<p>^Yes. Students in Soozievt’s part of the world would have no opportunity to be interviewed by DeanJ and others.</p>
<p>
I’m one of the parents/interviews that finds the objections to home interviews surprising … but I would not want my kid to have an interveiw in a alum’s hotel room … however I do not find that scenario particularly similar to any of the others discussed … and I’d be pretty surprised if any alum interview made such as a request (even then I know job interviews that were held in the “sitting room” of hotel suites … it was the preferred approach by many top consulting firms when I was a MBA student (so they didn’t have to follow the school’s career center recruiting rules))</p>
<p>It was raised in comparison to the objection to meeting with a trusted work colleague in their hotel room … first, as the situation was described this is a known person who is trusted it is not a stranger … second, while the specifics of the request were not described I am assuming both parties were travelling in which case I have done this numerous times … not because I was hoping for some action but because if we needed to meet/prep in private it is the most natural place to meet. Depending on the content of the meeting it might be unethical to hold it where strangers can overhear the conversation and access to private roooms is not that easy when traveling (wander the lobby of the hotel looking for an unused conference room … or arrive early at the destination and wander around looking for an unused room)</p>
<p>^ let me expand on that … I had an outside consulting job for about 1 1/2 years which involved about 75% travel (which sucked) … on nights I was on the road with a colleague and we were not travelling to another city I bet we met in one of our hotel rooms to review the current day and to prep for the next at least 75% of the time. After a 10-11 hour workday on-site and 2-3 more hours to go the last thing we wanted to do was to head out again … crashing in one the rooms in casual cloths while working was much easier … and I can not ever remember someone objecting or requesting a change of venue over the 100+ times I did this with 15-20 different colleagues (half the time with a female colleague). One last thought … my wife never raised an eyebrow either … actually she preferred I stay in the hotel rather than head out and drive at night when exhausted.</p>
<p>
Yes, the parents should know, but GCs and the alum’s school? Here the public school GCs would have no reason to know a particular student’s interview schedule. The alum’s school would know that a particular alum was on the list of interviewers, but wouldn’t be informed about the particulars of when/where/with which applicant each interview was to occur. At least not in our experience. I also wondered about a previous poster’s suggestion that GCs inform rising seniors about interviews. That is not done here by overworked public high school GCs, most of whom are focused on getting students into state universities (most don’t have interviews at all). They have enough to do, doing the usual GC activities plus the necessary paperwork for seniors applying to colleges.</p>
<p>My company has “sexual harassment” training course for managers (I tell them that I know how to harass people already, no training necessary). We are told not to hold any meetings in our room unless it is a suite where the bedroom could be closed off. They said whenever there is a bed in sight it is not appropriate to have a business meeting. Whenever I’ve had to work with a colleague I would always meet them in a public place, even if it’s just dropping off/picking up documents. As a woman, I also never give out my room number to people I travel with. If I am to have drinks with colleagues, I always leave when there are still other colleagues around, always avoid 1:1. This is not because I would be attacked, but to avoid any unnecessary rumors.</p>
<p>Indeed, prepping between two colleagues (and wanting to keep the details of the prep to themselves and not be overheard) and job interviews are quite different. But I would not be comfortable doing the prepping in a bedroom.</p>
<p>There is an enormous amount of job interviewing done at academic conventions that ordinarily meet a large hotels. Most, I assume, take place in rooms reserved for that purpose. I have not heard of job interviews that took place in someone’s hotel bedroom.</p>
<p>“Yes, the parents should know, but GCs and the alum’s school? Here the public school GCs would have no reason to know a particular student’s interview schedule.”</p>
<p>An alum interviewer would be unlikely to rape a student during an interview because the student could have told their GC about the interview – and have asked for advice, etc. The alum’s school also would know about the interview because someone connected with the school – including the alum in charge of arranging local interviews – would know that the alum was assigned to interview the student.</p>
<p>The student also may have told classmates and others about the interview. </p>
<p>A rapist alum would have an easier time getting away with committing such a crime by stalking strangers met at a local coffee shop or by hanging around a local college campus. As I mentioned earlier, someone was raped in the library of a college near me. Unlikely as it is that a student in a library will be raped, I think that’s more likely than a student’s being raped during an interview at the home of an alum.</p>
<p>“When you’re on a business trip, and you have to do preparation, 9 times out of 10 it has to be in somebody’s hotel room, which means a problem either way from North2South’s standpoint.”</p>
<p>I’ve been on lots of business trips including some in which I was the only female in a group of men. I’ve never had to do preparation in someone’s hotel room. If we needed to prep, we’d do it over meals or in the lobby.</p>
<p>It is kind of silly to be discussing the mechanics of a crime that doesn’t exist in the actual world – the rape of high school students by college interviewers.</p>
