<p>I have my interview tomorrow at a local coffee shop. What do I wear? What will we talk about?</p>
<p>just wear in casual.
I've had one in Oct</p>
<p>i always did business casual: khakis, nice sweater, button up shirt underneath.</p>
<p>business casual as the dude above said</p>
<p>your interview for cornell will be similar to your interviews at other schools, no surprises here</p>
<p>my interview was short - only like 25 min. and we just discussed my interests, my EC's and any questions i had about the school</p>
<ol>
<li><p>You need to approach it like you're the one interviewing him about his time at Cornell. Get him telling stories about the good old days. Get him telling you things that you already know about Cornell. Never, ever interrupt him. And never, ever correct him. Even if he's dead wrong. If he pauses looking for a signal that you're still interested, strongly encourage him to keep talking. Soak up everything he says. And hopefully he will tell you stuff that is off-the-record, like you would find here on College Confidential.</p></li>
<li><p>When it's time for you to talk about you and your high school accomplishments, keep it short as humanly possible. He doesn't really care about you. He really cares about himself. You must always be honest, of course. You must always be heart-felt. Never say anything that you haven't thought about beforehand and know for sure will go over well. Never say anything that you suspect he won't understand or appreciate or can't relate to.</p></li>
<li><p>Never, ever tell him about what other schools you are applying to. Never. He's not even allowed to ask that question. If he's stupid enough to ask, tell him you haven't decided yet. Or tell him that you're only applying to Cornell.</p></li>
<li><p>You better have some passion for Cornell (as little as you may know about it now), before you go into the interview. This is the very first thing that will come up. And you be better be real and heart-felt when it's your chance to say your bit about why you want to go there. If you can't pull this off, you'll be at a big disadvantage in the interview and your chances of admissions as a whole.</p></li>
<li><p>You need to somehow get past the "are you qualified" question in his mind. And the sooner you get past it, the better you'll be. If that question hangs over the interview the entire time, you'll be at a huge disadvantage. Hopefully you can put that mental question aside in the first couple minutes. You can probably do it with a couple impressive numbers: an impressive SAT score, an impressive class rank #, etc. Don't be boastful - but get these numbers out on the table quickly. You should be extremely relaxed and confident about your qualifications to get into Cornell and handle the work there if you do. If you're not, you're going to be on the defensive the entire time, and you will probably not do well in the interview.</p></li>
<li><p>If you were a member of a club that only met 1 hour per semester, you should never let him know how infrequently it met.</p></li>
<li><p>If he gets you talking about something you did well, get off that subject as quickly as possible.</p></li>
<li><p>When you're trying to explain something to him, you need to be as specific and concrete as possible. Use details. Always try to find a number of some sort. Always give him the raw data and let him figure out the conclusion for himself. He's not stupid - he'll figure it out (hopefully).</p></li>
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<p>Bottom line: if you're relaxed and confident, and if you give him honest and heart-felt answers, with lots of specifics, and let him do as much talking as you can humanly stand, and if you have a genuine interest in Cornell and express this, then you will be fine.</p>
<p>To answer your first question, wear something like a white dress shirt, and comfortable pants like khakis, but not jeans. Don't look uncomfortable. It will make you more nervous.</p>
<p>To answer your second question, all they know pre-hand is which college(s) you had applied at Cornell, and possibly your stats/major. They didn't read your essay, so don't try to explain something on it. All they do is try to have a normal conversation and get enough addition information from you for a letter of recommendation, and it's a probably good idea to give something if you didn't mention it on your essay/resume/etc.
