Interviews: What do THEY look for, what do THEY mean and how do YOU prepare?

What do Ivy League undergrad admissions interviewers look for?

I was asked to answer this question on the website Quora.com

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I am going to broaden the answer to this question. What I will say applies, to a significant degree, to any highly selective university and to a slightly lesser degree, to some highly selective liberal arts colleges too (a number of the LACs don’t conduct interviews or if they do, they explicitly say they are non-evaluative).

The vast majority of admission interviews consist of talking to an alum from the school. While it is impossible to be definitive about what sort of things a student might be asked, most interviews follow a template of pretty basic questions. Here is an excellent overview of typical questions that Wesleyan posts on their website:

SAMPLE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

*  What has been your favorite course during high school?  Why?  What characteristics do you seek in your teachers?

*  How would you rate your academic strengths and weaknesses?  Are you better in some areas than others?  Do you know why?

*  Which subjects are you studying now?  Do you enjoy some more than others?  Why?  Are your courses easy or challenging?

*  If I were to wander into your school's faculty room and mention your name, what reaction would I get?  How would your teachers characterize you?  Do some teachers see you differently than others?

*  How would you rate yourself as a writer?  What was the most challenging writing assignment you've faced?

*  What subjects do you plan to study in college?  Are there any new subjects you hope to try?  Do you have any dreams or goals after graduation from college?

*  Are there any specific extracurricular interests or activities that you plan or hope to pursue in college?

*  Why are these of interest?

*  What have you done in these areas before?  Have you participated during high school or in your community?

*  What do you gain from this interest?

*  Are you a different or better person because of the time you've committed to this interest?

*  What have you done during the summers?  Is there someone you share a special interest with?  Is there someone in your life who has had an impact on your life and why?

*  If the student has worked at a job: How did you get the job?  Did you enjoy it?  What were the best/worst features of your job?  Did you learn anything about yourself in this job?  Would you do it again?

*  What might you do with a year off between high school and college?

*  Tell me about your current schedule and activities.

*  Why do you want to go to Wesleyan?

*  What subject areas are you most interested in? Discuss a book or project that you enjoyed.

*  Have you thought about a major or area of concentration? Ideas about your future?

*  What do you look forward to most about college?

*  How well do you do with independence? Give an example of a problem or task or project you have dealt with that required you to demonstrate your independence.

*  Any questions for me?

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The questions you will be asked are not tough but if you want to make a great impression you should prepare for them. Virtually every interview will cover at least 3 topics and 1 other part that is as important as the first 3. The first of these will have to do with your academic experience. You might be asked about an academic interest, a favorite class or teacher or something you have a passion for, or, in some cases, all of these. The second set of questions will cover why you are interested in the university or college you are interviewing for.

Both of these sets of questions often elicit pretty standard answers and as a result, there will not be much of a chance to stand out. For example, a student who takes about a love of history might cite a specific class, such as AP American history. The student will say they have a great interest in the topic and that the teacher was great at making facts and data into something more. But if this is all you’ve got, it won’t stand out. What you should do, perhaps, is have a story or two that will demonstrate in a real way your interest. Let’s say you took a trip to Gettysburg and while there you went up to the set of rocks called the Devil’s Den. You could describe the landscape and then invoke the ghost of Joshua Chamberlain and the killer angels books. You could make a specific moment stand for something that represents a much larger interest. History, after all, means stories and being able to convey an academic passion through a story will stick in the mind of your interviewer.

Devil's Den

The same approach can often be effective when you talk about why the school you are interviewing with fits your particular needs. To take the same example, you could say you attended a particular professor’s class when you visited the school and when he talked about the battle of Gettysburg and the Devil’s Den and Joshua Chamberlain the facts of troop numbers and killed in action disappeared and the faces and the cries and the smoke and the mini balls became real.

Or just to give one more example (these are made up by the way). Let’s say an interviewer asked me why Wesleyan here is what I might say:

 Leadership matters. I first became interested in Wesleyan after browsing the course offerings on Coursera. The president of Wesleyan, Michael Roth taught a course on “The Modern and Postmodern”. I signed up for it and found that his lectures were stimulating. useful and learned. It’s rare for a President to teach at all, but for him to put his course on a MOOC demonstrates that Wesleyan is ahead of the curve when it comes to education. I did not agree with all the views the President has on certain thinkers like Rousseau and Kant, but then that’s what a course should be—a challenge to my assumptions. I have now signed up for his newest MOOC "How To Change The World". Again it’s rare that a President would choose such a title without irony and then go on to explore how we can as he says, "develop 'social goods' and use them to create networks of progressive change. "I believe in his vision for change, his vision for the future of education, and believe that his leadership will help Wesleyan continue to be a leader in liberal arts education in the world.

