[pdonis]

> To me, using alumni to do interviews is just a form of indirection in regards to legacy admissions.

I don't see why. I was interviewed by an MIT alum during my MIT application process back in the early 1980s, and he never asked me anything about my parents or other relatives. (I did not have any parents or relatives who went to MIT, and would have told him so if he had asked, but he didn't ask.) He only asked me about things I had done.

> Who is better prepared to discuss MIT with alumni?

The alum who interviewed me didn't ask me anything about MIT. He told me things about MIT. (One particular piece of advice he gave me was extremely helpful: he advised me to visit the MIT campus before I made a final decision about going there if I was accepted. I did that, and it made a huge difference.) He wasn't quizzing me about my MIT knowledge.

My understanding of MIT's rationale for using alumni to interview applicants is that the alum can provide input on how well they think the applicant would acclimate to the MIT environment. MIT can seem very harsh to a student coming from high school, where they were used to being at the top of everything academically, and finding out that at MIT, they're just somewhere in the middle of the pack. MIT, at least in my understanding, believes that alumni who went through that experience themselves can provide useful input on how an applicant might deal with it.