What do you talk about at interviews?

jnesse
Sat, 20 May 2006 07:57:30 +0000

“If you’ve ever been to an interview, can you tell me what you talked about?”

Everything and anything! I did six interviews this spring, and I talked about different things in each interview, but the general trends were as follows:

(keep in mind that I have a rather unusual background, American living abroad, lived EVERYWHERE, so my questions tended to focus more on international issues than I think those of others would have)

Topics that came up (in rough order of frequency)


School
Be prepared to talk about your school. The classes that are offered, the student body, the faculty, subjects you like/dislike. I was asked to talk about academic strengths/weaknesses at a few schools. You will probably be given the oppertunity to discuss any weaknesses that may pop up on your application. If there are any, I recomend you talk about them. I had a poor freshman year, I told that to the adcoms that asked and I got to explain why I think it went badly, what I’d do differently if I could do it again, and lessons I’ve taken away from it.
Extra-curriculars.
What you do/why you do it. Depending on the extra curriculars, these questions can go on for a long time. Be prepared to discuss why your extracurriculars have deepend your interest in a particular subject, or how a subject has deepend your interest in an extracurricular. Different adcoms will like to talk about different activities. One LOVED it that I did Model UN and we chatted about international relations and the importance of early exposure for half the interview. Another wanted to talk to me about my creative writing and newspaper experience.
International Conficts, Current Events
I talked about Iraq A LOT. Many interviewers seemed curious about the impact the war is having on British politics. I talked about world poverty in an interview, because it linked into volunteer work I’d done in India, we talked about the caste system and its implications on the Indian economy. Make sure you read a newspaper before you go in (hopefully you read one at home anyway) because I was asked about the magazines and newspapers I read at home. I was lucky on this one, because none of the adcoms had read the Daily Mirror or knew that the Sun was a tabloid.
College
What you’re looking for in a college. Why you’re interested in their college. What can they offer you no-one else can … I have a feeling that I got off easy in this category. I’ve heard horror stories from friends where colleges have expected them to list what courses they would take first semester if they got in. I had none of that. Most schools were content to just hear why I didn’t want to go a British University.