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<p>This is an important point. At the most selective colleges, professors have a place around the table in making admission decisions. In particular, all of the top colleges that want top math students involve professors of mathematics in choosing among applicants.</p>
<p>First, American colleges are not like UK universities. Students do not have to declare a major at the time of application. And many do not know what they will want to major in. It would make NO sense to have humanities profs reviewing files of applicants who might end up studying biochemistry.</p>
<p>As for interviewers, how many would be able to discuss topology knowledgeably ? How many, upon being told that this is an applicant’s passion, would just say: “Wow!” And no sense asking the student to elaborate. This has been done at my dinner table regularly, at I’m still at sea as to what that involves. Or take another student who’s still fired up by reading Karl Popper. How many interviewers can remember if they read anything by him or if they did, what he wrote?
For the record, my S’s two interviews involved nothing so grand as topology or Popper’s philosophy; the interviewers discussed their own experiences; courses my S might be interested in taking at one; his prowess with the Rubik’s cube; advice on not overdoing it in college. Nothing that would reveal S’s ability to contribute either to class discussions or to the college community.</p>
<p>If the interviewer had received any guidance in interviewing skills, the way your son answered questions about courses or discussed his prowess with the Rubik’s cube could reveal a world of information about his ability to contribute to class discussions and the college community.</p>
<p>Most of us are familiar with the commentary from admissions officers on the high percentage of applicants who would do well, academically, at the most selective schools. An applicant who can discuss a highly specific or technical topic with enthusiasm and in language a “common” person could understand would likely receive a very good report from an interviewer…even if that interviewer knew nothing about the topic. The majority of college interviews - especially for schools that are primarily Liberal Arts undergrads - are not done to determine someone’s technical knowledge in a subject.</p>
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<p>One thing is to have professors “involved in the process”. Another completely different thing is the Oxford/Cambridge model where the initial cut (who is to be interviewed or not) is based solely on specific achieved or predicted examination (A-Level, equivalent to US AP) grades and the actual interviews themselves are entirely conducted by college tutors, i.e. the people ** who will actually teach you ** as an undergraduate, either as a college fellow in supervisions or possibly in university lectures as well.</p>
<p>Just to give you concrete examples, please take a look at the following videos featuring Cambridge mock interviews for applicants respectively in [chemistry](<a href=“Study at Cambridge | University of Cambridge”>Study at Cambridge | University of Cambridge), [mathematics](<a href=“Study at Cambridge | University of Cambridge”>Study at Cambridge | University of Cambridge), and [medicine <a href=“a%20six-year%20undergraduate%20course%20in%20the%20UK”>/url</a>. You can also check out this additional 25-minute [url=<a href=“Study at Cambridge | University of Cambridge”>Study at Cambridge | University of Cambridge] “interviews in action” video](<a href=“Study at Cambridge | University of Cambridge”>Study at Cambridge | University of Cambridge), with excerpts from two extra mock interviews, respectively for English and Biology candidates.</p>
<p>As you can see, nobody is interested in finding out if you are a “well-rounded individual” (whatever that means !), or if you played at Carnegie Hall, or how many hungry children you’ve fed today.</p>
<p>Just a bit of anecdotal corroboration: S writes very contemporary music (classical influenced by minimalism, etc.), and he applied to top schools (not tippy top HYP). He was accepted at all schools where profs. told him they have input and rejected at one school where chair of music dept. apologized and said adcom did not take is imput. Since this school is Dartmouth who originally showed interest and he had a great interview at I’m pretty sure the adcom there does have its own agenda. Not sour grapes; I think they made the right choice. Now that I see how he’s operating in college, it would not have been the school for him.</p>
<p>D is a live wire; all interviewers fell in love with her – they said so! And she’s quite erudite, especially in her field of well defined interest. She was waitlisted at safety schools she interviewed at. I think they figured that she was too much for their programs because she was accepted at reach schools she interviewed at. So bizarrely, an interview can hurt you in that way. S actually had this experience at at least one place as well. This was only true at places where the interview was conducted by admissions staff, not student or alumni.</p>
<p>Re: the chair of the music dept. at Dartmouth.
I know nothing of this individual, but I think there is an individual element to this that has little to do with the institution itself.
I recently had a long conversation with a Yale grad whose sincerest wish was for his son to follow him to Yale. His son will attend Princeton because the Yale fencing coach would never lift a finger to recruit or push an applicant with admissions.
My daughter just went through an admissions cycle and is an accomplished dancer. Even to get into a ballet class, let alone one where someone would then send a note on to admissions, was a very hit or miss project. In none of these cases did it appear that “what the admissions office would listen to” seem to have the slightest effect.
