The Thread for College Interviews

[discoball]

I have my first interview soon and it's going to be at a coffeehouse. If I arrive and my interviewer's already there, should I go sit down at her table and just not order anything? Should I sit down then excuse myself to go order something? Or just see her, but order something first and get my drink before going to sit with her? Ahh, I find all of the possibilities so awkward.

[spazzity]

I just had my Chicago interview. It went very well, except for one thing. One kind of major thing. While she was very nice, and we had a wonderful conversation about Classics, tennis, why we hate Ayn Rand, why we love Aristotle, anarchy, current politics, my political ideology, world cultures, feminism, diversity, and law, she also asked me where else I was applying to early...I didn't want to lie, so I told her Columbia and UMich. If she reports that to Chicago, I'm kind of screwed, aren't I? Because Chicago admissions knows that Columbia only does ED, they'll either be like "well, we'll definitely lose that cross-admit battle, no question, might as well not waste an acceptance on her," or they'll defer me. Even though she didn't write anything down, she's GOING to remember that I mentioned Columbia ED because she told me how her husband went to Columbia and when we were discussing the Common Core, she talked about how similar Chicago's is to Columbia's. :/

Oh, and at the very end, when we had gotten up to leave, she asked me for my SAT scores and GPA as an afterthought almost, which I felt was rather strange because Chicago already has that info on file form Collegeboard/my school? I thought Chicago didn't roll like that, but whatever.

And my concerns about dress were completely unnecessary -- she showed up in huge baggy sweats and told me she was going to go play tennis after our interview, lol. Though I think it may have just been her, I'm still going to go conservatively business-professional for my other interviews.

[spazzity]

Oh, I also had my Johns Hopkins interview a while back...it can only be described as EPIC FAIL, lol. First of all, my interviewer showed up an hour and a half late, but whatever. She asked me to tell her about myself so I rambled about my biggest activity for about 5 minutes, then I said "I want to major in Classics", and she said "I know nothing about Classics, I'm an International Relations major, do you have any other questions for me?" So I spent the next 20 minutes asking her everything I could think of that wouldn't seem to stupid. I felt like I was interviewing her. Even though Hopkins' interviews are informational, it felt really awkward, lol. 25 minutes.

She didn't ask me for my GPA, ranking, SATs, or anything like that. No curveballs either, unless you count only asking me one question then turning the interview over to me as a curveball, which it kind of was.

[FHN_dent]

I just had my WashU interview and it went well except for a couple things. I didn't use much sophisticated language. Also, towards the beggining she asked me what my schedule was this year. I told her all of my classes and then drama. For some reason I felt a little too comfortable and told her it was requirement and i was forced into it. She didn't seem to take that too well and said well you never know what you will learn. Also for some reason at times I appeared lacking self confidence. I said I played football with friend although I'm not that great at it. I think I recovered decently but I don't know. I really hope I get in somehow...

[Poseur]

Haha okay sooo... this horrible/hilarious thing happened to my friend last week.

So WashU sent him something in the mail saying that they would be in contact with him soon in order to schedule an interview, so he was like, "alright." About five days later, he got a call from an admissions officer who wanted to schedule his interview. After the phone call, he realized that the admissions officer had never specified a school, but he figured it was safe to assume that it was WashU.

So he had the interview last Sunday and it was going fine until the interviewer said, "Is there anything else you'd like to know about Yale?"

x___x

He played it off well (apparently he had only mentioned WUStL once) and finished the interview. He came out of it thinking, "This will make a great story."

[kjj17]

ohno!!!! bahhahaha

[yournamehere]

FHN - i don't think sophisticated language will be that much of a problem. being urself is most important. lol we don't wanna come off as phony! =)

[igotzconnections]

o man...i have my first interview tomorrow
i don wanna worry too much but i cant help it haha

[FHN_dent]

Yea... I'm pretty glad the interview is over because I practiced all types of questions and scenarios until I turned mad. It was my first interview and I was OCD about it. Turns out it was pretty casual and my interviewer wanted to see me succeed rather than fail.



Just whatever you guys do... don't think about the interview after it's over. What's done cannot be undone.(Macbeth) I lost sleep the night after about what I should have said and why I said what I did. Assuming the interview isn't mandatory... most times an interview can only help you and serves as an additional recommendation.

[klaz413]

I have an interview with GW tomorrow (today technically). For some reason I'm more nervous for this than I was for both of my Yale interviews. Weird. I also have an on campus WashU interview the first week in December.

[Yopua]

This is kind of random, but pertains to interviews on attire. Should I have a little scruff for facial hair to make me look more older? Or should I be freshly shaven? This kind of interview is very important (my application got accepted to get an interview, interview now determines).

[Emp]

I'd say shave because its more important to look well kept and professional than older, they don't care how old you look.

On another note-I had my second college interview (my first on campus interview though, it took place at Union). I was so nervous nonetheless but my interviewer was so nice and chill! We talked about how we are both real big democrats, what music is good and the like. It was very conversational. Only bad thing, she asked me what classes I was taking and it took me like a minute to remember all of them (!!!). I was like "uh..."

[dchow08]

I second the shaving advice. Shave for the interview, and then do whatever you want with your hair afterwards. If it's that important--I don't think any college interview is so important that shaving or not matters, but why not?

[JoshuaGuit]

I would think the shaving decision should be made on a case by case basis

I kept my little goatee for my two interviews because its part of my personality

[jessica725]

Question:

I already asked this, but just asking again cuz...I'm a little worried.

I'm going to be meeting my Yale interviewer at Starbucks, and my guess is that I will probably be earlier than he, so do I offer to buy him his drink? Or if he offers, do I accept???/