<p>the guy asked the hardest questions possible…
he was like "to me, leadership and management are very different, you can be a good manager but a bad leader, tell me an instance where u showed mangement and leadership skills… tell me someone you idolize, and why… "</p>
<p>and i showed him some of my drawings… apparently one of the cars was a toyato supra. so he was like, “so what do you think of the supra” i was like"sorry, could you repeat that" then he was like “the supra, u drew.” i was like umm i am not into cars i just drew according to a model i had…</p>
<p>do u think he will think i was bsing? man…</p>
<p>then i told him i take art history… he asked me something about what do u think of this by that in this period… i had no idea what he was talking about… so i said “my class hasnt gotten that far yet, we are only doing gothique and romanesque period.” </p>
<p>does that seem reasonable? it is true… but i dont know if he will buy it…</p>
<p>it was around 80 minutes… and i have to say out of my princeton mit and harvard one… harvard one was the hardest BY FAR… we talked about everything almost… my family, personal issues, what i like and why and what i dont like. how i see myself. and blah blah. but those two questions were the ones that caught me off guard… well, not really, but its just my answers were not that desirable…</p>
<p>wow… ur interviewer sounds mean as hell. i had such chill interviewers. One of them was a hippy who cussed every other word and the other was this liberal business man. But then, I was getting interviewed in Berkeley…</p>
what did you answer? i would’ve loved that question.
did you say you LOVE art history? if you did, you’re probably in trouble because that question was meant to see how interested you really are in a subject you claim to love. going beyond the classroom’s syllabi, reading up on extra materials, these are things that show the interviewer you “love” art history. However if you merely mention that you take art history, the interviewer might most likely appreciate your honesty, as opposed to trying to impress him with answers that aren’t correct or don’t make sense.</p>
<p>yea I had an interview kinda like that…don’t worry about it. there’s nothing else that you can do, and I’ve found that sometimes, the interviews that seem to go the worst are actually places for you to shine. That interviewer probably asks ALL applicants questions like that, and all applicants were probably as taken aback as you were. So even if you think it went badly, you might very well have done better than many others that he’s interviewed.</p>
<p>no i didnt say i like or love art his… he asked me to name all the courses im taking currently… so i did… and he doesnt even know what AP is… anyhow then hes like so for art history how do u find the class… i told him the truth and said “i like the subject. but my teacher makes the class dull and boring b/c he spend classes going over slides… " then i said " having taken world history last year, i see art history like applied mathematics, except here im applying history to art… so im learning history from an art perspective… and blah blah” he liked my definition. then thats it…</p>
<p>it was really weird… he is really stoic… didnt react to anything i said… took some notes… but he is really nice actually… graduated in the late 90s… i dont know why he was being so stoical…</p>
<p>asterstar,</p>
<p>i agree. he had a list of questions to ask lol. i saw the list… he asked me to “describe a typical day or week.” and he then told me “if you want to know why im asking, its bc i want to see if yopu can stand up to the pressure at harvard.” so he is a nice and easy going guy… </p>
<p>he kept on asking me if i wanted any thing since we were at starbux and i said no thanks…</p>
<p>Since we’re having this discussion about interviews, I’d like to share my experience.</p>
<p>My Harvard interviewer was an extremely nice man. However, he still was very interested in knowing how good of a candidate I would be for Harvard, and therefore he asked some questions that I thought were harder. And I have to say that we were both wearing full suits.</p>
<p>He basically wanted to get a good sense of what my passions were, and how I showed initiative inside and outside the classroom. For example, we discussed my main areas of academic interest, and some of the research I was working on outside of school. We had a really wonderful discussion on that. He also wanted to get an idea of how accomplished I was in extracurriculars.</p>
<p>Even though he graduated a long time ago, he still was very much in touch with the school and was able to tell me a great deal about it. I would say that it made me even more enthusiastic about the school than I was before. I also got to discuss specifically why I liked Harvard so much.</p>
<p>He did ask me a few oddball questions. He asked me how I would revise the way teaching in my chosen area of interest was conducted in my high school. He also asked me what I thought about the falling dollar.</p>
<p>I personally thought it was challenging (being over two hours, my longest interview by far), but very engaging. I think the interview does an excellent job of separating the person from the grades and the scores, meaning that they find about your passions and interests BEFORE seeing how your stats measure up. And although Harvard’s interviewers do ask you for your stats, really, that’s a very tiny part of the experience.</p>
<p>It bugged me that the interviewer is required to get your test scores, including AP, SAT, SAT II, ACT, and IB. I thought the whole point of the interview was to get to know you a little better as a person, not as a set of numbers. Plus, the admissions office already has all of that, so why should the interviewer need to ask that again? It gives interviewers preconceived notions about us before we even begin the true interview process.</p>
<p>1) Can you tell me why should H pick you over 20 000+ applicants that are looking that way too?
