Alumni Disclosure Form

We very much appreciate your interest in interviewing applicants for Harvard College. In our continuing efforts to provide a comfortable interviewing experience for applicants, we offer some guidelines reflecting “best practices” of many of our Schools Committees and other institutions as well. We hope these guidelines will help ensure smooth and productive interviews.
 
Please review the following expectations, indicating your agreement at the end in order to activate your account.

1. We are all aware that many applicants Google their assigned interviewers or search them in other ways on the Internet. We now ask interviewers to disclose to us if they believe their Internet presence might be considered inappropriate and/or if other considerations might affect the perception of our integrity.
2. Interviewers must disclose if they have been convicted of a felony or other crime.
3. Interviewers must step down for the season if they have an immediate family member in the applicant pool or if they might have other conflicts of interest. The latter would include anyone who is involved, directly or indirectly, in independent college admissions work or standardized test preparation. The Admissions Office seeks to avoid even the slightest suggestion of impropriety.
4. Please be sensitive to the privacy of applicants and their families. Any information requested from the student should be labeled OPTIONAL. Interviewers should not factor into their evaluation a student’s choice not to provide such information. Interviewers should not
   1. Request any information (e.g. transcripts, test scores, recommendations) from secondary schools or other institutions that have such personal data.
   2. Require that applicants provide any portions of their applications including essays, transcripts, or recommendations.
5. While you might find it helpful, as many of us do in Cambridge, to inquire about grades and scores in a general way to gauge academic fit, you are not required to request or report them to us. If you choose to ask, please do so with care and sensitivity.
6. While some interviewers ask students to complete pre-interview resumés, we expect that any such queries should not violate the letter or the spirit of the guidelines above. Students should not be led to worry about the possibility that they would be pre-judged prior to the interview based on this self-reported information. The Admissions Office is happy to provide the pre-interview forms used by staff as a template for interested clubs.
7. When scheduling the interview, give students several options for a date and time, asking when is best for them. Indicate how long the interview will take (usually 30-45 minutes and no more than an hour).
8. If possible, schedule the interview for a public place that is quiet, safe, and mutually convenient, suitable for a confidential conversation. Be sensitive to transportation and accessibility issues, making sure the applicant and his/her parents can accommodate the plan. Interviews conducted in homes are often viewed as problematic unless parents or others accompany the applicant (parents should not be part of the interview itself). We hope that clubs think carefully about the location and the message it sends to applicants.
9. Interviewers should never reveal any knowledge of a potential admissions decision to an applicant.
10. Interviewers should take care to treat as confidential all information from or about applicants to Harvard College.

We appreciate efforts to provide privacy and comfort for the students you interview. We are honored by their interest in Harvard. Please read carefully our Interviewing Tips and the Schools and Scholarships Handbook.