Yeah, you think you had a bad college interview. I think mine just might have you beat. Let me point out that this is all true. This did not happen to a “friend of a friend.” This really happened to me.</p>
<p>So, I had applied early to Yale. They sent me a postcard in the mail that said, “Hey! Thanks for the application! You should be hearing from us in 3-5 days about an interview.”</p>
<p>So 3-5 days later, I come home, and there’s a note on the kitchen table that says, “Todd, call this guy about an alumni interview.”</p>
<p>I call him up and say, “Hi! I understand we have an interview.”</p>
<p>He says, “Yes. Let’s meet at my house on this date at this time, and here are the directions.”</p>
<p>I hang up, and think to myself, “Great! I’m all set for my Yale interview.”</p>
<p>What this man doesn’t tell me is that he’s from Harvard.</p>
<p>So I show up at this guy’s house, and we start talking. Eventually, he asks me about what colleges I’m applying to. I tell him. He asks me what my first choice is, and naturally I say, “Yale.”</p>
<p>“Oh, really?” he says, raising an eyebrow. “Tell me, why would you choose a school like Yale over a school like Harvard?”</p>
<p>So, I start telling this guy (from Harvard) why I would rather be going to Yale instead of his school. About halfway through my explanation, he stops me and tells me, “Oh, that’s not true at all.”</p>
<p>I think that’s kind of nice – a Yale man sticking up for Harvard, especially when you consider that Yale/Harvard is the oldest, and quite possibly the largest, college rivalry in America. But I continue.</p>
<p>Eventually, he asks me, “Well, do you have any reservations against Yale?”</p>
<p>I say to him, “Well, what’s New Haven really like?”</p>
<p>He says, “It’s awful.”</p>
<p>I think this is really strange coming from a Yale alumni interviewer. I ask him, “Well, does the city life interact much with the campus life?” and he says, “I don’t know. I didn’t go to Yale.”</p>
<p>I say, “Really… where did you go?”</p>
<p>He says, “I went to Harvard.”</p>
<p>It’s at this point that everything kind of clicked together. I, naturally, freaked out, started apologizing, tried to explain that I had thought this was my Yale interview, but he didn’t have much of a sense of humor. He just kind of nodded, said, “Uh-huh,” and made a mark in his notebook. (I’m pretty sure he was making a large check mark in the “Reject” column.)</p>
<p>Well, naturally, the rest of the interview was kind of a disaster. I left the interview, bought a big bag of chocolate non-pariels, and proceeded to devour the entire thing.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, Harvard rejected me. Yale, on the other hand, was quite eager to accept me. I have a feeling both departments of admissions heard about my interview.
