How many interviews is too many?

somemom
Thu, 13 Oct 2011 01:04:51 +0000

The kid is a URM with an average typical strong CC type applicant profile, you know decent scores, decent ECs, solid UG prep, likely strong LORs, very similar to my DD and some of the other kids here whose journeys I have followed. Actually this student is back east not in CA. He has his state schools plus assorted Ivy type invites and other top schools across the country (he is originally from CA)

How would he go about determining which schools offer URM grants? I think the mission now has to be follow the money, assuming the schools feel good and have a certain ‘fit’. I just cannot imagine my DD having been willing to do more than 10 interviews, but we were in the extreme, she got her #1 choice and withdrew from the rest. Even two interviews a month were annoying to her in their interruption.

Fingers are crossed that some of the interviews already completed will decide in a few days! But you wonder, too, when you think about the stories we have all heard where adcoms know the applicant’s interview schedule. Will this kid be denied at places that know the other interviewing schools and which want to maximize yield?