Noob question about interviews

[Hemichordate]

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If you receive an interview, do the admissions committee still consider your stats, EC, etc., or do they only look at your performance on the interview from that point onward when making a decision about acceptance/rejection?

 

[PrinceVersed]

I have yet to go to an interview, so what do I know. That being said, if you are granted an interview I think that means that they are at least OK with the rest of your application. However, I am pretty sure than your stats, EC are never out of the picture.

Some schools (perhaps your state school??) grant a ton of interviews to in state residents. I have heard that despite the interview that a lot of these people have no shot at getting in.

 

[theWUbear]

I think people with more experience than me with this subject will agree that

1) The specifics of this vary from school to school

In general:

2) If you have been granted an interview you have exceeded cutoffs for initial screening on GPA/MCAT and other things, but

3) After your interview your interview will still only count as a part of your application, either improving on your other stats or not

Not sure why I numbered these but I'm rolling with it

 

[alwaysaangel]

In general, it would be pretty hard to evaluate a candidate just off their interview. Half the time the interviewer hasn't even read their personal statement or application and its very conversational not covering all your activities, etc.

They can attest that you were socially competent, interesting, were able to discuss your activities, or a great applicant based on what you said - and they can write in your comments that they think you would do well at the school.

But in the end they still have to take that and look at everything again.

Here at UCI after the interview they have meetings where they go through all the applications and the comments of the interviewer (interviewers are usually not present). It would be pretty confusing to just have the interviewer comments to look at (they are often very sparse).

From what I've heard from the admissions committees and what they used to tell us when we did student interviews: getting an interview means your numbers are decent and your application caught someones eye, the interview is to get rid of the real weirdos/jerks/socially inept students and occasionally if you're amazing you will end up with an advocate at the admissions meeting. For the vast majority of average students it doesn't help or hurt much. But I'm sure that varies by school.

 

[nogolfinsnow]

There is definitely variability. At my school the interview plays a huge role. They create a ranking system based on the primary and secondary app and people who reach a certain cutoff get an interview. After the interview, they create another ranking, a large part of which is made up of interview performance. So basically once you get an interview you're on pretty even footing with everyone else who got an interview.