2) Admissions is really competitive, more so at a really selective school like H. What, in your opinion, is different about you than others that H should really look at?
3) Do you think your achievements are outstanding enough to put you in the running for a place like H?
4) What and how do you see yourself in 10 years’ time?</p>
<p>yeah… maybe you guys are right… even though harvard interviews were really touch and hard to handle… maybe we as the ones being interviewed didn’t see it the way the interviewers did… they probably felt that through their questioning, (despite the good or bad answers) they will get a better picture of us… i just hope that my interview doesn’t see me as a ‘bad’ guy…</p>
<p>Princetonwannabe: I was telling someone yesterday about your experience with this interviewer–specifically about the question he posed to you about the artist in a particular time period, and you weren’t familiar with that artist? The person I relayed this story to made an interesting comment. He said something like…how many people out there know that much about art history or particular artists, even contemporary ones…it’s quite possible the artist/period the interviewer mentioned is the only one he was familiar with himself…so he brought it up. (I mean, it is notable that he didn’t bring up any other artist or time period, isn’t it? Especially since you told him what areas you had been studying…). So it’s quite possible he knows less than you do about art history, didn’t follow up, because he couldn’t. Your answer “reads” honest to me, though…and as someone else mentioned…you didn’t try to bs your way through the answer and pretend that you knew more than you did…which is always pretty transparent. So for what it’s worth, sounds like you did fine. And I doubt any interview–unless one does something really bizarre–could make or break an applicant’s chances.</p>
Really? I asked my interviewer if I needed to bring anything to the interview, and he said no. Did anyone else not bring test scores to the interview? Or did you mean that they get these scores beforehand? </p>
<p>I have my interview next week. How long were the interviews, and what were some other questions that they asked? I’ve had 6 other interviews already and they’ve pretty much been the same (school, class, friends, interests), but I guess Harvard is a lot different.</p>
<p>This was asked at the end of the interview process. I consider it analogous to your guidance counselor knowing your academic standing and test scores before she writes your recommendation. Of course, she gets to know you as a person before knowing all about your academic performance, but she cannot write absolutely stellar recommendations for every student. That would diminish the value of her comments. Therefore, she must take into consideration which of her kids are the strongest, in addition to their personal qualities. </p>
<p>A Harvard interviewer is usually not going to want to waste their clout pushing for an unhooked applicant with a 1300. I remember one instance in which a member was talking about his friend’s mom, who was a Harvard interviewer. The interviewer said that she interviewed this applicant who was funny, witty, and a wonderful person to be around. However, when the mom was asked if she would be giving the student a good write up, she said something to the effect that the applicant wasn’t Harvard material. I think that is a reflection upon the process.</p>
<p>A Harvard interviewer is also, in part, going to want to see if your academic initiative and qualities demonstrated in the interview match up with your academic achievements. Of course, interviewers should always convey their fair and honest opinions about the candidate, which I am sure that they do. Yet interviewers also have to be judicious with comments that are overflowing with praises of a certain candidate whose admission it is not at all realistic to expect.</p>
<p>I asked my interviewer the same thing, and he said no also. But at the interview he asked me all the questions that I could have answered with my resume (GPA, scores, etc) so I guess maybe they want you to tell it in person so it is more natural…I don’t know. I don’t think they receive any academic/EC info about students before hand, only contact info. </p>
<p>My interview was short, about 40-45 minutes. He said that the interviews aren’t weighted much at all in the process, but then again I’ve read that Harvard does put emphasis on the interviews, so I don’t know. Maybe he just said that so I wouldn’t be nervous, and give more honest responses.</p>
<p>My interviewer said that he used to work in admissions, and he also told me that interviews were merely to gain a personal sense of the applicant, and wouldn’t “make or break you” in the admissions process.</p>