Some people just have their own agendas regardless of institutional policy. Sometimes it’s just to save themselves the trouble of putting pen to paper. The fencing coach at Yale is apparently near retirement.</p>
<p>"There are tests: SAT IIs, which provide measurements of how good student are in specific fields.</p>
<p>In addition, there are certain achievements that reflect those abilities: having participated in RSI, having had articles published in professional journals; having been a featured soloist in a professional music group at Carnegie Hall; having been a national first place winner in History Fair or Intel Science competition, etc."</p>
<p>This is a little nuts to think that the SAT II is a measure of brilliance. My son’s Physics teacher was fired last year for her incompetence. His Physics SAT II score is a measure of how much he learned but also how well she taught the class and what material she covered. He is retaking but he is learning it on his own. </p>
<p>Also, we, very busy two working parents with other children and other family goals, were not aware of any of these math/science competitions, and if we were, probably not of the longterm significance. Let’s be honest, these require either teacher/school exposure and support or parental investment and support. Plus, we would not have been able to get our kid to a from these events, necessarily. How can these be true measures of brilliance? They are also measures of opportunity, family values, exposure, aren’t they? I don’t think you get to be a champion figure skater if your Mom and Dad aren’t on board with the tremendous commitment, right? This is a very self-satisfying measure of brilliance IMNSHO. Sure, these are accomplished kids - they are desesrving but brilliance is another matter, really. </p>
<p>I have been told by many people, including a college physics professor, that my son is brilliant, exceptional. But, if you look at his grades you would not be able to document that. He gets dinged for putting his homework in the wrong binder, for turning the paper in without the bibliography that he forgot to print out and attach, etc.</p>
<p>Brilliance is in the eye of the beholder. We are all parents here, we all have brilliant kids. </p>
<p>This thread has taken on a sort of circular rhythm.</p>
<p>mammall - Well, that is insulting, I guess. I offered that comment only to support my POV that these measures do not necessarily equate with brilliance. Surely I do not expect you to accept a mother’s opinion that her son is brilliant as evidence of brilliance. But, it’s quite insulting that you minimized my comments to that level. I think I know the difference between hearing what a professor thinks is remarkable and expressing a mother’s blind devotion. If you knew me better, you would know that I have been the opposite type of mother. I have skoffed at everyone who has told me to put him in a different school, put him in special programs, etc. Reading this listserv is a constant reminder of how I should have taken these comments more to heart and been a better supporter of his talents, if indeed he has any.</p>
<p>Post 847 is an oft-forgotten reminder about how even “standardized” testing is at least partly dependent for results on highly nonstandardized course curricula and the teachers thereof. This is why I continue to maintain that statements such as SAT tests “correcting” or adjusting or equalizing for GPA, are misleading.</p>
<p>When your school does not teach geometry, you are not likely to do well on the geometric reasoning questions of the SAT I Quantitative.</p>
<p>Honestly, no one needs to, or should, spend a college-admissions-office cent to come up with a better way of identifying geniuses. I think they pop out at you – they’re really not hard to identify at all. I also think that there are not enough of them to justify any kind of search process and investment in it. Finally, I also think that it completely doesn’t matter if Harvard messes up and fails to accept a true genius, because the chances overwhelmingly are that the true genius will do just fine at Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, or even Penn State. Even - gasp! - Cornell. And the true genius is overwhelmingly likely to get accepted at some of those schools.</p>
<p>I’m not worried about geniuses.</p>
<p>LOL, I’m not worried about the genius’s either. The one I know best started of at the U. of Washington. Got bored there, and transferred to Oxford. Phd - started at U. of Boulder and followed his professor to Caltech. Post Phd, he’s been at Princeton and Stanford. He’s also a top notch amateur musician. (Banjo!)</p>
<p>And other geniuses are indifferent students all the way. I am currently teaching Darwin, and it is an endless source of amusement to my students that his father told him that he was nothing but a dog shooter and a rat catcher who would never amount to anything. And this was when he was twenty-three.</p>
<p>I think the problem is that people think Ivy admission is some kind of certificate of genius, or close to genius (and I don’t mean CCer’s, especially not aimed at people on this thread.) We are a society of name brands so the Ivy brand (and the other usual suspects) and highly coveted. </p>
<p>If we were not thinking this way, we would understand that an excellent student can distinguish herself in a variety of environments. I got more support for my academic talents at the mid-level state u I attended than my friend did at the Ivy she attended. (BTW this was circumstance. My test grades and GPA were considerably higher.) I am a tenured professor and she writes articles for glossy magazines. I think we both enjoy our outcomes.</p>
<p>That said, of course the name brand is more fun. And these institutions have resources and connections that are incredible. And there are kids who stand head and shoulders above other kids, geniuses if you will. And some of them are children of parents on this thread (not mine). The rest of the kids at the top top schools are for the most part talented, hard working kids who lucked out in the admissions lottery. Other equally deserving kids weren’t quite so lucky, but in most cases this will not impact their lives very much.</p>
<p>Re post 843:</p>
<p>I wrote in detail about my son’s interviews. NOTHING had to do with the courses he’d taken. He brought his r</p>
<p>Too late to edit my post:</p>
<p>If interviews were so instrumental in uncovering geniuses who will also be wonderful contributors to the college community, all colleges, in particular the most selective ones, would require them. But Stanford does not, and I believe Amherst does not. Furthermore, there is enough evidence that many interviewers do not so much interview applicants as reminisce and give them advice–as happened with my S.
