Thanks for the reassurance, AdmissionsAddict. I actually do live in a linked area. It says on my Eli account letter, that my admissions area is 01A/IL. Still I have not been contacted by an interviewer, and the deadline is December 1. Will Yale be notified by this? I might still call to ask.
I misread your first post and thought you had been told you were unlinked. In that case, do call Yale tomorrow, ask for your ASC director's name and give him/her a call. Are you sure your admissions area also refers to your Alumni School Committee area? I haven't been an applicant since well before Eli account letters existed, so I'm a little unclear on what your admissions area means.
To the extent it helps anyone, interview reports are REALLY due on 12/5. The admissions office wants them in by 12/1, but because there are so many applicants to cover in such little time, they will accept reports until the 5th.
I'm not sure that my "admissions area" actually refers to an ASC area, but I was never told that I was "not linked." I was also told that I would be contacted by an alum, so I can only assume that I am linked? I will call Yale tomorrow though. Thanks for the great advice AdmissionsAddict!
I called Yale yesterday, and I received a short reply that the most I can do right now is WAIT. Being the nervous applicant I am, I'm still a little nervous about not receiving an offer for an interview. I guess there are just too many applicants this year that many are being overlooked. I hope I don't get deferred because an interview is missing.
How do alums choose who to interview? Do they base it on the strength of the application, according to the admissions office? Or is it completely random?
First, AdmishAddict, thank you for providing such helpful information. My D's experience during her Yale SCEA alum interview was unusual, to say the least, and I'm looking for both your feedback and advice.
She met her young-ish interviewer at a coffeehouse for a meeting that lasted barely 25 minutes. The unsettling part for her was that he seldom looked at her when she answered his (very basic, unprobing) questions, or answered hers. (When she asked him specifics about the academic program, he said: "I can't really say. I didn't study much.") Here's the weird part, though: he spent most of the time blatantly "checking out" a young woman at a nearby table. D left the interview very shaken, and felt she couldn't even be sure he heard much of what she said, so distracted was he. D is convinced this will tank her chances of admission or even deferral.
(I might add: D is very locquacious and a great conversationalist. Every on-campus interview she's had with various LACs admissions officers has never concluded before one hour, and most have gone considerably longer.)
Nothing you can do about it other than assure your daughter that the interview won't sink her chances. I say this because a) there was no reason for your daughter's interviewer to write a BAD report and b) every year there are people who get bad reports who get in (lots of my friends are interviewers so we compare notes).
If you really want to do something about it, you can tell your ASC director AFTER A DECISION ON YOUR DAUGHTER'S FILE HAS BEEN MADE. This person may have been having a bad day (stress at work, fight with significant other) or may be a genuinely bad interviewer. ASC directors need all the volunteer support they can get, but if someone were really terrible and they heard about it, they might stop using that interviewer. The problem with alumni interviewing is that beggars can't be choosers and ASC directors are beggars.
Thanks for your perspective, AA. No, we would never dream of making an issue of this with the admissions department -- as you say, off days happen -- but this seemed so outside the realm of even D's feared worst-case scenarios, that it was helpful to simply discuss it here with you. So again, thanks for your time and attention. It is gratefully appreciated.
One last query, plse: D's interviewer ended the session so quickly and left so abruptly that she had no chance to ask for his contact info. This now leaves her in the unhappy spot of having no way to at least send a pro forma thank you note -- unless, of course, we Google the fellow, but that strikes both D and her father and I as a bit, well, *stalker-esque.* Even though the report date has passed, however, this child has had thank-you notes drilled into her since toddlerhood, and so feels squeamish now at the inability to follow through. Should we send the note to the fellow c/o Yale's admissions department? Or just let it pass, the sooner it may become a faded unpleasant memory...
I'd let the thank you slide. I'm hardcore about thank you notes myself, but I don't even notice if interviewees don't send me a thank you note because it happens so rarely.
I had my interview today at a lawyer's office. Wore dress shoes, dress khaki pants, and a nice button down shirt.
It went pretty well, nothing spectacular but I thought I did a good job. The question he asked that stumped me: "If you were writing an autobiographical article on yourself, what would the headline be?" I bumbled for a while before giving a lame answer that we had to "work on together." Besides that the questions were straightforward and it was really no big deal.
The one or two times that I struggled, he was very patient and helpful. Understood that it was a tense situation, and my first interview. Overall, it went well and was really not too difficult. Pretty happy.
Ohioana: I concur w/what AA says about contacting the ASC director after decisions are announced. He/She needs to know the gist of what occurred. If I were the ASC director, I'd like to know that info. I'd rather a applicant NOT get interviewed than to have them creeped out by that fellow's behavior. Perhaps it was an off day like AA said. But if it's a pattern, the ASC director should really be informed. Best of luck to your daughter!
aeolia6: area directors have NO idea of the strengths of the applicants: it's completely random
screwitlah: I know of no word limit. The upload page is just blank. But it has no relevance to you, surely?
goyanks, no chance that you happened to have that interview in chrysler building, new york city, is there? That's where I had my interview, also in a lawyer's office
Overall, I would say it was a very pleasant interview. Nothing that was really unexpected. I just talked about my academics, favorite classes, hobbies, extracurricular activities. We didn't even talk much about yale--most discussions about yale were initiated by me. We talked for about 40 minutes.