<p>Re business trips – I don’t do them that often, but when I do it often involves writing things and dealing with confidential information, stuff that would not be appropriate in a lobby or a restaurant (and that’s usually happening at 7 am or 11 pm, if it’s happening). And, for that matter, a team of three would be the maximum, and two more common. If you are sweating to get something done at 7 am for an 8:30 meeting, taking time out for nonconsensual sex (and its consequences) isn’t the way to go.</p>
<p>Of course, I’m not saying that you do that in someone’s hotel room if you have another choice. I’m just saying that it’s not uncommon not to have another choice.</p>
<p>I’m amazed this thread is still alive and well.</p>
<p>To the OP’s question, I would give a qualified yes. The OP has had a terrible personal tragedy that does undoubtedly color her feelings about her remaining child taking risks. Google the person and the location. If nothing looks awry, this is likely no riskier than meeting in other locations. But, if your daughter still feels nervous, she could easily say, “It makes me a littler nervous going to houses of people I don’t know. I hate to inconvenience you, but if it is possible to meet at the nearby Starbucks, I’d prefer that.” </p>
<p>I recall a college interview back in the dark ages at a Yale alumnus’s mansion in New Jersey. As a Jewish middle class kid, this was both scary and, as NSM said, gave me an indication of what life after graduating from Yale might be like. It was a Saturday, I think, and there were interviews every hour. So asking him to do it at Starbucks (or the dark ages equivalent) would have been rather inconvenient for him.</p>
<p>I conduct my alumni interviews at my office. All is arranged by my female executive assistant. However, the interviews are often at the end of the day and she may leave before the student. One could equally have a problem with that.</p>
<p>More broadly, I travel a lot on business, sometimes with colleagues. The only person I meet with in my hotel room is my business partner. I meet with other employees in the restaurant or lobby. Alternatively, if I’m going to be there a week, I will take a room on the executive floor so we can work in the executive lounge. </p>
<p>I am sensitive to the male/female issue at work. I began my working life as a 26 year old professor at a business school (median student age was 26) and taught a course that many humanities majors thought they were going to fail. A significant fraction of those worried about failing (over half) were females. I was tough, especially at the beginning, but really committed to helping them master the material, which caused students to like me. I was told by a second year student that half the girls in the class had crushes on me (although I think this had more to do with the strange authority relations fostered by the nature of the teaching). As the semester wore on, I would have repeated meetings with female students who were having difficulty in the course would have an extra button unbuttoned and would lean over my table and ask for my help in “strategizing on how they could raise their grade in the course?” These were very attractive women who I liked personally (and who came in frequently for help). Yikes. Visions of sexual harassment charges were dancing in my head (well at least afterward). So, I started leaving my door open during all meetings, tried to work out ways to keep my eyes on their faces (which was harder for me as a 26 year old male to do than it sounds), and asked my secretary to pop in regularly. [At least two students later married two of my colleagues]. Given that experience, I would not ask a female employee to come to my hotel room unaccompanied, unless possibly it was a suite. Even with a suite.</p>
<p>NSM’s post 936 pretty much sums up many points in the rationale for alumni interviews in private residences. </p>
<p>ellebud, like you, I have thought of myself as protective and a worrier, and that is why this thread really shocked me as I would never imagine a concern about college alumni interviews as having any risks. </p>
<p>As far as an alum interview in a hotel bedroom? I would not agree to that. I can’t imagine anyone offering it. Interviews in homes are not in bedrooms either. Interviews at a hotel can often arrange a conference room, sitting area, or some such. </p>
<p>As far as meeting with CO WORKERS in a hotel bedroom…that would not bother me at all (I realize everyone’s comfort level may differ on that)…this is not like meeting a stranger in a bedroom…these are trusted co-workers or a boss (someone mentioned) whom one works with regularly and the room might have a desk or sitting area. I think such co-workers or bosses have plenty of other opportunities to make advances, if so inclined, when not in the hotel and so if they have been trustworthy co-workers, that would not change my decision to meet to go over something if we had no place else to go late at night or early in the morning on our trip. </p>
<p>Marite…you are right that if adcoms (or alums) like DeanJ no longer meet applicants at hotels and such and only go to schools, then kids like mine would miss out, who live in rural areas, let alone where few, if any, students apply to those elite colleges. When D1 applied to highly selective colleges, only ONE college on her entire list, had a rep come to our HS. It was Smith. In fact, even at the College Fair 50 miles from us in the state’s largest city, several of her colleges were NOT represented (these were well known highly selective schools). As far as alum interviews, she was not offered one for Penn (though they do offer them in other regions), but luckily was still admitted. Fortunately, many elite schools did have alum interviews in the region and she went over to those homes to have those interviews. For D2, this did not come up that much as she applied to schools that required auditions (interviews might be part of that audition process) on campus. ONE school on her list, also offered admissions interviews (separate from the audition she had to do on campus) in our region at a hotel. The hotel was 45 miles away but my D attended (I drove, as D did not have a iicense yet as she was a young applicant to college). That school was Carnegie Mellon. But if the adcom who conducted the regional interviews gave up using hotels in cities and only went to high schools, my D would never had had that interview as I am sure they would not have come to our high school. To give an idea, the year D1 got into college and matriculated at an Ivy league school, she was the only student at our high school that year to attend ANY Ivy. Those schools do not visit our HS.</p>
