We are 10 days away from mid-feb. don’t lose hope yet. Good luck! It’s a grueling process.
Yes, but it’s pretty clear from the letter that you are admitted. And in the past they have been emails as a sort of ‘heads up’ and do say congratulations in them. It’s not cryptic at all.
It’s not over until you get a definite letter of rejection. Who knows, you may be an auto-admit!
An interview is only offered if there are a sufficient number of alumni willing to take interviews in the nearby area. It’s not needed/mandatory and getting an interview itself does not mean anything. If it at all helps: my S22 didn’t get an interview (others in the city got interviews) and he was accepted.
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D22 got in RD without interview. Lots of kids I know interviewed and got rejected. Stay positive - good things will happen!
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since covid, all interviews were done virtually, so I don’t understand the explanation if the alumns are in your area
Stanford interviews and AOs are organized by areas, so people are in the similar time zone etc. The Stanford interviews are either in person/over zoom etc. D24 favored in person, which incidentally avoids the 40m zoom cutoff for those who don’t have a zoom membership
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Option to have an in person interview was not
given to us
The choice to offer in person and/or zoom is dependent on each interviewer. It’s very possible the interviewer has been assigned couple areas, has a scheduled business trip, or just had covid etc. It doesn’t impact the outcome of the interview.
Child got a request last week. I was a little surprised because we live in the Bay Area, and I remember that the school didn’t offer interviews locally a few years earlier.
So interesting. At my son’s school, SoCal, it seems like every kid that applied got an interview, which makes it even less of an indicator positive or negative. But only one got a Harvard interview, which looks more like she’s a possible candidate.
are you in bay area? maybe convenient for the interview, thus everybody gets. unlike Harvard…?
No. I wrote I’m in SoCal - Southern California
still, lots of Stanford alumni
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And yet his interview was still via zoom 
As more and more colleges treat interview as non-evaluative conversation. for domestic students, non-edited 90 second student self introduction video (this is done by the third party) is getting traction, stanford is a part of initialview glimpse consuming for AO directly to see how the applicant talks and self expression.
Stanford OVAL still runs a grading/evaluative process which provides AOs another data point, but they fully understand the data point is biased because it’s extremely rare for two candidates being compared to have had the same interviewer.
Brown for instance requests a 2min optional video, which is fairer in allowing every candidate to submit, but on the other hand doesn’t allow for the diversity of questions an interviewer maybe able to ask.
Cornell is completely non-evaluative, where the interviewer only checks a box to confirm whether the interview took place. MIT probably runs the strictest process, because interviewers have access to more applicant information prior to the interview.
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My D24 had a very odd interview. The person talked about how they wished they hadn’t gone to Stanford and only went there because of rankings and parental pressure. The interviewer said she had never heard of the program my kid was interested and thought she was confusing it with another school. My daughter didn’t know what to make of it. She was very taken aback and thought maybe it was some sort of odd psychological interview technique. Should she mention this to her AO?
That sounds like a major red flag. I would mention it to the AO. She shouldn’t be a representative for a school she doesn’t even like?
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It is very common for interviewers not to know about a specific program, and the university asks interviewers to acknowledge it, and suggest the interviewee seeks further clarification through the many sources available.
It is absolutely true that many alumni select schools based on rankings, reputations, and other reasons which don’t always have to do with “best fit”, whether at Stanford or other schools.
AO’s have no knowledge of an interviewer’s familiarity with Stanford and will not be able to address the issue. You should probably leave it aside.