How should I talk about myself at Cornell Visits?

Colleges & Universities Cornell University
1

I heard that when visiting Cornell, a faculty member asks each prospective student to talk about themselves (their interests, what they are involved in, and what they have accomplished). I heard that this faculty member who asks students these questions also takes notes on the students responses (I’m guessing they want to make record of who stands out). I have a lot of stuff to talk about if they asked me this question, but I want to respond in the proper manner.

How do I sell myself as a great student without sounding cocky? I want to share everything I’ve accomplished and am passionate about without bragging.

Thanks for all responses I get!

2

Well, I am not too much of an expert on this stuff but I would say you should just not talk about your acheivements in a pretentious way. Talk about how cool your experiences were as opposed to the details of the experience itself. What did you enjoy? What did you get out of it? For example, if you did research and got pubs, talk about how awesome the research was and then you could mention you got a pub somewhere in your convo. Just don’t sound braggy. Make jokes, have fun, and be likeable.

3

Who told you this? I’ve never heard of this before. Are you talking about just visiting for a campus tour or doing an interview?

4

As a Cornell student, I am surprised. Does Cornell really do this?

5

I accompanied my son to a Human Ecology info session some years ago.
At the beginning of the session the adcom went around the table and asked students about their backgrounds and interests. It was a small group.

I also accompanied him to an Arts & Sciences info session. It was a large group, in an auditorium.
In the beginning, they asked for a show of hands to indicate where everybody came from. That was the extent of the prospective student input. After that it was all lecture.

For the campus tours, we just signed up and toured.

6

My son is a student at Cornell, and our experience was similar to @monydad
Small info session did start with brief intro from each visitor, but did not feel at all like an interview.
Just an ice breaker. And other sessions we went to were student led tours of buildings.
Finally, no professors saw prospective students at all.

7

Human Ecology does this; I don’t believe the other colleges do. But it is not a faculty member and it is more of a “tell us where you’re from” and stuff like that. I wouldn’t put a lot of weight on it.