<p>“I have not heard of job interviews that took place in someone’s hotel bedroom.”</p>
<p>This is extremely common at Harvard Law School. All the interviews for private firms take place in hotels near campus. Only the larger, richer firms have a hospitality suite or a group of meeting rooms for the interviews. Small firms typically send just one interviewer, and you might well meet that person alone in his hotel bedroom. Many of us in the class of 2002 found this practice weird, but there wasn’t any way around it – more than 800 private employers came to campus to interview, and there are only so many suites to rent in those hotels.</p>
<p>There was one instance of sexual harassment that I knew about, but it took place after hours, when there was a large group of people in a hospitality suite, not during a one-on-one interview.</p>
<p><em>May we have a moment of silence in memory of the time when there were lots of jobs for law students. Sigh.</em></p>
<p>My business trips have involved preparing for the next day’s proceedings in court and were highly confidential. Discussing these matters in the hotel lobby might well have voided our attorney-client privilege. If there was an empty business center, we used it, but otherwise we met in our rooms, usually late into the night.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That was certainly true in the late 1970’s when I was there. Most of the interviews were in hotel rooms at places like the Holiday Inn on Mass. Ave. I was way too nervous about interviewing even to think about whether there was anything strange about it.</p>
<p>
It was true even later than that. Hanna hit the nail on the head. There are only so many hospitality suites and, when scores of firms are interviewing at exactly the same time, sometimes it’s hard to find space. We, generally, don’t do that anymore though.</p>
<p>Wow. Thanks all. I learned something new all the time!</p>
<p>Firms competed to get the best suite in the Charles Hotel (the 10th floor one with the grand piano). The Sheraton Commander is much closer to the law school, but doesn’t have the cachet of the Charles…the big firms all chose the Charles.</p>
<p>Due to the economy, various schools are talking about shifting the timing of on-campus interviewing, and the biggest sticking point has been that firms have already booked and paid deposits on hundreds of fancy hotel rooms a year in advance.</p>
<p>-Top ten suggestions for the student interviewing in a private home </p>
<h1>1–revel in the opportunity to finally meet an adult not filtered through your parents.</h1>
<h1>2–completely come to grips with the idea that this is YOUR opportunity to experience some of the “end product” of a prior student at the school where you are seeking admission. What does the house, furnishings etc tell you about that person as it relates to things you think are important</h1>
<h1>3–if you love animals, ask to meet them. Let the interviewer know of that love.</h1>
<h1>4–if you meet the interviewer’s spouse say thank you for extending the use of their home for this opportunity to get to meet and ask the interviewer questions.</h1>
<h1>5–if you are nervous about the interview, consider mentioning that this is a big step for you and that you realize that it is just a first of many new things that you know you will experience in attending college. Use the interview as on the job training for the next time when you have to go one on one with a professor, etc.</h1>
<h1>6–assess the actual experiece of the interview against your own pre-interview concerns. Learn from the experience in regard to your own comfort level and fear management.</h1>
<h1>7–consider the in-home inteview opportunity as a compliment. An adult can control who enters his or her home. You are being respected when invited into that person’s home.</h1>
<h1>8–if you are still interested in the school after the interview, consider sending a thank you note and mention something positive about the home, pets etc.</h1>
<h1>9–use the experience of any parental resistence to the in-home interview as a learning experience for your need to take ownership of the things that are important to your future.</h1>
<h1>10–thank your parent(s) for their concern for you.</h1>
<p>Here is a funny story of interviewing at someone’s home. My daughter’s friend applied to school A for ED. She went to the alum’s home for interview, met both husband and wife (H was the interviewer). She tried her hardest to let H know much she loved the school and all other schools paled in comparison. She was deferred. She then was asked to interview for school B RD. When she got the name and address of the interviewer she almost died, it was the same address as for school A, except this time it was with the wife. As kids would say, “Awkward.”</p>
<p>@oldford. </p>
<p>HAHAHA. Now THAT is a great reason not to interview at an alum’s home…</p>
<p>Oldfort’s story is funny, unusual, and awkward for the student!</p>
<p>WindCloud…I’m not so sure how the interview venue is what makes it weird. Even if husband and wife had interviewed the kid at a cafe, it still would be weird as they are spouses interviewing the same kid for different colleges. The student would also likely be aware of that unless they couple had different last names and never had given out the home phone number as a contact or something like that. (I always give my phone number in case the student has a problem and has to reschedule and get in touch with me…and my cell doesn’t get reception locally and so I give my home phone)</p>