I recently had an my Yale Alumus Interview for RD. My interviewer had a PhD in Math, and I was interested in Physics and Chemistry. When he interviewed me, he asked a few questions that threw me off like “What (conceptually) is the difference between Physics and Chemistry?” Well I didn’t really have an eloquent response to this question, and even at one point said “Being a high schooler, my knowledge isn’t as in-depth, it’s more surface.” Did I sink my chances at Yale by showing that I don’t really have any deep knowledge in the fields I said I’m interested in? I live in Conneticut, if that matters at all.
I guess it depends on the interviewer. The interviews I’ve done have been of job seekers rather than college applicants, so it might be different, but IMO it says good things about a person if they’re willing to say: “I don’t know.” Not to every question of course.
LOL. No.
Not sure what that has to do with anything.
It’s unlikely you could hurt your chances unless you did something egregious in the interview. It’s a very small piece of the application most of the time.