My daughter has been invited to compete for a full scholarship at a LAC that she is very fond of. She had already received their highest merit award, but was then asked after that to try for additional money. She had to write an essay, which she completed, and she has been invited back for an interview in a few weeksl, where they will select several students for full scholarships. She does truly like the school, and would probably attend with the current scholarship offer.
Do any parents have any tips or watch outs…any questions we should be asking up front about this. Also, any clue as to what questions she could expect in the scholarship interview? They could throw some crazy questions at her.
She is also competing for a music scholarship the same day…we may ask that she compete for that on another day, as this might be too much in one day. Not sure if this is asking too much.
Be sure she knows how to shake hands! Seriously. If you haven’t already taught her, do it now. Young women especially tend to have a weak handshake, so have her practice walking up to you, SMILING, introducing herself and giving a firm handshake. First impression!
Google “Scholarship interview questions” and you will find many examples.
I would imagine they want interesting, engaged, intelligent, curious people.
So when answering “What did you do last summer”
If she worked at the ice cream store, don’t say “I worked at the ice cream store.”
Say "I worked at our local ice cream store. I thought it would just be scooping ice cream, but really I learned about customer service, food safety, keeping track of money, working with others and how to deal with a slightly demanding boss.
Here are some questions my kids have been asked: Why do you want to attend this school? Why do you want to study this major? What talents, etc., will you bring to this school (in other words, what can you do for us?). What does “education” mean to you? What is your best/worst quality? Describe: a situation where you were a leader, a time you learned from a mistake, the accomplishment you are most proud of, the EC that means the most to you, your favorite teacher or class, where you see yourself in X years. Also you can google typical job interview questions and practice on the ones that might be asked in a scholarship interview. Be sure she knows to not say anything critical about any past teacher, coach, boss, school, etc. Good luck to her!
It’s my firm opinion that coaching inexperienced students for an interview is asking for a bad outcome.
If they are truly inexperienced, there is nothing wrong with some help to reduce the jitters, but for some adult to start telling them what they think the interviewer wants to hear is a mistake.
My younger son is shy and quiet so we practiced interviews with him. We asked the usual questions, the kind you can google up, like “what is your greatest weakness” or “what do you wish you had done differently in high school.” We tried to ask him some screwy questions as well, stuff he wouldn’t be ready for, like “boxers or briefs.” It helped him get comfortable thinking on his feet, and helped him work on what parts of his story he wanted to present.
@JustOneDad, I think it is helpful to practice a few questions so that the student can think about the questions and is confident on how he or she will answer. There is a difference between helping your student prepare, and “for some adult to start telling them what they think the interviewer wants to hear”. The OP asked for suggestions of what questions her daughter may hear. No one suggested telling her the answers, and certainly no one suggested telling her what the “interviewer wants to hear”.
When I had my first job interview in high school, I was unprepared and I did not get that job. For my next interview, I got a list of 100 most common job interview questions and practiced my answers. That was very helpful, and I have prepared my children for their interviews as well, and they have gotten scholarships, internships, job offers, and memberships in organizations due to their interviewing skills. There is a great book called Practice Perfect that sets out the case for practicing things, including things that many would never think require practice!
Good luck to her. I think it may be asking too much for her to ask to reschedule interview days because she is competing for a music scholarship as well - unless they directly conflict, but as long as there is reasonable time to get to both places safely, she will learn an important life skill in doing them both back-to-back.
@pumpkin65: In that case, one part of the advice is very simple. Relax. She’s already playing with house money. She’s there to answer a few questions and have a genuine conversation with her interviewers. Hopefully, she’ll learn more about the school. If things go really well, she’ll also be compensated for doing so.
@Barfly Sure, that’s what I meant when I referred to a little help to build confidence, but the indoctrination that comes with “And if they ask this, say this, and if this comes up, this is how you should answer…” does more damage than good.
And, as someone who sits in the interviewer seat I have to note that I want to find out how the student thinks, not their parents. I can tell the difference and it doesn’t make me happy.
I have had alumni interviews where before we shake hands, the student is handing me a resume instead. And the student has their resume memorized too, trying to match their rote answers to my questions.
If they are giving away money, they want to know what kind of person are they giving money to. Also, if her essay made it past the first round to the interview, just refresh her memory on that (go to lunch with you and talk about the experience more).
