<p>Interviewers in general want to know more about you and about why you want to go to their school. Then they can give you good advice. For example, they have lots of contacts and can tell you (I find that they really like to tell you) about their experiences at the college and what life is like at the college.</p>
<p>With that said, I found that the UChicago interview I had was very much like the interviews for other schools. If it’s an alumni interview, make sure you’re prepared to talk. I’ve had two alumni interviews, and in both cases they didn’t have questions to ask. </p>
<p>First they say the usual, it’s really just for the colleges to know more about you beyond the rest of your application speech. Then they say, Okay, so what classes are you taking, or Do you have any questions?</p>
<p>Then you have your conversation and it just goes on from there.</p>
<p>I especially liked my UChicago interview because my interviewer was a math major and I am very interested in mathematics, so we basically just talked about math at a Starbucks for a while. The conversation really wasn’t about UChicago. But it really does depend on the interviewer. I think my UChicago interviewer cared much more about math than UChicago, and so he talked a lot about math, much more than he did about the actual University. At the interview for Carleton, though, the interviewer loved Carleton so much that that was basically all we talked about. But I learned a lot about Carleton from the interview, because he had so many experiences that he wanted to share. In that sense, it’s a really good idea to do interviews because they give you information that you won’t get from a brochure. And it’s fun too.</p>
<p>So just relax. Have some questions about the school and have solid reasons why you want to go to that school. That helps carry the conversation. For instance, for UChicago interview, I mentioned the Directed Reading Program, which is for those interested in math research. We had a conversation about that and my interviewer talked about how much fun he had. So it’s really not a personal interview, like “What events shaped your life?” The interviewers, in my experience, like to share their experiences and help you be more informed about the colleges you’re applying to.</p>