ugh… i just had a phone interview for Brown and i feel absolutely terrible. It only lasted roughly 15 minutes and when she asked questions (what do you like specifically about Brown), i couldn’t give a straight answer. I also got off topic and started talking about other things and i repeated myself like constantly expressing about what i want to major. I felt a slight awkward undertone or maybe that’s becuase we’re on the phone. I wish our conversation could of been better and longer or if had met in person. But this is also the first time I’ve been interviewed like this, i wish i were more experienced in this kind of stuff…
from what i heard, most brown interviews are about 15 minutes…
i have a slight dilemma
i had an interview, and my interviewer never gave me an address speficially to his office or home (just his wife’s office where we met)
however, i googled him and found his office address (for sure its him, same name and profession)…
would it be okay for me to mail my thank you card to that address?
I have a formality question. If you’re being interviewed by a professor (for a BFA program) from the school you’re applying to, should you address them as Mr./Ms. XXX or Professor XXX?
I thought I had pretty good common sense, but I’m stumped on this one 
I just had my Georgetown interview. It was only 45 minutes but it was quite excellent.
45 minutes is actually a long time, I think. Mine were usually half an hour at most.
medkid: I don’t think you should, because then the interviewer will wonder how you found out where his office is. I would probably just send it to where you had the interview.
yeah it just seemed really short compared to my 2.5 hour Harvard one lol.
I was very glad it was under an hour
I had a Brown interview, which was completely unexpected, since I live in the countryside of Belgium. I had to drive about an hour to the interview, which took place in the alumnus’ law firm. The interviewer broke the ice with some light questions, then proceeded to ask about me, why I liked Brown, and other get-to-know-me questions. I brought a list of questions to ask her, and she was very happy to answer them. At the end of the interview, she said that she was definitely going to be recommending me. It was much less stressful than I expected it to be.
be_somebody: I think it’s best to address them by how they introduce themselves to you. So if the guy says, “Hi, I’m Prof. Blahdiblah,” call him Prof. Blahdiblah.
is it typical to send thank you cards to the person that interviewed you?
Yeah, but e-mail is fine too.
A lot of Ivies say they don’t interview everyone, and whether or not they interview doesn’t mean anything. But is that actually true? I’m just asking because I have been contacted by a lot of my schools for interviews but with some notable exceptions. I live in a middle class town, not totally suburban but not completely remote either.
slice: many Ivies interview with their alumni networks. If there happens to be enough alums with enough slots, you may be contacted. If not, then not. Serendipity really.
Your question seems to imply perhaps a fear of a “pre-sorting”. For my HYP alma mater, that doesn’t exist. When the applicant’s complete file is sent in, we are sent his/her contact info and the ball starts rolling – whether a shoo-in or a completely unrealistic candidate — we treat them equally b/c we don’t know anything else beyond the contact info. Now that’s my school. I dunno how others do it but I imagine the other 7 Ivies operate similarly.
slicebuncake:
I can only speak to our personal experience and what I’ve read on the threads on CC…
In order to be interviewed, you not only have to have alum. somewhat close to your area, but they have to be on the colleges list of alum. who are “official interviewers” of applicants, I believe.
We live 3 hours from any major city and have a small liberal arts college in our town. Last semester my daughter took a class at the local college and her professor happened to be an alum. of one of the colleges to which she has applied. One of the first days of class the prof. asked the students what their majors are. Of course, my daughter doesn’t have one so he asked her where she hoped to go to college. When she mentioned his alma mater as one of her possibilities, he talked about what a great school it is, etc. A couple other times throughout the semester he mentioned to her that she would really love that school…I am guessing that he is not an “official interviewer” because…
when she was contacted for an interview it wasn’t with the professor from the local college, but with someone who lived 2.5 hours away…and he conducted a phone interview.
She was offered only one other interview. The interview was good all in all, but not quite what she was expecting. The interviewer only asked her two questions: 1) tell me about yourself; and 2) do you have any questions for me. He didn’t start out by telling her that those would be the only two questions, so it was a bit awkward for her, esp. at first–trying to judge how much to say about herself without saying too little and seeming either dull and boring on the one hand or saying too much and coming across as self-absorbed on the other.
She would have liked to have had interviews with the other colleges, but based on the info. in this thread, we are not worried… and are hopeful as we look toward the end of March. 
Princeton telephonic interview- crappy connection- my ear was like glued to the receiver; first question: are you still interested in Princeton?; asked me about my high school career( courses, olympiads,…), ECs( had to tell him more about one, asked me “how do you find the time to do it???”); said I seemed focused on my studies, said it went very well, said I was the first person he interviewed who was not interested in pure sciences, didn’t know much about the humanities and social sciences programs ( he went to grad. school and then took a Phd at Princeton-mathematics); but he was very nice and asked if I had any questions, said my English is very good- I’m an international. I think it was rather ok; at the end he said he was not an admission officer, that he didn’t have access to my file so he couldn’t tell me how it was going so far ( I didn’t ask him any of these things); I think it was ok; but he was so serious! a veritable mathematician!
Thanks T26, hjn.
Yeah pre-sorting was exactly my concern. Seemed hard for me to believe that it was honestly a random process, and that a legit candidate might not get an interview while a super longshot in the same town might get one. But your explanation makes sense.
does anyone have any tips for ba md program interviews? what type of questions do they ask?
Heheh. I almost slept through my University of Chicago interview. On top of that, I had been reading the email in my mind as “USC” interview and had THAT spiel prepared. Luckily, I woke up with 10 minutes to check my email one last time, discover my mistake, and sprint to the coffee shop. I think it went well in the end…we talked for over an hour, so I guess that’s good.
The interview process was fun, but I guess it didn’t have much impact in the admissions process for me.
If I’m a junior now, how early is too early to be doing interviews? I’m going to be visiting a school over Memorial day and I don’t know if I’d get a chance to go up there again. Is that too early?
Going to Harvard is my No. 1 dream in life, so seriously good luck!