<p>My son had the pleasure of applying to MIT when Ms. Jone’s was in charge too. :)</p>
<p>At one of my daughter’s interviews my D discussed other schools that she was looking at and the interviewer told her that if she decided to not come to his school that he would give her a recommendation for a school on her list that he had been an admisssions employee at! Then he showed her his ball cap that had the logo of this other school. I thought it was great. ha!</p>
<p>I was astounded when my son came out of his Brandeis interview and told me that the interviewer, who was a student, began to challenge his college list. His intent was to argue why Brandeis was the better choice–over Wesleyan, Swarthmore, Hamilton, Haverford and others. My son had interviewed earlier in the day down at Wesleyan, where he was ultimately accepted Early Decision and thus, never applied to Brandeis after all. My son was not turned off, but it was a good exercise to get challenged because it forced him, for the first time, to think really deeply about the fact that he would end up going to only one of these schools and would have to leave the rest of the “list” behind.</p>
<p>To turn this around, I’ve often thought that if an interviewer asks you if his school is your first choice, you should say, “Well, that’s up to you. Why should it be my first choice?” They’ll probably tell you why.</p>
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<p>I’d be careful about how you put that exchange. </p>
<p>I had a student interviewing for a job try to turn that around on me at the beginning of the interview and it came across with a large chunk of arrogance. He probably didn’t care anyway, but it erased him from consideration, and that was in a situation where my opinion was all that mattered.</p>
<p>I think the idea is good, but I’d ask the interviewer if school x would still be his first choice today, and would his decision-making be based on any different criteria than it was years ago.</p>
<p>mathmom - I am sure Ms. Jones would have admitted your second son for his art side. Based on what I have been reading it sounded like she wanted to make push liberal arts at MIT.</p>
<p>If a kid goes to 10 school interviews, how does the kid claim each one is a first choice?</p>
<p>I agree that this should be worded in a diplomatic fashion, such as, perhaps:
Interviewer: Is XXX your first choice?
Interviewee: I am still working on my list and rankings–I was hoping that you could help me determine if XXX should be my first choice. Here are some things I like about it, etc.</p>
<p>^I don’t think you do. I think you tell the interviewer you are stilling weighing your options, but this is why this school is on the list. Then you can ask the interviewer about whether there are pluses to the school you haven’t considered. </p>
<p>That said, not all schools care about demonstrated interest, and I think my son was considered a breath of fresh air for not being overly enthusiastic about Harvard’s wonderfulness.</p>
<p>My younger son’s high school record could actually fool one into thinking he was interested in science and math. He took AP Physcic C, Calc BC. Got a 5 on the AP Bio exam etc. He had a lot of B’s though, and we won’t talk about his SAT math scores - especially the subject test!</p>