<p>educatedbrotha12, i was nervous as hell the morning of my interview lol… good luck!</p>
<p>thanks oa0176…this may be a stupid question but should I bring pencils for my “students” ? I plan to distribute a worksheet and have them do a problem on their own. I assume all the applicants will have something to write with regardless. lol</p>
<p>its not a stupid question, I almost bought a box of pencils, but i didn’t. Everyone should have something to write with. One suggestion though, if you’re hanging something up make sure you have strong tape.</p>
<p>thanks! i actually purchased a tri fold display board and made a nice display using TFA colors (red, white, and blue) lol. I’m hoping that I can simply have it stand up on a table or something. cant believe my interview is on Friday! I did well on the phone interview though. How is the personal interview different than the phone interview? I’m a little nervous about the “role plays”</p>
<p>I think the personal interview gives you and the interviewer an opportunity to share more personal details about your past experiences and your passion for TFA. I would definitely reflect back on TFA’s mission and how that lines up with your own personal and professional goals. </p>
<p>The role play is very easy - just talk about how you would react. For me, it was a very natural discussion. </p>
<p>Several people in my group used a trifold display and did have a table to set it up on. I wrote on the board and used a handout (no pencils provided). My handout was basically to give them work for home so we could do another review tomorrow. </p>
<p>I am sure you will all do great!</p>
<p>Thank you so much! :)</p>
<p>Any clue on what the most “affordable” regions are? I’ve got Memphis at the top of my list.</p>
<p>Soulch1ld I had Memphis as #1 on my list too, low cost of living, decent salary, no ongoing certification costs… i have to look at the spreadsheet on my computer at work to see what follows, but I only have the regions that I wanted to put on my preference list, so there may be other affordable regions but I didnt list them, there were too many to look into. Anyway i’ll post tomorrow to let you know what else I have</p>
<p>Can’t speak for the other regions, but Oklahoma is cheap, which is great!</p>
<p>hey folks does anyone have any advice for the group interview? are we going to just discuss the pre-reading or will there actually be an activity? Also, for those of you who had personal interviews, did the interviewer ask you to talk about the readings from the online activity and the 5 min video clip? 
3 more days for me! :/</p>
<p>It’s a good idea to apply the pre-reading to the group discussion. That’s what I did anyways.</p>
<p>And there was nothing about the 5 minute video that was asked of me. It’s just a good idea to weave that along with the readings into your one-on-one interview.</p>
<p>3 days until interview…</p>
<p>Locations???</p>
<p>I’ll be in NYC</p>
<p>I didn’t read the articles…I completely missed the menu option for them. I’m an education major though so I was familiar with the content and challenges to apply to the group discussion. I was asked about the video and thankfully I remembered them.</p>
<p>For those who interviewed this past week how do you think it went?</p>
<p>Hi friends! Decided to join after lurking around for a while trying to get some tips.</p>
<p>I interviewed this week for the 5D final round, and I felt it was okay. The sample lesson went well, the group discussion alright, but the one-on-one interview was a little shaky. </p>
<p>I think that I got almost all the same questions in the one-on-one as I did in the phone interview - is this a bad sign? Somewhere in 4D, I believe a “husky090” mentioned the same thing and he/she eventually was accepted, but the vagaries of admissions decisions are stressful!</p>
<p>Also, I’ve read through this entire forum and not once has anyone mentioned their recommenders. How much weight do you think those recs have in the overall admissions process?</p>
<p>In the meantime, I’ll eagerly check my transitional funding status. This wait is excruciating!</p>
<p>I think my final interview went OK as well. I thought I did pretty well during the one/one interview. I’m nervous though because I wasn’t asked the same questions as my phone interview at all. Apparently my interviewer already had access to the information. We also did the role play and we de briefed on it. My personal interview lasted for 45 min. </p>
<p>The group interview was good as I contributed definitely voiced my concerns and tried to incorporate the reading but I was not the leader of the group. </p>
<p>The lesson was perfect until the last minute when I gave everyone a problem to work on and intended to go over it but one of the interviewers asked a question and as I answered the interviewer’s question my time was cut off. I was upset. lol
We will see what happens. Honestly I think I have a 50/50 chance. </p>
<p>From reading this forum I have come to realize that I will really have no way of knowing how I did until April 12. A lot of candidates believe they have done extremely well until they receive a rejection letter. I really don’t want to get my hopes up. :(</p>
<p>I just don’t understand. Who makes the final decision? Why is it that a lot of people believe they have don’t extremely well on their interview day and they end up not getting an invite to join the corps?</p>
<p>*DONE not “don’t” sorry lol</p>
<p>I was also thinking that I have a 50/50 chance of admittance. And this is in large part to not really understanding how admissions works. </p>
<p>But I have heard from several sources (though this is no way official knowledge) that we’re evaluated on a point system and once you rack up enough points, you’re in. This makes sense considering the very structured and bureaucratic nature of admissions to TFA, especially when you think about it as a job interview - not many jobs are just like college admissions where you apply by X date, interview this day, and find out this day, where you know the admissions rate, etc. </p>
<p>On the other hand, I also have heard that applications that are “on the bubble” or for which admissions people want to look into further can be reviewed, almost like an appellate court. This also makes me think that there’s a somewhat holistic philosophy in play.</p>
<p>As for why some people think they do well in their interview day but not actually get an invitation to join the corps, I think it’s a bunch of different reasons. Some that I can tink of:</p>
<p>1) the final round is only one part of the process in which you earn points, so maybe they did worse than they thought on the phone interview, or their recs, or their online activity.</p>
<p>2) perhaps they perform well but not in a way that TFA wants to see: There are obviously many people who are say, education majors and know much better than the rest of us how to teach a class who rock the sample lesson. But then we know that teaching ability isn’t the end-all in the application process. TFA’s mission is to eradicate the educational gap, and it definitely doesn’t push its corps members to stay teachers. So maybe some applicants who seem strong and who seem motivated don’t fit their <em>overall</em> goal: that is, to find young people who will eventually be advocates for educational policy change. </p>
<p>3) And of course, maybe people just overestimate how well they did. Yes, we tend to break ourselves down after the fact and agonize over what we said (I certainly have been kicking myself for some things I said!), but a lot of people think they did way better than they actually do in situations. And part of the problem may be the interviewers, who seem trained to respond to every interview question with, “Great” or “Interesting” regardless of what they thought.</p>
<p>One last thing: the final round interviewers definitely has access to the information your phone interviewer wrote down, as well as your online activity and basically anything you’ve submitted or done up to that point. Mine told me in my one-on-one interview, and she quoted verbatim from my online activity answer.</p>
<p>Thank you so much. That was so helpful! It makes perfect sense that we are evaluated by a point system. I guess we will see what happens. Are you thinking of getting an early decision?</p>
<p>Good luck to the both of you! I am excited for the next step although I have so much on my plate. As far as feeling if you did well or not, I know I am confident in my speaking and being able to express my feelings. I know it probably helps that I have a diverse educational background and my majors were based on fulfillment and the desire to make our diverse community more accepting of one another. So what I said during my interviews definitely had a recurring theme. Still, I was never completely confident I was what they were looking for. I thought my chances were good but one never really knows. I am curious about the recommenders although I know both of my professors that I selected would have given excellent reviews since they know what I am truly capable of.</p>