There is no trick. Just don't act stupid.</p>
<p>As an alumni interviewer myself, I agree with a lot of ffhrea's suggestions, but a couple of them strike me as off base:</p>
<p>-- We're not interested in whether or not somebody can cut it academically at Cornell. That's for the admissions officers with a full high school transcript to decide. What we're interested in is whether you would be a good fit on campus and whether there is any certain spark -- for instance, a unique interest or a real enthusiasm for Cornell -- that stands out. So perhaps an alum does size up whether or not the student could cut it at Cornell, but we do this qualitatively rather than quantitatively because we're technically not allowed to ask about SAT scores or your high school record.</p>
<p>-- Why wouldn't you want to talk about your accomplishments as much as possible? Last year I met with a student who not only was a goalie for a state champion soccer team, but was also a promising musician. It was great talking to him about such success, and it's no surprise that he is now a Cornellian.</p>
<p>-- Feel free to ask earnest questions that you honestly don't know the answer to. That's part of the purpose of the meeting. You don't need to know everything ahead of time, but make certain that the questions are reasonable and are something that you should reasonably expect an alum to know the answer to. Open ended questions are the best -- e.g. What did you like best about your time at Cornell?</p>
<p>By the way, this thread is going really well. We should make this a sticky.</p>
<p>I agree this is a good thread.</p>
<p>While the alumnus isn't supposed to evaluate the candidate for admission, just like the way this College Confidential forum is dominated with "chance me" threads, it's a natural craving for many candidates to want to know where they stand and to have an opportunity to prove themselves. And it's natural for many alumni to fall into the mindset of a job interview. Before you know it, the student is hinting about their academic record, the alumni is probing further about it, and the cat and mouse game has begun. Even if they're not talking about the academic record, the alumni can often be reading between the lines, watching the candidate, looking for positive or negative signs that impress or detract. Regardless of how much it's supposed to be an "information session", there will always be the temptation on both parts for it to devolve into an interview.</p>
<p>So, on second thought, I take back my advice to drop a few SAT or GPA numbers in the conversation. The best thing to do is to keep clear of this whole game of trying to prove yourself, and focus on the issues of what the school is like, whether you'd like it there, your hopes and dreams, and so on.</p>
<p>As for talking about your accomplishments, I should have explained myself better. You definitely want to shine and talk about things where you feel proud and passionate. But you don't want to ever appear to be bragging or hogging the spotlight. If the alumni is interested in hearing about your hockey championship, keep rolling with it. If he's not, mention it, and move on to something else that he's more receptive to. My point is that not all accomplishments are created equal. The alumni always introduces a huge bias of his own. If he was a former jock, he'll like that about you. If he has never been athletic at all, and feels insecure about it, he may not want to hear all about your athletic accomplishments. If he has a thing against male ballet dancers, you don't want to rant and rave about your accomplishments in that area. Always tailor your message to your audience. Be keenly aware of the biases of your audience - and use then to your advantage. Otherwise you could be distancing yourself from your audience when you think you're making yourself look good. There's a fine balance between being respected and being liked. You'll need to accomplish both. One without the other won't do.</p>
<p>I very much like the suggestion of asking open-ended questions. And if he asks you "do you have any questions about Cornell", it would be nice if you had so many that there wouldn't be enough time for them all, and you could just pick the best ones. If you ever answer that with "no, no questions about Cornell", you've just blown a big opportunity for all the reasons I detailed in my original post.</p>
<p>A lot of this stuff is hard to explain, and it's automatic/obvious to many young people who have good social and communications skills. If this area isn't your strong suit, then these are some basic pointers to hopefully get you hitting it off in the interview.</p>
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You definitely want to shine and talk about things where you feel proud and passionate. But you don't want to ever appear to be bragging or hogging the spotlight. If the alumni is interested in hearing about your hockey championship, keep rolling with it. If he's not, mention it, and move on to something else that he's more receptive to. My point is that not all accomplishments are created equal.
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<p>Agreed. There is a way to brag without bragging. Learn it and practice it.</p>
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If you ever answer that with "no, no questions about Cornell", you've just blown a big opportunity for all the reasons I detailed in my original post.
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<p>Agreed. Why did you waste the application fee then?</p>
<p>Would a Northface fleece, jeans, and shoes be out of the question? I may be coming from building set pieces at this time. If necessary, I can probably change.</p>
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Would a Northface fleece, jeans, and shoes be out of the question? I may be coming from building set pieces at this time. If necessary, I can probably change.
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<p>All of them are fine.</p>
<p>I don't do interviews for my school, but I do a lot of interviews for work. I have a pet peeve of not liking kids wearing jeans and sneakers (boots) other than for hanging out with friends. There maybe a few of us out there, to be on the safe side I would wear cords/casual pants, button down shirt (or sweater) and a pair of loafers. If you were going to someone's office (law firm, bank), I would wear a jacket over the button down shirt.</p>
<p>A few mistakes people make at interviews are 1)they talk too much, 2)they bring up topics they are not very familiar with. Yesterday a candidate said she took some finance courses to impress me because she was applying for an IT position(probably just expected me to say how nice). It was her bad luck that finance happened to be my specialty even though I was in IT. My brother told his interviewer one time he liked mountain climbing when he has never done any major climb before. His interviewer happened to be an expert. You never know who you'll meet, don't exaggerate, just be honest.</p>
<p>Some good advice in the last post, but let's get real about the clothing issue. If you never, ever wear cords, sweaters, or loafers, and if you dig them out of the pile of never-worn Christmas presents from your grandmother, you're going to look like an idiot in Starbucks next to the dude with dreadlocks under his woven cap, sandals, ripped jeans, and a t-shirt with a marijuana leaf emblem on it. You need to be relaxed, comfortable, and confident. And dressed reasonaby appropriate to the environment. And a lot of it depends on the region of the US you're in. If a fleece and jeans are what you would wear if you were spending the day with a teacher or guidance counselor, or if you were going to open a bank account, and it it doesn't make you look like a "silly kid", then you'll be fine. