Reply to Do you feel like the interview truly helped your child's admissions?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Another Ivy interviewer weighing in. At my school there are simply too many applicants for admissions officers or faculty to do interviews so it is an alumni function. We are not gatekeepers, we are ambassadors for the school. Since we do not see grades, essays, scores, or recs, we are only providing a sense of the students' personalities and interests. Everyone applying is a great student and among the very best in their school. 95% are going to be rejected. Our interviews don't change that percentage.

First and foremost, we're trying to give the student a positive feeling of our college. If a student does not leave the interview with a good feeling, we failed. Secondarily, it is an opportunity for the student to convey something about themselves that does not show up in the written application materials. Anything that makes a file stand out is helpful to an applicant and the interviews give them a chance to do that.

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This makes perfect sense.  My DS gave a lot of thought to key points to get across in his interview for a most selective ivy that were not in his application, and his interviewer actually asked whether he had made some of them in his application and, if not, she would note them in her report. He was a strong candidate by both objective (grades/test scores) and subjective (recs, essay, etc.) measures so he may have gotten in anyway, but he assumed that everything counts and his best shot at admission was to be as strong as possible across the board.  When people say an interview can't help but can only hurt, that's a bit of a semantic game.  If turning down an interview hurts, you have to do it if offered.  At that point, some people will be dinged. That means the kid that does well -- who is not dinged -- has improved his odds of admission from that point forward in the process (if you think of the process as lineal -- with high school record, ECs, tests, etc. all coming "before" the interview.)    [/quote]

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