<p>My daughter is starting the process of interviews, and one of the alumni interviewers e-mailed her with suggested meeting times and locations which would have required her to miss a good part of a school day. The (local) interviewer had no other availability.</p>
<p>Is this common? The other interview D has scheduled so far was offered after hours or on weekends, so I’m unclear as to what might be expected. (D declined the school-conflicting interviews; we’re waiting to see if another interviewer is available locally.)</p>
<p>I alumni interview for my college; I would never remotely consider asking any applicant to skip class for an interview and I don’t think anyone should volunteer to interview if they aren’t available after school or weekends! She might want to explain the situation to the admissions office if there isn’t any other way she can be interviewed.</p>
<p>I decided to allow my daughter to miss 1/2 day of classes for a required interview; she isn’t missing any other days of school for college visits unlike many of the kids she knows. I would have preferred after-school, but decided this was the best alternative.</p>
<p>OP: That doesn’t sound right to me either. My d was only offered evening or weekend times, and interviewer was very flexible about location, date, and so on.</p>
<p>If it was my kid, I would let her miss school for an interview with an employee of the admissions office. But for some schools the alumni interview is not given much weight and is more of a way to let alums be of some use in their community. I don’t know what kind of school the OP’s daughter is applying to, but when you have to miss so many other classes senior year for college visits you might not want to make the alum interview a high priority unless you know it matters.</p>
<p>Not sure I agree that alum interviews are of as little value as M333, but I do think that adcom interviews are always better (alum will not be reading files and will not be in the room avail to advocate for applicant).</p>
<p>I was reluctant to have D miss school sr yr (she wasn’t a great student and playing catch-up was never her forte) - - she did skip for college sponsored fly-in prgms. I would have let her skip to interview at a top college in which she was truly interested.</p>
<p>I posted here earlier this year about my D’s battles with the “attendance Nazi” at D’s high school who wasn’t going to give her an excused absence for the 2 class periods she missed for an interview for a local scholarship (which the school had nominated her for), held during business hours at our city’s newspaper office. After my intervention (and me calling the principal), she got her excused absence. Good grief!!! (p.s. got the scholarship, too!)</p>
<p>Back to topic, it seems very unusual that an alum interviewer would expect hs kids to miss classes. Our high school allows something like 2 or 3 days senior year for on-campus visits, but all of D’s friends who had interviews (and her 2 college admissions interviews) were all held after school or on Saturdays…</p>
<p>I know that college admissions reps regularly come to our hs to present info sessions for interested students during the school day. I would guess that it happens about 10-15 times per school year. They typically stay for 2-3 school periods so interested students can drop in during a class period that they can afford to miss. Our son went to 3 or 4 the latter half of jr and beginning of sr year.</p>
<p>It was no biggie to miss a few classes. Teachers were always willing to give him the hw assignment together with his hall pass.</p>
<p>D received several choices for alumni interview from one college. The choices are mostly at night and on weekend. It does seem odd to schedule interview during school hours.</p>
<p>Perhaps the interviewer has a night job – health related field or a policeman. I wouldn’t have a problem letting my daughter miss some school. In fact, we would probably make an afternoon of it with lunch and shopping. I hardly got to see her during her senior year.</p>
<p>Well, my daughter has missed several days of school already for college visits, so I’m reluctant to have her miss any more. The scheduling was due to the interviewer’s work - she was only available at places she was scheduled to work at, when she had a time slot open.</p>