Harvard Interviews?

[joss10]

Does anyone know if Harvard is planning on conducting interviews this year?

[jacib]

I think the same schools interview every year... but it's only a handful (I don't remember if Harvard is one). I believe Vanderbilt is one of the schools that has interviewed in the past. I'd suggest just searching the sociology subforum for "interview" or "interviews" or "interviewing".

[gilbertrollins]

Pretty sure only marginal candidates get interviewed, and mostly to track them towards a reject.  My man got interviewed for a barely T50 economics program last year, and got in.  He reports that he's at the bottom of his cohort, and is actually paying for his degree (he doesn't mind - he'll end up in private industry paying off loans no probs).

Edited January 4, 2013 by econosocio

[OrangeSoc]

I'm at home with the flu (ugh!) and have nothing better to do, so I went through the anonymous results for sociology from last year. People posted that they had been invited for interviews at the following schools.

 

Baylor (during visit weekend)

California - San Francisco (at least some were via phone)
Colorado - Boulder (informal, part of open house)

Columbia

Cornell

Emory (during visit weekend)

Georgia - Athens

Indiana (via phone)

Nebraska - Lincoln
Notre Dame (? applicant seemed unsure; if true, it occurred during visit weekend)

Pennsylvania
Penn State
Rice
Rutgers

This list is likely not comprehensive, so feel free to add to it (for example, jacib mentioned Vanderbilt).

 

[amlobo]

Does anyone know which programs have interviews and which do not?  How is this determined?  Thank you in advance.

 

Rice and Notre Dame do in-person interviews (and not for just marginal applicants).  I think schools that do in-person interviews are for "all top applicants", but phone interviews are probably more for deciding between a few similar applicants for the last spot or something. 

[jacib]

I am pretty sure some of those schools above do not do real interviews and the "interviews" were rather just part of the open house or visiting weekend and the applicants were confused. I was admitted to one of the above schools without interview, for example. In most places you are already before visit weekend so those interviews were more "Get to know your potential adviser", I bet. I don't think it's common to interview marginal candidates, even mariginal interviews. This might be rarely done by individual advisers, but it's not common practice even at the schools listed above.

There are only a handful of schools that do interviews every year. I almost wrote this in my first response but I get Vanderbilt and Emory a little confused sometimes (cause obviously... they're both private universities in the South) so I could have been wrong about Vanderbilt and just thinking Emory.

[PhDreams]

I don't think Harvard interviews. I think it's just admit/deny/waitlist. From what I've heard, they usually just have "Admitted Student" events.

[magicunicorn]

Also, every department is different - and things change from year to year.  I think Harvard did one year and then didn't most years.  MIght just depend on the person running admissions that year.  Probably won't know for certain until someone posts that they were asked to do an interview.  

[splitends]

Yeah, I'm going to second that schools can do things differently from year to year. I remember reading on here that Harvard had done interviews the year before I applied, but there were no interviews during my application cycle. I also think it seems unlikely that only marginal candidates are interviewed-- anecdotally, I know people who were let into my program off the waitlist/were waitlisted elsewhere that were never interviewed. I got the feeling that Harvard does not typically interview, though...