MyLegendLives wrote:Schola wrote:Curious1 wrote:MumofCad wrote:Anyone know what last year's complete email said? Because this one says they don't notify applicants of the decision by phone. This would be a change, maybe no KB2s? Just an email? It also doesn't mention interviews prior to a decision, maybe no KB anythings? Has anyone asked at one of the recruiting sessions?
Recruiting session specifically said there WILL be phone interviews.
I think the email was talking about "decisions" of whether or not to give you an interview--THOSE are notified by email.
Also I almost got a heart attack when I saw the email...
You are almost surely right that the email "decisions" are for the interview, but I am not sure if the email could have been more ambiguous if HLS tried. In fact, if one didn't know about the phone interviews, one would have no grounds on which to interpret it as meaning that the future "decision email" will be an invitation for a phone interview.
This all makes me wonder if there might be a small change in their policy. If you have someone w/ a 4.0/180/Rhodes Scholarship, it seems to me that it owuld be a clear waste of resources to have a dean talk to the person for 10 minutes since they have basically decided that the person will get it. Thus I think it is possible that they might have decided that it is only worth the time to interview candidates for whom the interview might actually have some influence on the decision.
I spoke to KB two weeks ago. She was very clear in saying that every admitted applicant MUST have an interview.
Admitting that you are right, let me just say that the fact that the interview has little influence on the actual outcome of the admissions process means that it is a huge waste of resources. Let's set KB gives 1000 interviews (conservative end of 1000-1200) at 10 minutes a piece, back to back, with no time between interviews. 1000 x 10 = 10000 minutes. 10000/60= 166.667 hours. That's over 4 full weeks that the dean spends only giving interviews that don't really matter anyway! Plus you probably need a secretary to dial up the next number so KB can transition between the interviews as quickly as possible. So you're paying 2 people (and one is a dean!) a month's salary each in order to project the illusion that the process is highly "personalized" even though everyone knows that Harvard leans heavily upon numbers anyway?