about. I've interviewed for Harvard. Famous kids are NOT selected out to be interviewed by a special alum. It's by geographical designation. I covered McLeannand Great Falls and N. Arlington. And also these interviews mean zero to admissions. It's a move to keep alums engaged with the Ivy in the hopes the alums will give more money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Harvard interviewer here. All we get these days is name and high school and email-phone.
They swear it’s random assignment. No idea but the kids are nice

Can you tell us more about the interviews? What ratings do you usually give? What are you looking for?

[Anonymous]

I hope they mean nothing. I had a coworker (about age 30) who once shared in a team meeting that he interviewed for Penn and made a point of only recommending about 1 out of every 10 kids. I was appalled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yale only interviews if in the running.

If you're in the top 2% (athlete or donor etc) , they don't.

If you're in the bottom 80% (not really a possible admit), they don't.

so it's a good sign

This isn’t true. I’m an alumni interviewer for Yale and have interviewed kids with likely letters for sports. It is true that they don’t interview everyone, but I have no reason to think they don’t interview the very excellent students.

I find this hard to believe. I interview for another Ivy and was once assigned a committed athlete. I thought that was strange, and sure enough I received an email from admissions telling me it was a mistake…but if I wanted to talk to the athlete I could answer their questions but shouldn’t ask the athlete any questions because I could ask something violates NCAA guidelines (which they did not expect me to be familiar).

I reached out and asked if the kid if he wanted to talk…as expected he said no thanks.

I don’t know why there are posters that are hell bent on saying alumni interviews are meaningless…they literally are for some Ivy schools now…but for others like Harvard, Yale and Princeton (at least)…they do mean something on the margins.

I would be shocked to see if any kids are accepted with terrible alumni interview reports…which of course doesn’t change that most with tremendous interview reports are also rejected.

I'm not sure what you find hard to believe. Yale is on the record (listen to their admission podcast) saying that they assign interviews to kids who might get in, because they can only interview a certain percentage. I have interviewed 6 kids who got in over my years of interviewing. 1 was an athlete with a likely letter. 1 was among the most connected kids (both politically and to the school specifically) that I have ever encountered personally in my life; he was both a URM and a recruited athlete (who ended up playing 4 years at Yale for a non-niche sport) and was the most impressive kid I have ever interviewed. I am no one. So, in my experience, short of maybe Malia Obama, even connected kids get random interviewers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^ That's because PP
was roght. You are arguing just for the sake of arguing and you actualky don't know what you are talking about. I've interviewed for Harvard. Famous kids are NOT selected out to be interviewed by a special alum. It's by geographical designation. I covered McLeannand Great Falls and N. Arlington. And also these interviews mean zero to admissions. It's a move to keep alums engaged with the Ivy in the hopes the alums will give more money.

The person you are saying was right says the opposite of what you're saying. You and I agree: I never said or thought that special alum are selected to interview special applicants. I agree that alum interviews add nothing unless something inappropriate is reported (racist comment, as an example - which would be virtually unheard of). The only thing I said is that those few kids from very famous and wealthy parents DO get special perks in admissions. That's all I was saying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ That's because PP
was roght. You are arguing just for the sake of arguing and you actualky don't know what you are talking about. I've interviewed for Harvard. Famous kids are NOT selected out to be interviewed by a special alum. It's by geographical designation. I covered McLeannand Great Falls and N. Arlington. And also these interviews mean zero to admissions. It's a move to keep alums engaged with the Ivy in the hopes the alums will give more money.

The person you are saying was right says the opposite of what you're saying. You and I agree: I never said or thought that special alum are selected to interview special applicants. I agree that alum interviews add nothing unless something inappropriate is reported (racist comment, as an example - which would be virtually unheard of). The only thing I said is that those few kids from very famous and wealthy parents DO get special perks in admissions. That's all I was saying.

\

I'll add that I'm also the poster that said that alum interviews are meaningless BUT a lengthy interview with the ROTC officer from an ivy definitely means something They aren't having those lengthy interviews for every ROTC candidate, but rather ones they already know admissions has given the okay to. The three ivy ROTC interviewed candidates I know all were accepted, all had lengthy interviews and all had interviews with the ROTC officers within 10 days of the admissions decisions being released.

