I think you got it all wrong by showing interest. It’s a waste effort really. There are many ways to show interest. For example, Michigan is one school that does consider showing interest. All my daughter did is to send free SAT score to it when she was happy with her SAT. Same with USC, even though it doesn’t consider showing interest, but lots of people visit, do tours, have interview with adcoms. My daughter did none of those and she still got in. Again all she did was sending free SAT scores.