The article is not credible based on my experience. I don’t even know where to begin. The only thing that is true is that many alumni interviewers do get bummed because a 6% admissions rate means that unless you are interviewing 20 applicants per year, likely all of those you interview will not get in. I was very happy when someone I interviewed got a LL and they told me - it was a bigger achievement that she decided to attend! (I do alumni interviews for another Ivy)
For one thing, it would violate FERPA
http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html
to send out applications to volunteer alumni interviewers. FERPA is very serious and it would be a violation to let anyone not officially employed see an application summary, let alone the full application. That’s why you see many people on the Harvard forum saying “my alumni interviewer asked my AP scores” or “asked my SAT scores”. Among other college forums.
Please read this for comparison:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1969/9/18/admissions-personal-rating-is-crucial-pin/
that is, what used to happen is that applicants were prescreened on a local level and might not even get through to the admissions committee proper.
And something more recent (relatively):
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1983/11/7/overdeveloping-applicants-pictures-pbpbhotographs-have-never/
It is very sad that “Anonymous” can “write their experiences” without any kind of rebuttal from a real alumni interviewer. Then again, it is gawker…
Also very odd - dad’s a postal worker, mom’s a homemaker and zero comment about FA or owing debt?
Conversely, if what they said is true, violation of FERPA can lead to ineligibility for Federal funding, so Harvard better watch out. (by the way, I double-checked, and applicants to universities are covered under FERPA at least until an admissions decision is made, so it would be nigh impossible to rationalize hundreds and hundreds of Harvard alumni interviewers having access to applications).
Finally, the author says this:
“Let’s be honest: Harvard and its affiliates will inflict some kind of damage (academic, emotional, occasionally physical) on everyone who lingers there. It is a place where everyone is out to get everyone else. In a place where no one can be the best at everything, everyone takes any chance they can get to measure up to their peers. It is a mob of ruthless young overachievers with a taste for blood.”
Yet for some reason the person wanted to be an alumni interviewer for a place that “damaged” him or her?
""Alice laughed. ‘There’s no use trying,’ she said ‘one can’t believe impossible things.’
‘I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There goes the shawl again!’