TL;DR: The Cornell interview is a split policy. For nearly every applicant, personal interviews are not required and not available – Cornell says so directly (Cornell Undergraduate Admissions FAQ, 2026). The one exception is the five-year B.Arch. program in the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, where a video interview is required: a short recorded video answering three prompts, submitted through Cornell AAP SlideRoom together with the required portfolio, and evaluated as part of selection. Separately, any applicant can request an informal, non-evaluative conversation with a Cornell Alumni Admissions Ambassador to learn about the university. To position a Cornell application – architecture or otherwise – as one coherent whole, schedule a consultation with Oriel Admissions.
Does Cornell offer admissions interviews?
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| General policy | Personal interviews are not required – and not available – for admission to Cornell colleges and schools, with one exception |
| The exception | Applicants to the five-year B.Arch. program in the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning must complete a required video interview |
| Current format | A short recorded video responding to three prompts, submitted through Cornell AAP SlideRoom alongside the required portfolio |
| Is it evaluative | Yes. The video interview and portfolio are part of the selection process for the B.Arch. program, with faculty assessing creative ability and commitment |
| Alumni conversations | Applicants can request an informal, informational meeting with a Cornell Alumni Admissions Ambassador (CAAAN) – non-evaluative and separate from admissions review |
| Everyone else | Your voice travels through the written application: the Cornell supplement and school-specific essay carry what an interview would |
Source: Cornell Undergraduate Admissions FAQ (2026); Cornell AAP, Undergraduate Admissions – Architecture (2026).
For applicants to the College of Arts and Sciences, Engineering, Dyson, the Nolan School, ILR, Human Ecology, CALS, and Brooks: no. There is no interview to schedule, request, or wait for, and not having one is the universal condition rather than a gap in your file. Cornell answers the question in one line on its own FAQ – personal interviews are not required, nor available – which makes it the simplest policy in the Ivy League for seven of its eight undergraduate destinations. The eighth is where it gets interesting.
The Architecture exception: a required video interview
Applicants to the five-year Bachelor of Architecture program face the opposite of optional: the video interview is a required application component, alongside a portfolio of 15-20 images, and both must be complete for the application to be considered. The current format is recorded, not live – you film short responses to three prompts and upload the video through Cornell AAP SlideRoom with your portfolio. One of the prompts asks you to describe the design process and impact of one of your creative projects in art, design, architecture, or activism; the full current set is listed on the AAP architecture admissions page. Two logistics warnings: you create the SlideRoom account yourself, and AAP notes its submission deadlines can run ahead of the Common App deadlines – check the current cycle dates on the AAP page the day you decide to apply. Older guides describing a live conversation with an alumnus or faculty member, request forms, and bring-your-artwork sessions describe an earlier version of the process; follow the AAP page, not archived advice.
How should B.Arch. applicants approach the Cornell video interview?
Treat it as a design brief, because that is how it will be read. The prompts reward the same qualities the portfolio does – evidence of creative ability and genuine commitment to the field – delivered in your speaking voice. Choose one project you can narrate as a process: the constraint you faced, the decisions you made, what the work changed for someone. Concrete beats grand; a bus-stop redesign explained with real reasoning outperforms vague passion for iconic buildings. Keep each response tight, film with clean light and audio, and let the video and portfolio reinforce each other – if a project appears in both, the video is where its thinking gets a voice. The pair is evaluative and faculty-read, which makes this the single heaviest-weighted interview component anywhere in the Ivy League.
What are CAAAN conversations – and do they count?
Separate from all of the above, Cornell maintains the Cornell Alumni Admissions Ambassador Network, and applicants can request an informal meeting with an alumnus to learn about the university from someone who lived it. These conversations are informational, not evaluative: they exist for your benefit, availability depends on volunteers in your area, and they are not the mechanism by which your application is judged. Take one if you want texture on Cornell life that no website provides – an hour with a graduate is real research – but do not mistake it for a scored component or a demonstrated-interest lever. Your candidacy is built elsewhere.
What the Cornell interview policy means for everyone else
The same logic that governs Columbia and Penn applies at Cornell for the non-architecture colleges: the written file does complete work. Cornell’s structure sharpens the point, because you apply to a specific college with a school-specific essay – the closest thing to an interview question Cornell asks. A generic answer wastes the one channel built for your voice; a specific one, naming the program, the faculty, the problem you want to work on, does what a strong interview answer would have done, in writing, inside the Cornell supplemental essays. And because no later human touchpoint exists to recover a flat file, revision depth matters disproportionately – all the way to the margins where the Cornell waitlist decides outcomes, and where the written record is the whole record inside a Cornell candidacy.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Cornell Interview
For nearly all applicants, no – Cornell states that personal interviews are not required, nor available, for its colleges and schools. The one exception is the B.Arch. program in the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning.
Yes. Applicants to the five-year B.Arch. program must complete a required video interview, submitted together with the required portfolio, and both must be complete for the application to be considered.
A short recorded video responding to three prompts, uploaded through Cornell AAP SlideRoom alongside your portfolio. One prompt asks you to describe the design process and impact of one of your creative projects.
Yes. The video interview and portfolio are read by faculty as part of B.Arch. selection, assessing creative ability and commitment to architecture in addition to academic credentials.
No. Interviews are not offered for the other colleges and schools, and there is no request mechanism. What you can request is an informal, non-evaluative conversation with a Cornell Alumni Admissions Ambassador.
Informational meetings with Cornell alumni through the Cornell Alumni Admissions Ambassador Network. They help you learn about the university and do not factor into admissions decisions.
No. Since interviews are not part of the process outside the B.Arch. program, every applicant is in the same position, and files are evaluated fully on the written application.
SlideRoom submission deadlines for the portfolio and video can run ahead of the Common App deadlines, so check the current cycle dates on the Cornell AAP architecture admissions page before you plan your timeline.
Sources: Cornell Undergraduate Admissions FAQ – Interviews, Cornell AAP – Architecture Undergraduate Admissions, NCES College Navigator, NACAC, Common App
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