I’m a current Lawrenceville student. Here’s what I experienced during the application process:
- Why would you like to attend [xyz school]?
- Why do you want to go to independent/boarding school?
- What contributions do you think you will make to the school community?
- What are your favorite things to do in your free time?
- How do you like to spend your summers?
- Do you have any questions for me? (always have questions prepared).
Be authentic. They want to know you and understand if you’re a right fit for the school. When I was interviewing at Lawrenceville, I managed to get away with telling the AO “if [the K-8 school I was attending at the time] had a high school, I’d stay there,” forgetting my phone in the AO’s office and only realizing so after having arrived back in the main lobby, and laughing so loudly at the satire magazine that they had in the lobby while attempting to look “intellectual” (I was feeling incredibly self-conscious after seeing all the applicants around me reading something, while I was on my phone) that the person at the front desk remarked to me “you can keep that if you want.” All quite awkward mistakes (potentially one of my most disastrous interviews), yet I made it in. I also didn’t have a laundry list of accomplishments I dished out to each AO (particularly because I lacked them); rather, I just talked about what I found interesting and why. If you can show that kind of spark in you, it really leaves a mark on the AO—my acceptance package had a personalized post-card where my AO referenced some very specific elements from our interview.
If you have any questions about what attending a boarding school is like (I’m a day student but of the “spends 12 hours on campus each day” variety), feel free to ask here or in messages.