Students spend weeks preparing for an interview they may never be offered, at universities that have told the public, in writing, that they do not count it.
Every US university files a Common Data Set, and section C7 of that form asks them to rank each admission factor as Very Important, Important, Considered, or Not Considered. One of those factors is the interview. The answers are public, and most students never look at them.
We read the most recent filing from every university in our database that reports one. Here is what 220 of them say.
How much the interview counts
| What the university filed | Universities | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Not Considered | 115 | 52% |
| Considered | 76 | 35% |
| Important | 28 | 13% |
| Very Important | 1 | under 1% |
Just over half of these universities do not count the interview at all. Another 35% put it in the weakest category they have. Twenty-eight call it Important. Exactly one, Lake Forest College, calls it Very Important.
The pattern holds at the universities international students most often ask about.
| University | Interview |
|---|---|
| MIT | Important |
| Georgetown | Important |
| Harvard | Considered |
| Yale | Considered |
| Princeton | Considered |
| Stanford | Considered |
| Columbia | Not Considered |
| Penn | Not Considered |
| Brown | Not Considered |
| University of Chicago | Not Considered |
| Caltech | Not Considered |
| NYU | Not Considered |
| Amherst | Not Considered |
| Williams | Not Considered |
So the interview at Columbia, Penn, Brown, Chicago, Caltech and NYU is not a factor those universities record weighing. At Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford it sits in the lowest category that counts for anything.
The other 27 universities filing Important are mostly liberal arts colleges: Bryn Mawr, Claremont McKenna, Connecticut College, Dickinson, Franklin and Marshall, Kenyon, Lafayette, Mount Holyoke, Reed, Smith and St Olaf among them. A few larger institutions are in the group too, including the University of Pittsburgh, Case Western Reserve and the University of Rochester. If your list is full of small colleges, the interview matters more to you than this page's headline suggests. If it is full of large research universities, it matters less.
Whether you are offered one
At most US universities the interview is conducted by alumni volunteers, and that decides who gets one. It is geography, not merit.
Harvard has nearly 10,000 alumni volunteers, and its own FAQ for international applicants says that in the US, Canada and the UK an alumnus will contact you directly if an interview is possible, and that elsewhere the university aims to hold one "when and where possible." Its wording is worth quoting exactly: "While we try to make interviewers as widely available as possible, it will not always be possible for a student to have an interview. The absence of an interview will not adversely affect your candidacy."
MIT runs the same model through its Educational Council, a network of over 3,500 graduates who volunteer in their home areas. You may be contacted "if there's one available," and MIT states plainly: "If we are unable to offer you an interview, it will be waived, and your application will not be adversely affected."
Georgetown is the exception worth knowing. It files the interview as Important and calls alumni interviews "a key part of Georgetown's application process". Interviews start being assigned in September, run through the cycle, and your interviewer writes a report that goes into your file for the Admissions Committee.
Three things follow from this:
You cannot request one. Harvard says assignment is at the Admissions Committee's discretion, based in part on alumni availability in your area.
Not getting one is not a signal. Every university above states that a waived interview does not harm the application.
Where you live decides this, and you cannot change it. If you are applying from a city with no alumni network, no amount of preparation produces an interview.
One detail from Harvard's page is worth knowing before you sit one: "our alumni interviewers do not have access to your application. They only have your name, your contact information and the name of your high school." The person across from you has not read your essays, so nothing you say will be checked against them, and nothing you leave out will be filled in.
Paid video interviews
There is a second kind of interview that exists mainly for international applicants, and it is the one you pay for.
Two companies, InitialView and Vericant, record unscripted interviews and a writing sample, then send the video to universities that accept them. Georgia Tech, which says outright that it conducts no alumni or staff interviews, offers this instead: applicants who are non-native English speakers "have the option to participate in a third-party, unscripted interview," and names both providers.
Claremont McKenna, one of the 28 universities filing the interview as Important, calls InitialView its preferred option for international students and accepts Vericant, noting that the Vericant version "include[s] an assessment of your English proficiency."
The cost is the part to plan around:
| Provider | Undergraduate price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Vericant | $230 | Sends to unlimited universities, results in 3 business days |
| InitialView | $295 | Interview plus writing sample, sends to unlimited universities |
InitialView adds a $30 peak season surcharge for interviews booked between 15 September and 15 November, and between 15 December and 15 January, which is exactly when most applicants book. Booking outside those windows avoids it.
Both companies offer fee waivers. Vericant says it offers them to accepting institutions and qualified applicants. Claremont McKenna tells applicants to contact the providers directly and says its own admission office holds a limited number. Ask before you pay.
Oxford and Cambridge
The UK runs something that shares a name with the US interview and almost nothing else.
Oxford interviews shortlisted candidates only, and describes them as "academic conversations about your chosen subject, similar to a short tutorial." They are held online in December over Microsoft Teams, so there is no travel and no geographic lottery. Tutors are assessing how you think through an unfamiliar problem, and the discussion may draw on your UCAS personal statement or submitted written work.
The useful part is that Oxford publishes the preparation material: subject-specific sample questions written by the tutors who ask them, demonstration interview videos recorded with tutors and current students, a technology guide and an eight-step checklist. Almost no US university publishes anything comparable. If you are applying to Oxford, the preparation is a reading list rather than a guessing game.
A student who got into Cambridge for chemistry put the preparation in one line: "spend your free time studying the subject you want to study, it will definitely help with the interview." That advice works for Oxford and Cambridge and fails almost everywhere else, because the US alumni interview is not a subject examination.
What to do
Check the filing before you prepare. Search the university's name with "Common Data Set" and read section C7. It takes two minutes and tells you whether the thing you are preparing for is counted.
Take it when it is offered. A student from Islamabad now at Hamilton College gives the shortest version: "always take the interview if they offer one." Declining is a choice you make, unlike never being assigned one.
Prepare for a conversation, not an examination. A student from Syria who reached NYU Abu Dhabi described talking about what he loved and finding out his interviewer was a creative writer who "literally jumped" when she learned he had written hundreds of poems. Alumni interviewers are volunteers having a conversation, and Georgetown lists the likely topics on its own site: academic interests, extracurricular activities, summer experiences, family background, future plans and your exposure to the university.
Budget for a paid interview only if your list rewards it. One student who applied to 100 universities did interviews directly with colleges and third-party interviews through both InitialView and Vericant. At $230 to $295 that makes sense across a large list of small colleges, and much less sense if your list is mostly universities filing Not Considered.
Start your own journey
The interview is the part of the application students can least control and worry about most. Where you live decides whether you are offered one. The university decided years ago how much it would count, and published the answer.
Spend the anxiety somewhere it changes the outcome. Then, if the email arrives, turn up and have the conversation.
Kai, the Borderless AI college counselor, tells you which universities on your list count the interview, which of them run alumni interviews where you live, and whether a paid video interview is worth it for you. It's free to use.
Start with Kai, and read the stories from students who sat the interview.
