Ivy Admissions
Top College Interview Policies
- Yale is the only Ivy that offers on-campus EVALUATIVE interviews.
- Harvard offers on-campus interviews, but they are not added to a student’s file.
- Neither Stanford nor MIT offers on-campus interviews.
- Columbia and Penn allow legacies (and they count parents OR grandparents as legacies in this sense) to interview on campus. [Read more]
Dartmouth International Admissions
Dartmouth College just announced today that on the one hand, they are creating new programs to “expand their outreach efforts to target international students,” but at the same time are cutting back on international travel due to budget cutbacks.
Maria Laskaris, the director of admissions states, “I think it’s important that we build a community here that includes a strong cross-section of international students to bring the world to Dartmouth. The perspective international students have in the classroom and in the dorms and the extracurricular activities, I think, enriches the experience for everybody.”
Given Dartmouth’s numerous off campus study programs and international outlook, increasing the number of international students makes sense, but where do you draw the line? Sure, many would argue that international students give a lot of bang for the buck on real diversity and I would agree. But for every international student who comes to Dartmouth, the admissions odds go down for American students and with the current admissions scene, that can be discouraging to aspiring Dartmouth applicants.
For the class of 2011, international students comprise a record 9 percent of the class. Most Ivies cap the number of international students at 7-15%, no more and the odds for international applicants are generally lower than the odds for American students given how many students apply from so many different foreign countries. What percentage of international students is ideal? Hard to say given so many other priorities. Is it fair that international students compose only a tenth of the class while recruited athletes compose nearly 20% of the entering class? How much diversity do recruited athletes bring to campus versus a brilliant student from Norway? Or a minority student from Harlem? None of these are easy questions – what do you think?
Do Your Research
We can’t tell you how many times kids report to us that they want to go to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, etc… but when we ask them why, they have no good reason. Colleges want to know WHY you are applying — are you impressed by their world-famous chemistry program? The well-known English department? The art history department with a specialty in Renaissance art? Often times students with particular interests do themselves a great disservice by not bothering to check if the schools on their list match their own academic interest. For example, if you like ancient languages you’d want to apply to a school that at least offered classes in Latin, Greek, Aramaic, Sanskrit and the like. [Read more]Is the Interview Obsolete?
Dartmouth announced last year that it would no longer offer on-campus interviews. Now Yale is the only Ivy that actually does an official evaluative on campus interview! These interviews are conducted by current Yale students at the admissions office. Harvard offers on campus interviews, but they are not added to a student’s file. Neither Stanford nor MIT offers on campus interviews. Middlebury does offer on campus interviews from June – November, but stresses that they are not evaluative in nature. Columbia and Penn allow legacies (and they count parents or grandparents as legacies in this sense) to interview on campus, but not the rest of the crowd. Keep in mind that just about all of these schools do offer alumni interviews once the student applies. [Read more]Take Your Time Making a Decision
Some of our students (even those admitted early action) are starting to receive likely letters and regular letters will be coming in the next two weeks. Students often feel pressure to decide immediately where they will spend the next four years, but such a hasty commitment can often be a mistake. [Read more]Do Extras Matter?
Extracurricular activities DO matter—but only when academics are strong. On the 1-9 academic scale, if you’re only a 1-4, that means that your academics are low enough that extracurriculars won’t make up for them, at least at very competitive schools. On the other hand, if you’re an academic 8-9, they won’t care as much about extras since the academic are so strong. It’s for the middle range of students that extracurriculars and leadership really matter. Just remember, academics are always 75% or more of the decision; once you’re in the range, THEN extras come into play. To say it another way, incredible extras won’t make up for mediocre performance in the classroom. [Read more]What to Do if an Interview Goes Awry
Students often ask what they can do if their alumni interview was horrible. How could an interview be horrible? Every once in a while, alumni interviewers (who often have zero training in how to interview) use their interview to reminisce about the “good old days” when they were college students and don’t give you a chance to talk about yourself at all. Though sometimes other problems occur, this is the most prevalent problem we’ve heard from students regarding alumni who felt the need to monopolize the time during an interview. They might even show how smart they are by grilling you unfairly or asking oddball questions. [Read more]
Faceboook and College Admissions
A study by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth found that 25 percent of college admissions offices admit to using search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN to research potential students and that 20 percent look for the same information on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. The reality is that the percentages must be even higher because colleges and universities have little incentive to overstate their reliance on these digital dirt web searches, but they have a significant incentive to understate their use due to a fear of negative public relations and likely backlash from many Gen Y candidates who view information that they post to MySpace and some of the other social networking sites as somehow being private even though it is accessible through a quick Google search.
[Read more]Likely Letters
As you know by now, college admissions is not transparent. Likely letters, for instance, are a bit on the gray side. Many top colleges will send out a “likely” letter in February—often to recruited athletes, minority applicants, super academic stars and other special cases—saying that although they can’t tell you officially, it is “likely” that you will be accepted in April. YES, that IS the same as an acceptance letter as long as your grades don’t drop or anything. Some things to keep in mind though about likely letters:
- [Read more]
Waiting for an Interview!
What should you do if you have applied to a college and have not been contacted for an alumni interview? First, a word about alumni interviews: some schools have evaluative interviews (which means they “count”) while some schools have “informational” ones which do NOT count. Be sure to find out which type of interview you have for each school. Remember, once the admissions office receives your application, they create a regional list of names and pass them on to local alumni networks who then try to divide things up among themselves.
- [Read more]
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