Does the Princeton interview matter?

JJanet Rapelye, Princeton's dean of admission from 2003 to 2018, told the Princeton Alumni Weekly that alumni interviews mainly help the office understand an applicant's context, and said elsewhere that they count less than recommendations from people who know the student at school. Yet in the 2015 wave of file requests reported by the Daily Princetonian, several students found that the interview loomed large in their own files.

One, whose reader had asked whether his commitments were enough and who had B grades in English and history, believed his interview was what decided it. Another found that the readers' summary left out his test scores entirely and focused on his activities and interview. These are students' own readings, and none can prove what decided a case. Both accounts can still be true at once.