Dear Jason,
How much weight does the Harvard interview actually carry?
Sincerely,
Bad First Impressions
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Dear Bad First Impressions,
The interview carries little weight in my opinion. It is most nerve wrecking because it is in person unlike your app, recommendations and essay (AKA everything else). Yet some brilliant people do not interview well and the biggest idiots can BS through an interview...so it doesn't make or break you. Colleges know this.
One personal anecdote--UPenn interview, I traveled to an Orlando law firm, had responded quickly and politely to every email and phone call, dressed sharp, was not thrown off by having THREE interviewers, shared my personal experiences since I was at Penn for a summer program, which one of my interviewers had participated in (brownie points, right?), I asked insightful questions about the opportunities for entrepreneurship at Wharton (and other questions) and the head interviewer told my mom she had raised me right when the interview was done. I was waitlisted and never got an answer (declined to stay on it after replying to Harvard...since you don't find out about waitlists until July or so).
On the other hand, for my Harvard interview, there was a bit of back and forth with where to meet for the interview. I inadvertently made him travel 45 minutes or so. I didn't know how to pronounce his name (although I did google him and know some about his background), the guy was still talking to the previous student when I arrived on time so I would inevitably "be late" for my interview in his eyes, I stuttered some and came off as less-than-poised and my post-interview question was about whether he had studied abroad at Harvard/what he liked most about it. Decent but definitely worse than my Penn interview. Yet I was accepted early. Go figure.
Sincerely,
Jason