That's the interview that I said matters.

[Anonymous]

Interviews really don't matter for admissions to top schools. It's not moving the dial. Take it as a friendly chitty-chat with an alum.

Now Oxford and Cambridge would be a different story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ That's because PP
was roght. You are arguing just for the sake of arguing and you actualky don't know what you are talking about. I've interviewed for Harvard. Famous kids are NOT selected out to be interviewed by a special alum. It's by geographical designation. I covered McLeannand Great Falls and N. Arlington. And also these interviews mean zero to admissions. It's a move to keep alums engaged with the Ivy in the hopes the alums will give more money.

The person you are saying was right says the opposite of what you're saying. You and I agree: I never said or thought that special alum are selected to interview special applicants. I agree that alum interviews add nothing unless something inappropriate is reported (racist comment, as an example - which would be virtually unheard of). The only thing I said is that those few kids from very famous and wealthy parents DO get special perks in admissions. That's all I was saying.

\

I'll add that I'm also the poster that said that alum interviews are meaningless BUT a lengthy interview with the ROTC officer from an ivy definitely means something They aren't having those lengthy interviews for every ROTC candidate, but rather ones they already know admissions has given the okay to. The three ivy ROTC interviewed candidates I know all were accepted, all had lengthy interviews and all had interviews with the ROTC officers within 10 days of the admissions decisions being released.

That's the interview that I said matters.

That would be for presumably the ROTC students that received the four year scholarship. That's a pretty elite group. The military is not dropping $300,000 on randoms. The ROTC students at MIT, Princeton, Vanderbilt, Duke and similar are very impressive. But it's like a sport team. These schools recruit them. The power is actually with the students. And obviously they all interview well to get the four year or the academies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yale only interviews if in the running.

If you're in the top 2% (athlete or donor etc) , they don't.

If you're in the bottom 80% (not really a possible admit), they don't.

so it's a good sign

This isn’t true. I’m an alumni interviewer for Yale and have interviewed kids with likely letters for sports. It is true that they don’t interview everyone, but I have no reason to think they don’t interview the very excellent students.

I find this hard to believe. I interview for another Ivy and was once assigned a committed athlete. I thought that was strange, and sure enough I received an email from admissions telling me it was a mistake…but if I wanted to talk to the athlete I could answer their questions but shouldn’t ask the athlete any questions because I could ask something violates NCAA guidelines (which they did not expect me to be familiar).

I reached out and asked if the kid if he wanted to talk…as expected he said no thanks.

I don’t know why there are posters that are hell bent on saying alumni interviews are meaningless…they literally are for some Ivy schools now…but for others like Harvard, Yale and Princeton (at least)…they do mean something on the margins.

I would be shocked to see if any kids are accepted with terrible alumni interview reports…which of course doesn’t change that most with tremendous interview reports are also rejected.

I'm not sure what you find hard to believe. Yale is on the record (listen to their admission podcast) saying that they assign interviews to kids who might get in, because they can only interview a certain percentage. I have interviewed 6 kids who got in over my years of interviewing. 1 was an athlete with a likely letter. 1 was among the most connected kids (both politically and to the school specifically) that I have ever encountered personally in my life; he was both a URM and a recruited athlete (who ended up playing 4 years at Yale for a non-niche sport) and was the most impressive kid I have ever interviewed. I am no one. So, in my experience, short of maybe Malia Obama, even connected kids get random interviewers.

Because the NCAA has strict requirements of what you can and cannot ask D1 committed, recruited athletes. I am still surprised they would allow just a random alum to interview a recruited athlete vs. alums who literally have been provided some kind of tutorial of how you need to treat a recruited athlete.

While unlikely, you could unknowingly ask questions that violate NCAA D1 policies, and Yale could be subject to some kind of sanctions/penalties from NCAA in the unlikely instance the athlete complains about what you asked to Yale and the NCAA.

