<p>it is not obligatory, so I feel that I shouldn’t bother. do most applicants request interviews? I mean, it could help you, but it seems to much of a hastle when I can just submit a strong app. any comments?</p>
<p>I always hear the debate on what effect the interview has on your app. You might have given away the answer in your post. You said that is seems too much of a hastle. Maybe Rice wants to see its applicants go through that hastle (I am not sure how big of a hastle typing an email and talking to someone actually is) to see how interested that applicant is in attending the school. I think I remember hearing that the number of those who got in with an interview isn’t significantly more or is equal to the number that got in without an interview.</p>
<p>How many accepted applicants had an interview, but would’ve been accepted without it?
How many denied applicants had “strong” applications, but might have been accepted if they had an interview to strengthen it more?</p>
<p>We don’t have the answer to these questions, so it’s hard to judge the impact an interview has on whether you’re accepted or denied. The general consensus is that it can do more good than harm. I think it would be silly to pass up an interview out of laziness, and you take an extra gamble by assuming your application doesn’t need any additional positive comments.</p>
<p>Off-topic: It is spelled ‘hassle’.</p>
<p>Thank you for adding your wisdom to this post. I am sure that typo confused enough people when they read this thread that they missed the topic.</p>
<p>If it was a typographical error, I would not have posted a correction; however, the repeated use of this misspelling suggested that it was something more. Once again, I clearly stated that it is off-topic, and the post was not criticism. When you are doing that term paper for Rice, nothing is worse than having the spell-checker overlook your profuse misspelling of ‘hassle’.</p>
<p>I can think of many things that could be worse then a misspelling on a term paper. Also, saying “the repeated misspelling suggested that it was something more” really makes it sound like you are reading into misspellings a lot more than you should be. It makes it sound as if you were coming up with judgments based upon a misspelling of hassle. I only chose to reply with sarcasm because I can’t understand why some people feel it is their duty to correct other people’s English. It really is not an admirable quality and, in my opinion, it makes that person sound rude and pompous. I never say things like, “I want to hang out with that person because they are constantly correcting how I speak. They must be so smart and helpful, because they decide to break the flow of a conversation by correcting me.”</p>
<p>You realized that it was off-topic and contributed nothing yet you still decided to post. Maybe I am worse because I continued the discussion, but I just find it annoying for people to knit-pick on useless things.</p>