<p>i just called harvard. they said their still contacting people for interviews, so don’t lose hope if you haven’t heard from them yet. they told me to call harvard again if I still haven’t heard anything by Feb 20
again, want to reiterate that interview times are random and whether you get one depends on your geographic area/alumni distribution. it is not in any way a sign of how qualified you are</p>
<p>thank you John and when did you apply?</p>
<p>also thank you Nothstarmom!!</p>
<p>i submitted everything around the same time–Mid-December (so that’s after the preferred Dec 1 supplement date)</p>
<p>I just completed mine today.</p>
<p>It was really nice. The interviewer only had my name and which high school I go to. Nothing else. She asked about what I liked about school, my extracurriculars, and what I disliked about them. She also asked about why I took the ACT over the SAT, motivating factors, and what I like to do for fun. </p>
<p>We also went off topic and talked about the CA Primaries and propositions and Guitar Hero III. LOL</p>
<p>Overall very enjoyable. Took me about 45 minutes, but it was worth it.</p>
<p>My interviewer was horribly condescending and arrogant and acted much more like a gatekeeper to Harvard than an enthusiastic alum. Definitely turned me off from Harvard.</p>
<p>That’s what my Swarthmore and Yale interviews were like, tjames. I think you can get ones like that at any college.</p>
<p>yeah, i guess some egos just can’t handle the sensation of power that comes with being an interviewer</p>
<p>My Harvard interviewer lives 2-3 hrs from where I live an my parents cant (bad cars, have to drive through a desert to get there) drive me there. I just called her. Will the fact that I was offered an interview and couldn’t attend adversely affect my chances??</p>
<p>My interview was a few weeks ago, and it was great. It didn’t start that well, seeing as my interviewer was 40 minutes late, and I was stuck sitting in his reception room for a very long time; however, it got progressively better. It started with the regular questions, but when I told him that I was directing Les Mis, he told me that it was his favourite show ans he asked me a bunch of questions about it (ie. Which character I most identify with). Then, when I told him I love French, he told me that he had live in Paris for a year and we hada good 5 minutes of the interview in French.</p>
<p>How was your Harvard interview? </p>
<p>AMAZING.</p>
<p>Mine was decent. It wasn’t the worst interview I had, but it could have been better. My interviewer was really nice, and he surprised me by humming the beginning and the theme of the Grieg piano concerto when I told him that it was one of the pieces that I just finished learning! :D</p>
<p>my interview was very fun! i met my interview at CalTech and the interview first started off based on the pre-interview resume my local harvard alumni group sent me. as time progressed, we got sidetracked and somehow winded up talking about world of warcraft for a good 20mins. ah, good times =D</p>
<p>“Mine was decent. It wasn’t the worst interview I had, but it could have been better. My interviewer was really nice, and he surprised me by humming the beginning and the theme of the Grieg piano concerto when I told him that it was one of the pieces that I just finished learning”</p>
<p>I can do that, too.
I was a little insulted when interviewing a student who played classical piano and assumed that I knew nothing about classical music. Instead of asking whether I was familiar with some composers (very renowned ones at that), the student told me basics about them. Meanwhile, I had 12 years of classical piano lessons, and music was my strongest EC when I had applied to Harvard. And my piano was right behind the student during the interview!</p>
<p>Still, the student had a very impressive background, and otherwise his interview was good, so I gave him a good recc – and he did get in. :)</p>
<p>But – to everyone who’s reading this – it’s better to assume that your interviewer is very informed than to assume that they don’t know things even about esoteric subjects. Interviewers aren’t shy about asking questions if they aren’t familiar with a subject.</p>
<p>Don’t be like the guy who – when I asked what his favorite book was – insisted on giving me the whole plot of Oedipus Rex. Sheesh…</p>
<p>my interviewer was excessively stoic. he didnt show any enthusiasm during the interview. everything i said met some matter-of-fact reaction, very different from the response i got from my other interviews. i remember my UChicago lady never stopped nodding during the interview, while my harvard interviewer never did nod a single time.
after that, im not giving much hope into harvard, as far as admission is concerned.</p>
<p>haha tongchen, would you go to harvard if you get in? seeing that you already got into MIT and/or Caltech</p>
<p><em>sigh</em> Northstarmom, I wish my interviewer had known about my interests. I talked a little bit about my interest in piano, but he didn’t know too much about classical music, so wasn’t interested in hearing about specifics.</p>
<p>I had sort of an interesting mix of experiences as far as interviewer experience goes. My interviewer spoke French and Spanish, and his dad was a French professor. We both had a common interest in foreign languages, which was good, but he did not know anything about Asian languages, which is my area of interest. However, he was very curious about Japanese, so I spent a good half hour introducing him to the Japanese language.</p>
<p>Well I think my interview yesterday went excellent. I had explained to the lady that I live at a christian boarding school so I can’t really get off campus without buttloads of permission and what not, so she came on up to my school and we interviewed in the principal’s office. I think it was a big plus for me because she was really impressed by the hills that surround our school and it just so happen to be a really nice Sunday. We talked for a good hour-and-a-half about pretty much everything, even at one point diving into a Harry Potter conversation lol. The only thing I can think that could have gone “wrong” was maybe that I emphasized my Christian beliefs a lot, which I know can be a deterrer for an elite school like Harvard, but she was on the same page with me, since she said she grew up in a small Baptist town in Alabama.</p>
<p>But yes, I think all went really well.</p>
<p>amazing. that is all. :)</p>
<p>good luck, everyone who hasn’t done it yet!</p>