I don't really know the ins-and-outs...just remember getting assigned 1 recruited athlete, followed by a lengthy missive from admissions telling me it was a mistake and a litany of NCAA guidelines that ended with...don't interview the kid, just make yourself available to answer questions if the kid wants to talk to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^ That's because PP
was roght. You are arguing just for the sake of arguing and you actualky don't know what you are talking about. I've interviewed for Harvard. Famous kids are NOT selected out to be interviewed by a special alum. It's by geographical designation. I covered McLeannand Great Falls and N. Arlington. And also these interviews mean zero to admissions. It's a move to keep alums engaged with the Ivy in the hopes the alums will give more money.

Is this a new policy? I know a kid admitted 3 years back that asked to see her admissions file. The alumni interview report was specifically indicated in the AO's notes as another positive data point for admission. It didn't pull someone from the brink of rejection...but it seemed to help on the margins.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ That's because PP
was roght. You are arguing just for the sake of arguing and you actualky don't know what you are talking about. I've interviewed for Harvard. Famous kids are NOT selected out to be interviewed by a special alum. It's by geographical designation. I covered McLeannand Great Falls and N. Arlington. And also these interviews mean zero to admissions. It's a move to keep alums engaged with the Ivy in the hopes the alums will give more money.

Is this a new policy? I know a kid admitted 3 years back that asked to see her admissions file. The alumni interview report was specifically indicated in the AO's notes as another positive data point for admission. It didn't pull someone from the brink of rejection...but it seemed to help on the margins.

DD saw her file from last year and the interviewer's report was mentioned in comments as supportive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ That's because PP
was roght. You are arguing just for the sake of arguing and you actualky don't know what you are talking about. I've interviewed for Harvard. Famous kids are NOT selected out to be interviewed by a special alum. It's by geographical designation. I covered McLeannand Great Falls and N. Arlington. And also these interviews mean zero to admissions. It's a move to keep alums engaged with the Ivy in the hopes the alums will give more money.

The person you are saying was right says the opposite of what you're saying. You and I agree: I never said or thought that special alum are selected to interview special applicants. I agree that alum interviews add nothing unless something inappropriate is reported (racist comment, as an example - which would be virtually unheard of). The only thing I said is that those few kids from very famous and wealthy parents DO get special perks in admissions. That's all I was saying.

But the "very famous and wealthy parents" do NOT get special treatment in interviews. Not before the lawsuit. Not after. Do you really think Harvard (my alma mater) and other Ivies would be that stupid to set that course either written or said to alums? Harvard alone has a huge on campus legal office dealing with matters such as this (google it) If Harvard had done this (and I would know) it would have come up in discovery in the SCOTUS decidion and it did not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ That's because PP
was roght. You are arguing just for the sake of arguing and you actualky don't know what you are talking about. I've interviewed for Harvard. Famous kids are NOT selected out to be interviewed by a special alum. It's by geographical designation. I covered McLeannand Great Falls and N. Arlington. And also these interviews mean zero to admissions. It's a move to keep alums engaged with the Ivy in the hopes the alums will give more money.

The person you are saying was right says the opposite of what you're saying. You and I agree: I never said or thought that special alum are selected to interview special applicants. I agree that alum interviews add nothing unless something inappropriate is reported (racist comment, as an example - which would be virtually unheard of). The only thing I said is that those few kids from very famous and wealthy parents DO get special perks in admissions. That's all I was saying.

But the "very famous and wealthy parents" do NOT get special treatment in interviews. Not before the lawsuit. Not after. Do you really think Harvard (my alma mater) and other Ivies would be that stupid to set that course either written or said to alums? Harvard alone has a huge on campus legal office dealing with matters such as this (google it) If Harvard had done this (and I would know) it would have come up in discovery in the SCOTUS decidion and it did not.

They get special treatment in admissions, not in the interviews. That’s what I’ve been saying. Do you think Yale saw that Rupert Murdoch's, Conan O’Brien’s, Ben Affleck/Jennifer Garner’s, Gweneth Paltrow’s, and Jeff Bezos’ kids had applied and then did absolutely zero to have them admitted…that they were in the general pool of applicants? No.