This!! There’s definitely some positive influencing from the interviewers going on. It’s in the school’s interest to get as many kids finishing their applications as possible and actively want to attend the school.
Kid was interviewing last year during remote learning; every single interview started with conversations about how that was going and what was better/worse compared to regular classes. Multiple interviewers asked about favorite subjects and least favorite subjects and then probed the ‘why’. Most started with “tell me about yourself”. And there was always the "why [insert school name]? The conversations drifted various ways after that depending on what kiddo mentioned and the interest of the interviewer.
Kid did prep a response to the ‘tell me about yourself’ question and always had a list of detailed questions very specific to that school (including taking one AO to task about never having visited the school’s observatory). Some questions were quite random such as - what does your dream day look like? and if you had a superpower, what would it be? (apparently kiddo knew exactly how to answer both of those, not sure if I have a kid who can make up answers to that on the fly, or if that’s part of a teenage daydreaming).
Kiddo always followed up promptly with a Thank You email to the interviewer and noted a few key take outs as to why kid was a perfect addition to [insert school name]'s student body.