Pomona On-Campus Interview

capandgown
Sun, 21 Mar 2010 18:24:13 +0000

Santeria:

We visited these 2 schools with our daughter last summer. If you are touring and interviewing at both schools in the same day, I’d suggest that you dress a little conservatively, mostly for the sake of CMC.

As far the question you anticipate, if you are touring and interviewing at CMC before you do so at Pomona, you have an easy out. Just say that you won’t know enough about Pomona to answer until you visit. However, we visited Pomona before CMC, and our daughter doesn’t remember getting that question.

You may be right to anticipate some challenging questions from CMC. The admissions officer who conducted the orientation session emphasized the differences between the schools. He gave a detailed discussion of the history of the Consortium, stating that the original master plan of the consortium was to have 10 colleges, each with a different emphasis. He then gave his personal view of each of the current 5 colleges. (He didn’t disparage the other 4, however.) Suggest that you be knowledgeable about some particular features of CMC and emphasize how you would be able utilize these resources. Also, strongly suggest that you say nothing negative about any of the other 4 colleges.

You may also be interested to know that this same CMC admissions officer seemed to have researched everyone who had made an appointment to tour that day. He was able to link each student’s name with their high school and was familiar with almost all of the high schools. He also asked socratic type questions of the audience during his presentation. We didn’t encounter this at any other school we toured.

You should enter the CMC orientation session with the assumption that your “interview” has begun at the start of the orientation session, rather than at the start of the interview. I got the feeling that the CMC admissions officer was taking note of which students were paying attention to his presentation and how they participated during the session.

Overall, the interview experience was more laid back at Pomona than at CMC, and the latter had a little of the feel of making an impression in the business/professional world.

Hope this helps. Good luck.