<p>Help! My husband and I disagree about whether our son should take a bio/resume on his interviews. Please weigh in on this!</p>
<p>He says (with 40+yrs of interview experience and a CEO) that if you don’t stand out in the interview you won’t make the first cut and that if you don’t have your great stats in front of the interviewer - you cannot guide the discussion to your benefit.</p>
<p>My viewpoint is that most schools have said to me (mom) when calling to set up interviews that they like the conversation to be natural and no resume/bio needed. I think that he (son) should be able to verbally tell the AO why School Z is his #1 and why he would be a good fit for their community. My opinion is that if he is good in the interview he gets a ‘check’ and when the numbers/applications come in - then if he has the right stuff he gets another ‘check.’</p>
<p>And no, his ‘bio’ would not be so stellar as to make everyone drop their pencil. He is an above average (compared to the boarding school applicant pool) kid with very good ECs, strong leadership and solid SSAT scores.
Thanks!</p>
<p>Based on my few months experience on the forum and a half dozen or so school visits since July, I think that most parents on the forum would take your side. Having the resume would look like grandstanding and the bio stuff should come out of the info form or just in conversation.</p>
<p>To make your husband happy, have your son tuck a copy of his bio/resume into his folio/notepad, but tell him to leave it there unless asked for it.</p>
<p>mamakiwi- why not have your son call admissions offices and arrange some interviews himself? This may prove to be more impressive than a glossy CV.</p>
<p>nylecoj007-great idea. he is at boarding school now though and has very little free time in his day during business hours. Yes, he could use morning break if it were a huge priority. He does take the lead at each school - walks in first and introduces himself and then us as his parents.</p>
<p>After my son had his interview with the AO privately, my wife and I were invited to join them and continue the interview as a family. I handed the AO a binder of my son’s achievements. The AO politely held it throughout the talk and handed it back to me at the end without ever opening it. It later occurred to me that most of the items in the binder will be revealed in the application folder.</p>
<p>A binder may be going too far if it contains things like all the certificates and awards, which the schools explicitly state that they don’t need to see. A resume however is hardly a deal maker or breaker. If you feel your child looks <em>good</em> on paper and you feel like, you may leave the AO a one/two page resume so he/she can put in your child’s folder. As long as you don’t solely “rely on” it, I don’t see a problem with it. Could they reject a strong candidate just because he submitted a resume?</p>
<p>I tend to look at a bio/resume as redundant for most students. Put it this way, if I had to make up a resume for my daughter, the first thing I would do would be to print out her candidate profile and use that as a reference. The information is there already. They look at thousands of pieces of paper a year, why add another that basically says the same thing as the profile?</p>
<p>I think some schools know that many of the applicants have been extensively coached. In my opinion, (just a mom!), they don’t like that. There seems to be an almost allergic reaction to overly packaged applicants.</p>
<p>At one of the schools we’ve visited thus far, we all noticed that the interview was composed of questions which couldn’t be coached. (Please forgive the awkward phrasing.) What I’m trying to say, is that much of their admissions pool probably consists of the sons and daughters of experienced CEOs. If they inform applicants–which they all do–that they prefer a normal conversation, I’m inclined to believe them.</p>
<p>I do alumni interviews for my college and I actually think that SOMETIMES when a student brings and shares something, it does help them stand out. I would not want to see a binder or a resume that adds nothing, but sometimes, they give me a playbill from a show they are proud of, others have given me a local newspaper article to talk about a service project they worked on, or others have brought paintings/drawings, etc. If it is genuine, which you can tell by how they talk about it, I think it definitely adds to the interview. If it is just a resume or something “mom made them bring”, forget about it.</p>
<p>There are so many variables that come into play at the interview, I think the best thing you can do is see the interview as just one opportunity to present yourself. The essays, the letter of recommendations are all other opportunities.</p>
<p>In my son’s case, I think the interviewers had been coached not to look at any material, because they seemed to want to see where things naturally led in their conversations. My son always had a lot to say.</p>