Telling a story and using details should also be the approach when answering the almost certain question about an activity that’s important to you. Just saying you are part of team and you learned how to work together and etc. won’t be all that memorable. Creating a narrative that answers the questions would help the interviewer remember you. It does not have to be a big story. For example:

I will always remember the email I received from Mary. I had worked with her for a number of years in my role as a mentor at school. She struggled through depression and getting acclimated to a new school system. She was bright but had yet to find a way to express her creativity. I helped steer her in the direction she’d expressed an interest in—film and photography. She started making little films and taking gorgeous photographs, She found a teacher who was her mentor and blossomed into a star. She’s now thinking of applying to the top film school in the US and has won some awards for her films. Here is what she said: “You are the most generous person I've ever seen.”  I didn’t do all that much except talk with her as a mentor but sometimes a listening ear and a supportive set of words can change a life. Maybe changing the world isn’t quite as hard a job as it sounds. If each of us can help one person at a time perhaps we can change the world all around.

The last thing you need to prepare for is the question you will get: Do you have any questions?  If you don’t have a couple good questions lined up, then shame on you. If you have done research about the school, programs and activities you should be able to come up with a long list of great questions. I am not talking about questions where the answers can be found in a 10 second visit to a webpage, I am talking about specific questions. For example, here is a question I would ask this week since the story just broke this week: 

Harvard and Yale just agreed to permit the famous Computer Science course at Harvard to be taught on-line, for credit, at Yale. Nothing like this has happened between these two schools before. Do you think this will be the beginning of more sharing of top scores between these two schools? Do you think this is a good idea?

Now that I have given some suggestions about questions and answers it’s time to write about the people who will be asking you those questions. More often than not, an undergraduate college interview will be conducted with an alum rather than a member of the administration, admission office, or faculty. There are a number of reasons for this, but an easiest one is a matter of simple math. The most selective universities get more than 30,000 applications. It is virtually impossible for any admission office or branch of a university proper to conduct interviews with all the people who would want them.

To give you an idea of how the alum interview will take place, I have selected Harvard as an example, but their approach is not fundamentally different from the other Ivies or highly selective schools:

Have a Conversation with an Alumni Interviewer

More than 15,000 alumni/ae help us recruit students from all 50 states and from around the world. In the United States, typically you will have the opportunity to have an in-person interview with a regional Harvard representative in or near your local community. However, if an interview cannot be arranged, you will not be at a disadvantage during the application process. 

We also offer a limited number of on-campus interviews from September through November. Because of heavy demand for these appointments, we recommend you wait for an official local interview instead. Arrangements for these meetings usually occur sometime after your application is submitted.

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I have written a lot more about interviews and who does them and why, but rather than repeat what I have said I will provided a few links.

I will, however, say a couple things worth knowing. First of all, the interviews don’t matter all that much. If a student comes across very poorly then this will have an effect, but this is rare. Most interviews are fine. But fine does not help much. Even those students who comes across exceptionally well in the interview are more often than not going to be denied admission. This too is a matter of simple math. If only between 5%-10% of applicants are offered admission, virtually everyone who gets interviewed will still get turned down.

Michael Winerip, a writer for The New York Times, has a great piece about what it’s like to be an interviewer for Harvard.  Here is the opening:

ON a Sunday morning a few months back, I interviewed my final Harvard applicant of the year. After saying goodbye to the girl and watching her and her mother drive off, I headed to the beach at the end of our street for a run.

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It was a spectacular winter day, bright, sunny and cold; the tide was out, the waves were high, and I had the beach to myself. As I ran, I thought the same thing I do after all these interviews: Another amazing kid who won’t get into Harvard.

That used to upset me. But I’ve changed.

Over the last decade, I’ve done perhaps 40 of these interviews, which are conducted by alumni across the country. They’re my only remaining link to my alma mater; I’ve never been back to a reunion or a football game, and my total donations since graduating in the 1970s do not add up to four figures.

No matter how glowing my recommendations, in all this time only one kid, a girl, got in, many years back. I do not tell this to the eager, well-groomed seniors who settle onto the couch in our den. They’re under too much pressure already. Better than anyone, they know the odds, particularly for a kid from a New York suburb.

By the time I meet them, they’re pros at working the system. Some have Googled me because they think knowing about me will improve their odds. After the interview, many send handwritten thank-you notes saying how much they enjoyed meeting me.

Maybe it’s true.

I used to be upset by these attempts to ingratiate. Since I’ve watched my own children go through similar torture, I find these gestures touching. Everyone’s trying so hard.

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If what I have just quoted has now convinced you not to worry about the interview, that’s good. The more relaxed you are the better the interview will likely be. If what I have just quote has convinced you not to take the interview seriously, think again. Regardless of whether the interview will play a major role in the admission process, having an interview with an alum, usually someone smart and interesting in whatever field they are in, will help prepare you for future interviews. Doing interview prep, preparing for questions, doing research are all skills you will need when it comes time to search for internships and jobs. And if you really do shine brighter than virtually almost anyone in an alum’s eyes, this may sway the admission office to admit you.

Best of luck.