<p>Any school that asks for a significant “Why (X School)?” essay (not just a line or two). That’s a clear signal that the school wants to know that applicants have a decent understanding of what the school is all about. Demonstrated interest goes hand-in-hand: The school wants to see that you’ve made a concerted effort to find out what the school is all about, and that you have valid reasons for seeing yourself there.</p>
<p>Schools certainly understand that repeated (and in some case, ANY) visits might not be possible for some students. In a case like that, applicants may want to think about explaining why on-campus interviews, overnights, etc., couldn’t be worked out, and explaining a bit about how they’ve found other ways to learn about the school.</p>
<p>Yield aside, these tend to be schools with smaller communities and admissions teams that are able to devote extra attention to trying to put together a class, rather than a list of admits.</p>
<p>Polarisking: there is at least one error on your list. </p>
<p>BC does not care about being shown the “love.” Not only did I hear that directly from an admissions rep, but the BC website even has an entire section about that:</p>
<p>When we visited Vanderbilt in November, they specifically stated that demonstrated interest is not a factor in their admissions process. Not sure if that is still accurate, given that they no longer have a “why Vanderbilt” essay, but that is what we were told by admissions.</p>
<p>Sorry - I gave a much more general answer than you were looking for, I see.</p>
<p>Here’s one specific: Swarthmore. Requires an extensive “Why Swarthmore?” essay, and wants to know, in essence, that you understand what you’re asking for when you apply.</p>
<p>Oh, all the answers are good. I appreciate the interaction about this issue, as I’m trying to develop a sense of which colleges don’t care (as my alma mater didn’t care) about student interest in the college and which do.</p>
<p>Rodney, I believe your information is correct. My son was not only admitted to Vanderbilt, but offered a large merit scholarship before he visited the campus.</p>
<p>This was when there was a required Why Vanderbilt? essay.</p>
<p>Another way to gauge it might be to look at acceptance ratios for ED versus RD. Schools like Pitzer with a very high ED acceptance rate versus their RD acceptance rate is an indication to me that level of interest matters to them.</p>
<p>Do you all define “showing the love” as visiting/interviewing (if possible)? WashU is a school I would LOVE to go to, and I visited and interviewed and absolutely fell in love with the campus. I also sent in an extra letter telling them how much I would love to go there. Do you think that would definitely give me a leg up on getting in?</p>
<p>Also, GWU is another school I really like. I visited and really liked the urban feel, but one of my worries is seeming “overqualified” and not likely to matriculate and being waitlisted/rejected. Are these fears silly?</p>
<p>While Stanford doesn’t care about demonstrated interest at the outset of the process, doesn’t track contact or even take sign-ins at campus visits, etc, the Admissions Director from Stanford made an interesting comment while visiting s’s school. He said while in committee as they consider the files of the kids they are pitching for acceptances, he would quite often be asked to read aloud the short “why Stanford?” answer so they could reflect on it. Tip?</p>
<p>I spoke to a Tufts admissions officer who said that demonstrated interest was a big deal. That’s why some colleges have “Why XYZ?” essays, and some even track contact and visit history. It’s best to ask (carefully) if your college of interest uses these interest-tracking methods.</p>
<p>On the other hand, Yale also has a Why Yale question, but you’re only allowed to write a one or two sentence response… clearly they’re not worried about yield or interest. UWash is famous for hating to be used as a safety for kids applying to Ivies, and will reject kids who get into HYP simply because they don’t seem seriously interested in UWash. Some schools are like that… Tufts syndrome…</p>
<p>Showing the love seems to be a euphemism for having enough money to visit, interview etc. This would seem to put poor and middle class students at a huge disadvantage. It is much harder to write a strong essay about a school you have only read about online vs. one where you have toured and interviewed.</p>
<p>I’m wondering what exactly is meant by “demonstrated interest”.
I applied to WUSTL RD and it’s my current top choice, but I’m not sure how much interest exactly they want us to show. </p>
<p>I visited the campus this summer and did a student interview (I live in Japan so I came from far away just for them), but that’s the extent of the contact I’ve had with the school outside of the application. Is it enough? What more is there to do? </p>
<p>Oh I also applied to their scholarship program, which required a few essays, if that counts for demonstrated interest. Please help, I’m a bit nervous. Even though my stats probably indicate I could be accepted somewhere better, I really want to go to WUSTL. Thanks. Sorry I wrote so much lol.</p>
<p>Not necessarily, collegemom. My d is attending a school that does track “demonstrated interest”. It also “strongly suggests” interviewing for merit aid. However, their admissions office does a lot of visits throughout the country, doing local interviews in hotels accessible by public transportation from the city. My d interviewed at such a hotel. She never set foot on campus until Accepted Students Day (the school is 6 hours from us).</p>
<p>But she did interview, request information, ask questions of a particular department head, showed interest in a lot of ways. And her “Why U” essay (which needed to be very short) indicated that she understood the school’s unique characteristics.</p>
<p>Demonstrated interest doesn’t need to be on campus.</p>
<p>Another tool is a school’s common data set. You can search on that on the school’s website. Not all schools publish this data, but is can be interesting.</p>
<p>Examples:
Yale - <a href=“http://www.yale.edu/oir/cds.pdf[/url]”>http://www.yale.edu/oir/cds.pdf</a>
C7 addresses “Relative importance of each of the following academic and nonacademic factors in your first-time, first-year, degree-seeking (freshman) admission decisions” and you can see “applicants interest” is “considered” but is not “important” or “very important”</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon considers the “Demonstrated interest” of each applicant…They strongly recommend interviews and campus visits. But it is hard for international applicants.</p>