All Yale, all the time

AdmissionsAddict
Wed, 07 Nov 2007 20:12:27 +0000

oldyale–Yale processes the name of every applicant to the appropriate Alumni School Committee director, the person who coordinates alumni interviews for the region. They do this as soon as the app comes in and before anyone has checked out the content of the application. So yes, even kids whose recs come from a Yalie are included in the alumni interview pool.

I do think that the alumni interview serves an important purpose because of the spontaneity. I’ve had amazingly arrogant interviewees; teacher recs may not have commented on that. I’ve had kids whose extracurriculars were revealed through discussion to be largely parent-initiated ; I bet that didn’t come through in the apps. There have been people who have shown amazingly poor judgment (skimpy attire with purposely exposed underwear worn to an interview in a professional setting); that wouldn’t come out anywhere else. I’ve had kids who couldn’t sustain an interview for longer than 10 minutes despite my best efforts; they might look great on paper but had nothing to say and no enthusiasms to demonstrate in person. Etc, etc. My take is that a strong alumni interview only confirms the rest of an applicant’s file, but a negative interview in an otherwise strong file raises red flags that the admissions officers need to see.