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<p>It’s not at all true. Interviewers want to do two things: they want to represent the college or university accurately and well to the applicant, and they want to represent the applicant accurately and well to the college or university.</p>
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<p>Either, really. And it’s not as if this is a mission where there is success or failure. Sometimes an applicant has done a really good job of communicating who she is and why she’d be good for a particular college in her application essays. In such a case, there simply isn’t anything new that needs to be discussed. On the other hand, sometimes there are activities, stories or life experiences that have a lot to do with who an applicant has become, but there wasn’t a really good way to fit them into the college essays.</p>
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<p>Goodness, no! I almost never talked about politics with applicants unless there was a reason to. It’s supposed to be a polite and friendly conversation; politics seldom lends itself to such interaction. In the story I told, the applicant had represented herself as interested in politics–and, in particular, on one side–so I tried to follow up. But if she had said she was interested in triathlons or Shakespeare or the search for dark matter, I would have tried to engage her on any of those topics.</p>
<p>Politics doesn’t have to be your thing. It’s only if nothing is your thing that you may have a problem. Surely, there’s something that’s your thing?</p>