I had my interview a couple of days ago, and my interviewer asked me what other schools I'm applying to, and even though I'm pretty sure that's not allowed, I didn't know what else to do and just told her. Why did she ask? Is she planning to report that? Also, I might just be paranoid, but it seemed like she knew where I had applied ED...do ivy league schools communicate that kind of stuff to each other?
They are allowed to do that as far as I know. I was told its just because they want backups. If you think thats bad my interviwer asked for my transcripts, scores, essay, and resume.
thats what happened to me!
i had my interview today and the first question he asked was what other colleges i applied to. i knew i wasn't supposed to say it so i just said, some uc's, ivy leagues, private schools. but he was so persistant to find specifically what. he asked me if anybody in my school got into anywhere early, so i told him 3 got into stanford. and then he asks me again what schools i applied to. i tried to think of a way out of it again, but i couldn't and gave in. it was already a kind of awkward interview and i didn't want to make it more awkward by saying i didn't want to tell him. the interview part is really important for the hotel school too....
then he asks me what my GPA was, but i managed to wedge my way out of that one... i hope i wasn't obvious.... (my gpa isn't bad... it's a 4.4, but i figure it shouldn't matter in this context because it was a hotel school interview but thinking back on it i should've just told him). i half expected him to ask me my SAT scores, my rank, etc but good thing he didn't.
so after i left, i felt screwed over........
he didn't know what uc berkeley was... so then i even had to explain to him what school it is........
oh, and then he asked me if i applied to cornell yet.....
then what year in school i was......
then if i got accepted anywhere else....
i thought you were only allowed an interview if you were applying to the Hotel school this year? i was kind of surprised by his questions.
So the contact process is pretty decentralized, and not all alums have gotten the memo about what you should and should not ask. And a fair amount are interested and will disregard the instructions anyway, especially if they are "old-timers". If an alum is really trying to pry, the best thing to do would be to just be honest. The admissions committee isn't going to really factor anything but either a really glowing or a really negative write-up into their decision, so there's no reason to disgruntle the alum, however misguided they may be.
As for dbkslove, that's an interesting story regarding a Hotel interview. I know that the Hotel school keeps a lot tighter reigns on their alums, so it's pretty surprising that you would have had such a bad interviewer. Sorry to hear about it. You might even want to contact the Hotel school to let them know that your alumnus was particularly... bad.
I would actually be interested to hear how all of you Cornell applicants are generally finding the Cornell contact process vis-a-vis the other schools. Are the Cornell contacts more or less formal? More or less informational? Are the alums more down to earth? The main problem with Cornell, in my view, is that the alumni base is so diverse, it's very possible you will get an alum who doesn't really have much to offer to you.
I just got back from a couple of interviews and there were four separate adults interviewing kids in the coffee shop I was at. Pretty funny, actually, as one of the kids that was there actually met with me a couple of weeks ago.
perhaps I can answer a little about the comparison of an Cornell "interview" vs some of the others - my d had an interviewer from Harvard a few years ago who started with"So, do you know your GPA?" Yes, she thougth, down to the third decimal. She ansewred, but the interview never got any better. Her Princeton interviewer told her that he wasn't sure they should be letting so many girls in. And insisted on knowing where else she was applying. So Cornell's alums aren't that different that other colleges.
It's standard procedure really. It's a thing all interviewers are told to do, and basically, they will take the colleges you mentioned and put them into a special algorithm invented by Cornell. It's really neat actually. It's called the COCRA algorithm (Cornell's Other Colleges Rejection Algorithm), Google it if you don't believe me. Basically, a computer will take the colleges you listed, and based on various data, statistics, and probability, will compute your intellectual properties. The software will tell Cornell if you are a worthy student of the school, and it is quite accurate to be honest. This may make or break your chances of acceptance quite significantly, you should have come here beforehand and browse through the several threads about this very topic here to pick optimal other colleges to mention in your interview.
Also, don't forget to take the first letter the second word in each sentence.
