Do Cornell and Brown conduct college interviews differently, and how much do they matter in admissions?

At Brown, applicants may be offered an alumni conversation when availability allows, and it is usually meant to add a small amount of context to the application rather than drive the decision. It can matter at the margins because the interviewer may submit feedback to admissions, but it is not one of the primary factors and many applicants are admitted without one simply because capacity is limited.

At Cornell, the biggest difference is that interviews are not handled the same way across all undergraduate colleges. For many other Cornell applicants, the alumni contact is closer to an informational meeting called a CAAAN conversation, which is explicitly not an evaluative admissions interview.

So if you are applying to Brown, treat an interview as a meaningful but secondary part of the file: be prepared, personable, and able to talk clearly about why Brown fits you. If you are applying to Cornell, first check the exact undergraduate college you are targeting, because for some programs the interview is important, while for many others it does not function as a scored admissions factor in the same way.