vibha wrote:
Thank you all for the good wishes. Does anyone have anu insight to the original question? Would it reflect negatively if I requested an offsite interview?
I would go if you can, for plenty of reasons.
(1) It shows you really do want to go to the school
(2) Have you visited Yale before? Do they know that in your essays? If not, its going to be hard to convince someone that your really serious about a school (that is, wanting to go there) that you've never even visited.
(3) You'll interview with someone in the admissions office probably rather than with a non-direct decision maker
(4) You'll get to meet a few students/etc and might be able to convince one of them to stop by the admissions office and lend his or her support.
(5) When you write a thank you note, you'll likely be able to throw something new in (more tahn you could with an offsite interview) i.e. rahter than just saying "I enjoyed our conversation today" you can say "I enjoyed our conversation as well as my class visit with prof X. All the students I met were amazing, and X and Y. I thank you for having had hte opportunity to come down to campus, it's been a phenomenal experience bal bla bla" Just a bit stronger than "Thank you for taking the time to meet with me today. I enjoyed pooping myself while you asked questions."