<p>Interviews play very little role. The Interview Process exists for two reasons:</p>
<p>1) To check very basic information on the candidate (race is one of them)</p>
<p>2) To give rabid alumni the feeling that they are contributing something to their alma mater</p>
<p>Think about it. Any lunatic can become an alumni interviewer. The admissions office has virtually no control over who can “volunteer” to perform interviews. Usually members of the local alumni group provide the volunteers. There is no way that the admissions office can screen these volunteers for competence as interviewers. So you can have great interviewers who really do a great job, or complete psychos who want to feel like they can terrorize the applicants.</p>
<p>Put a fork in it. The interviews are very low on the admissions totem pole.</p>