Post Princeton interview feedback

Colleges & Universities Princeton University
1

This review is to give to a Princeton alumni ( a current Google software engineer). As parents, we were enraged by the humiliation, criticism and negative comments he made to one of the candidates during an alumni interview recently took place in bay area, California.
As this is not the first interview our kid had with many other colleges, it is definitely the worst he had so far consider the arrogance and disrespect from this alumni.

First of all, the interviewer was late to the interview by more than 20 minutes. At one point, the candidate didn’t even think he would ever show up. He finally did, but showed no real interest in candidate at the beginning.

Here are the Q/As during this interview (C: candidate, A: alumni)

A: what courses did you take in high school?
C: I took several APs classes such as AP French…
A: French? Why French? That is weird. ( followed by a raising eyebrows, and jaw dropping look on his face)

A: what major are you interested in at Princeton?
C: I real like business because…
A: Business? Princeton’s business is terrible. Why do you want to attend Princeton for business?

A: Why did you want to choose Princeton?
C: I like liberal art schools because it offers variety of courses.
A: From what I know, Princeton doesn’t offer many courses. You can take other courses at MIT. Why do you have to attend Princeton?

A: Tell me more about the project you made about artificial intelligence in high school?
C: (Gave descriptions of the project)
A: Are you sure you did all that? How good this project is actually?
C: ( provided examples about people’s feedback of the games that candidate developed)
A: Really? I don’t believe you did all that.

Examples like the above went on and on for the entire one hour of interview, clearly showing that this alumni was not here to be supportive or helpful to candidate in any sort. Rather, his effort was mainly on “Princeton doesn’t need you and I am here crash your dream”.

During our tour in Princeton last summer, the tour at the campus was very well organized and very informative. Princeton’s mission statement of “an intensely engaged and generously supportive alumni community” is a joke represented by this alumni. We believe that creating a respectful and professional interview experience during the alumni interview process is crucial for young teenagers, and it also shows the value and the quality of Princeton’s education toward a human being. We are disappointed not by the result of the interview, but rather how terribly the candidate was treated during this interview process. It is a shame that Princeton has this alumni representing the image of their college as an interviewer.

2

I think you’ve just torpedoed your candidate’s chances at Princeton with your 2 posts on the same topic. In your other post, you give the full name of the interviewer. That’s not cool. I’d recommend you delete your posts before Princeton admissions sees them.

And, there is no business major at Princeton, so by saying you want to major in business at Princeton is a sure way to make the interview go south.

3

Yep and not only did you call out the interviwer by name, you provided so much detailed information about your kid admissions will easily be able to identify him/her. Nice going.

4

X_X

5

What he/she said about not having a business major. Strike one for not doing your homework.

Strike two for not answering the question “Why Princeton?”. There are tons of liberal arts schools with tons of courses. Why Princeton?

Are you the student or a parent?

6

If this is true then I don’t believe the post. Why would the alum say “business is bad” not “they don’t have it”???

7

I’m trying to imagine who “we” are. I’m guessing the we includes overbearing parents who think it makes sense to write a review about an interview they didn’t attend. I also don’t understand the business major response.
My review of this review is that it is crappy and creepy.

Edited to add: Enraged? Humiliated? Oh my.

8

And why would the candidate say,

This review makes both the candidate and the reviewer look equally bad.

9

8-|

10

@CheddarcheeseMN I passed right over that bit – isn’t Princeton a research university, not an LAC??

Bogus post.

11

:-q

12

god that was bad can i get the 30 seconds of my life back?

13

As parents - how do you have such detailed knowledge of what happened? Were you listening in somehow?

14

Are you saying the alumnus suggested cross registering at MIT, hundreds of miles away? Are you sure you’re not talking about a Harvard interview?

15

Find some of the answers given by the candidate interesting, as Princeton does not offer a business major and how liberal arts curricula exist in many other schools aside from Princeton. That said, the interviewer’s lateness and tone shouldn’t be excused either.

16

Right. Alumnus or alumna.

Lol.

17

Having a hard time believing this one.

Risky Business.

18

a silly fairy tale. Princeton doesn’t offer business, is not a liberal arts college, and is hundreds of miles away from MIT (which it doesn’t cross-register with). As any Princeton alum knows. I don’t know what went on in the interview, but I’m quite sure it wasn’t this.

19

You may want to ask your child what caused him to make up such a silly story-is there a lot of pressure to attend Princeton, or did he just want to eliminate it from consideration? You would be amazed at some of the things students sometimes say during interviews-including that they have no desire to attend the school but are there only for the parents or others. I expect the interviewer has a very different recollection of the encounter.

20

Why didn’t your son just tell you he didn’t want to apply to Princeton rather than making up such a silly story?