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Let me try to answer all your question.
1. How do interviews get assigned? I don't know how it works in other areas, but in mine, a person called the Alumni School Committee director gets the names of all applicants in the geographic area. The ASC director then calls or emails each applicant to see if he or she wants an interview. If the answer is yes, the ASC director assigns the applicant to an interviewer. ASC directors get minimal information from the admissions office about the applicants and there is no choosing who is invited to participate in the interview process; everyone who applies get a shot, although people who have interviewed on campus may get moved to the bottom of the pile.
2. How important is the interview? Since I'm not on the admissions committee, I can't say for certain. My sense is that a really lousy interview report will cause the admissions officers to look more carefully at your application before accepting you or send you to the reject pile more quickly if you were already tending in that direction. I know of at least one applicant who got in even though his interviewer had a very poor impression of him. If your interviewer loves you, that might verify everything else that's great in your file and be the last nudge you need to be in the admit pile. That being said, lots of applicants with ecstatic reviews don't get in. The interview doesn't make or break you. It is by far the least important part of the application process, but it may be the thing that pushes an applicant over the edge into the reject or admit pile.
3. What does the admissions office get out of an interview report that they don't see on paper? A good interviewer can really read an applicant. There have been lots of applicants who have said in response to my "Why Yale?" question, "Because it's prestigious." When probed, they don't know squat about the school and don't even seem to have read basic literature provided by Yale. You can tell who has genuinely thought about the college and whether it's a good fit. You can also tell whether someone is intellectual. When I ask, "What is your favorite class?" and the student says they like class X because they get good grades in it easily and, upon further questioning, don't reveal any actual academic interest in the subject, that looks bad. Interviewers may also be able to tell what extracurriculars have been inflated or are largely parent-initiated. There are also people who have behave poorly at interviews. I've had a couple of extremely arrogant, entitled students and a couple of people who didn't appear to live on planet earth (don't want to reveal details, but you wouldn't believe them anyway). I don't judge people negatively because they are liberal or conservative, quiet or gregarious, etc. Although I'm sure some people are smart enough to snow me, I think I'm a pretty good judge of character and can add another dimension to the applicant's file.
4. What if I can't meet when the alumni interviewer wants to meet? Tell them you need to do it another time. I can't imagine they wouldn't understand. Any serious Yale applicant is overbooked with activities and school, so they won't think you're rude if you have a conflict.
Let me know if you have more questions.
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