Finally, of all the components of an application, the interview is by far the most subjective.</p>
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I don’t know about that , marite. Those essays are pretty dang subjective. Some kids shine in interviews, some in essays, some in both, and some not at all. If their face to face communication skills are superior to others, well…that’s a big plus for them at some schools. If they (or their coaches ;)) can write great essays, that will big a big plus for them at some schools. I think that the reverse is also true, as it should be. (Edit: And some schools don’t give a hoot about essays or interviews. Just the stats , ma’am. )</p>
<p>I think the essays are the element of admissions most susceptible to being coached and for that reason alone I’d lessen their importance and raise the importance of interviews. I believe it to be a truer test (of whatever it is that’s being tested) . </p>
<p>Edit: p.s. In my D’s case, we know that many of her better scholarship and admissions results (Yale and the Bellingrath Fellowship) were interview based. They told her directly why she got the prize and others didn’t.) She’s good in an interview. Real good. ;)</p>
<p>I have the impression that alum interviews rarely carry any weight, if only because there are hundreds of interviewers for each school, each with their own characteristics. I think they are a mechanism to keep alums identified and involved with the school. It also seems that they are trained to be ambasssadors of the school with much of the interview time spent talking about their college experiences, answering questions, etc.
Having gone through the process with 2 kids so far, I don’t think the interviews have made any difference at all, even with admissions officers.<br>
Results were as we figured whether alum interview, admissions office interview, or no interview.</p>
<p>I think an interview is one way that a certain spark can show through that may not be apparent in other ways. It is not and should not be a test of intellectual prowess like an oral exam (i.e. - they don’t need to ask the math student about math) – it’s a place to get a sense of the students personality for the factors that give rise to academic success.</p>
<p>Edison famously said, genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration – so colleges naturally are interested in exploring the factors that fill in that 99%. </p>
<p>I used to worry about my daughter’s college prospects when she was a young teen – I knew that she was very smart & precocious and that adults who met her and chatted with her were always blown away – but she never tested all that well, and she did not attend schools that were particularly strong academically. I used to think, "if only they could meet her, she’d get in wherever she applies. Well, as it happens she interviewed on campus with only 3 schools, and applied to only one of those – the one she now attends. She insists that she knew all along that she would be accepted, from the time of that interview-- I know the interview went particularly well, in both directions (d. made a good impression, but also the school/interviewer made a very good impression on her). </p>
<p>My daughter is an achiever. She was voted “most likely to succeed” in the 8th grade. She’s a high-activity, high-energy kid who goes for what she wants and gets it – “can’t” is not a word in her vocabulary. I think that is a quality that shines through on an interview – you’d come away thinking she was someone with big ideas and lofty goals, and a plan already in place about how she was going to achieve them.</p>
<p>So I think the interview did count. I think its possible that the letters of recommendation also got across the same message – after all, the teachers couldn’t help noticing those same qualities – but the interview might have been the element that lent veracity to teacher letters that could otherwise have been taken with a grain of salt. </p>
<p>It’s not a process of sorting out who has the most innate talent. It’s a process of sorting out which students are most likely to take full advantage of the college’s resources to develop that talent. And that can, in some cases, be expressed through the force of the student’s personality or the level of enthusiasm manifested during an interview.</p>
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<p>Good post, calmom. I concur.</p>
<p>Edit: If I were to pick a nit, I’d add the word “primarily” before " a process" both times that phrase appears. I do think that innate talent is sought after and evidence of that talent is searched for at every point in the process, and the more talented the better.</p>
<p>There is an assumption here that the applicant is the variable in the interview, not the interviewer, which I found not to be the case at all!
With both my kids, some interviews were pure dynamite, and other times interviewers were clueless drips. I have to think the interview report says more about the interviewer than about the student.</p>