The closer she is to her real self, the better she will do. The more she preps and tries to memorize verbatim, the higher the stress level. Some kids thrive on that, but some do not.
Well, @JustOneDad, guess we’re all on the same page here, as no one is suggesting telling this young woman how to answer. When I conduct interviews, I never sense that what I am hearing is the parents’ opinions, but I don’t interview high school kids or undergrads.
Perhaps I’ll elaborate a bit on our experiences here since my kid has done over half a dozen alumni and/or scholarship interviews in the last couple of months. When he was framing his applications, we discussed how, inevitably, admissions officers have to present a student to the committee as “that kid who . . . .” I then asked him to think about how he would like for his application to be summarized in “twitter-length.” That helped him draw out two or three key themes that he tried to make sure were reflected in his overall application package for each school across the Common App essay and the supps.
For interviews, I suggested to him that he re-read his application, with particular attention to the “Why X” essay, where relevant, and perhaps take a quick peek at the college home page to see what was happening on campus that week. During the interviews, he tried to be relaxed and conversational but with a goal of making sure that he addressed each of his key themes at some point in the conversation where there was a natural spot to do so.
It takes some practice, but if you can do that, you can stay “on message” without sounding canned. And you also can relate your experiences to something happening on the target campus that you might like to be a part of. This last point is probably what a scholarship interviewer would like to evaluate – i.e., if we spend our scholarship budget here, what type of talents/skills/engagement will we be adding to our class?
I’m sorry, I must have gotten that idea from the OP when they asked “any clue as to what questions she could expect in the scholarship interview? They could throw some crazy questions at her.”
Or, maybe where you listed 7 or 8 questions and added “Be sure she knows to not say anything critical about any past teacher, coach, boss, school”
Thanks everyone…I don’t plan to overdo this…I just want to do some common sense preparation. The stakes are pretty high, a full scholarship would be nice.
I think who she is will shine through. She is naturally fairly articulate - though she can be snarky, I think that’s reserved for me and I’ve never seen it come out with another adult. I’ve stayed completely out of her academic life, and have had a rather hands off approach to her college search and selection. Definitely not going to over-helicopter this one, perhaps more of a stealth submarine approach.
Preparation soothes anxiety also. She and I are alike in this way, and I want her to be at ease as much as possible.
FWIW, I write up about a page or two double-spaced based on a 30-minute alumni interview. I can only hope that someone interviewing for a high dollar value scholarship would do the same and not distill a candidate down to a “Twitter length” line of text.
That may be true for scholarship interviews, but I think that when a large batch of files are presented to the admissions committee it would be unusual for an AO to take more than 30 seconds to summarize it to kick off the discussion. That’s the way I framed it for my kid to consider.
Hey, @JustOneDad, sorry. Thought we were on the same page - didn’t mean to tick you off.
I think listing possible questions for your child to consider is not the same as telling the student how to answer. I also think that teaching your child to not say anything critical in an interview is appropriate parenting. Some kids don’t know this. In fact, I’ve interviewed several adults who didn’t know this basic etiquette and bad mouthed their past or current employer. So I think it’s a good lesson to teach your kid prior to an interview. For example, don’t say negative things about your music teacher in an interview for a music scholarship. Is there some reason that you would not teach this to your child?
So, FWIW to the OP, what we did was help where needed to be sure our kids had an appropriate wardrobe selected, and knew how to enter an interview with a smile and an introduction and a firm handshake. We discussed possible questions so that our kids could consider how they would answer. Sure, they may be caught off guard with a wacky question. That happens. But on the other hand, the fact that they had considered some common questions made them more confident, then when the interviewer asks “What is your best trait”, they are ready to discuss it because they had considered it. Of course, if it turns out to just be a chatty discussion, and no tough questions are asked, then great! And perhaps some of the prep will come in handy in a future interview.
We also suggested to them to just enjoy the visit and have fun. We talked about how it would be a great learning experience and great interviewing practice regardless of the outcome. We talked about how you never know exactly what an interviewer is looking for, so you might as well assume he/she is looking for YOU. Be yourself (although, obviously, in my opinion, it’s best to be your PREPARED self!)
In the most recent scholarship interview one of my kids had, he was asked what his biggest disappointment was, and he had most likely never considered that exact question, but he felt he gave a good answer. He was also asked what his biggest flaw was, and he was really glad he had already considered that one and knew how to answer.