About interviews

[burnbadd]

Hi guys, I am a prospective graduate student applying this year, mainly aiming for Harvard and MIT.
Out of curiosity, does anyone know how interviews in these top schools work?
Like in Oxbridge (UK), we get an interview if our profile (SOP, CV, LoR) passes the first stage of the process and people who pass the interview gets accepted.
From my impression, US top schools (Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, MIT, Caltech) don't tend to interview everyone that they take, some people get accepted without an interview and some get accepted only after their interview. Is this correct?
If so, what is the statistic like (if anyone knows lol)? How many people do they interview? How many get in without an interview? etc

And also please feel free to share if you have received an interview invitation from MIT, Harvard, Yale or Princeton! Would be happy to know!

[rustyDingo]

Hi, I have had an interview from Princeton, but not MIT, Harvard or Yale which I also applied to. I always assumed if a school does interviews you need to get one to get in, what makes you think otherwise?

[neutrinos]

While I cannot speak on those schools specifically, I got into several schools without interviewing (I have an post about my application results from 2021) that other people had to interview for. For some of the schools I got into, they specifically stated they interviewed everyone, for others they only interviewed candidates that had mostly strong applications, but maybe had a red flag or two they wanted to talk about before moving forward, so it really depends on the schools.

[burnbadd]

Hi, I have had an interview from Princeton, but not MIT, Harvard or Yale which I also applied to. I always assumed if a school does interviews you need to get one to get in, what makes you think otherwise?

All of the people I know that got into Harvard and MIT did not receive an interview so I actually only learned about their existence after coming to this forum lol

[rustyDingo]

Just an update was asked to interview at Yale yesterday. Hope you have been having luck with your applications too!

[centarsirius]

Hey, were you invited for interview by Yale for their physics program or their astro program?