<p>In the end, I think we felt we had some great interviewers, and maybe some not so great who already appeared biased that my son wasn’t maybe what they were looking for. Maybe they were just having a bad day, but one in particular had a face that could stop a clock and just wouldn’t crack a smile no matter what, when he or we met with her. She gave us the impression that our family was just one of many she had to get through and wasn’t really interested in anything he had to say.</p>
<p>Right, Grinzing. Last year, someone (can’t remember if it was here on CC or an admissions officer at a school) gave me great advice. If it doesn’t add anything new, don’t send it. Choose recommenders who know you in different contexts, etc. </p>
<p>I think it is really nifty how the internet has made it very easy to show examples of the things that are listed in the candidate profile. For instance, it is very unburdensome to send an email with links to a youtube video of the applicant demonstrating that advanced talent that was listed, or a link to a newspaper article, or online portfolio of artwork. Yeah, a student can list “first prize in blah blah blah” but technology has made it easy to share.</p>
<p>My point was regarding yet-another-piece-of-paper-in-the-file. An email link can simply be clicked and has the added advantage of being forwarded to the appropriate people with great ease. It can also be deleted without ever having taken up any space at all. :)</p>
<p>I own an Executive Search firm and prepare candidates for C-level and senior interviews every day. Taking a resume into an interview for an executive position is exactly the right advice, primarily because interviewers frequently don’t have a copy handy, have forgotten to print one out etc etc. </p>
<p>Taking a resume and/or bio into a boarding school interview, however, is exactly the wrong advice. A boarding school interviewer DOES have the material on hand and does know what’s on the “paper” before meeting the child. A boarding school interviewer is interested in putting context around the child’s accomplishments: personality, motivations, attitude, sense of humor, world view etc. “Can the child do the work” is the basic plumbing question that’s already been answered in the application materials. Will the child make that specific school’s community happier and stronger is a whole different calculus and is the purpose of the interview. If the boarding school applicant (although it’s usually the parent) tries to impose a structure on the conversation with a resume or bio, the goal of an open, candid dialogue would be missed. I’d argue that it would actually leave a negative impression on the interviewer, maybe not in every case, but most. </p>
<p>To the kids: be yourself, know why you like a particular school and be able to explain it, have some questions that are important to you written down or remembered (and be ready to ask them), do some mild interview practice with Mom, Dad or another adult friend (not another kid), never worry about your competition, lots of smiles with the interviewer - let a sunny attitude come through, firm handshake, eye contact, and remember, have fun! If you think that way, it comes through and the interview thinks to him/herself, “I’d enjoy seeing that kid around campus.”</p>
<p>ThacherParent, that is the best advice I have heard regarding the interviews and their purpose. To put my daughter at ease, I told her that they just wanted to make sure she was able to speak comfortably with adults and actually had a personality and that they interviewed me to make sure I was not a psycho. I think the first part made her so much more relaxed and that second made her extremely nervous. (JK JK I’m not a pyscho. )</p>
<p>A second endorsement of ThacherParent’s advice. Love the part about the “will the applicant make the school happier and stronger”.</p>
<p>I will follow up his/her advice with the recommendation of exploring the Thacher School itself. If you can stomach the distance to California, I think it represents one of the most promising BS experiences available in the USA. No, I am not a paid representative of the school. Just a huge fan.</p>
<p>@mamakiwi: Many schools make you fill out a profile form (either online or in the waiting room) before the interview. I know for a fact that interviewers referred to this info in conversations with my daughter and my wife and I (“So she likes [INSERT SPORT], tell me about that…”)</p>
<p>mamakiwi, to not let your husband feel too bad, tell him that one poster said that a resume might not help but the possibility of it hurting is at least just as small as it being helpful. It didn’t hurt my child.</p>
<p>The resume is redundant. Schools prefer to see info on the standard form. There’s a reason why they limit the space for information. Too much parent grandstanding is a negative; the best schools don’t want, nor need, parents that might meddle too much in the future.</p>
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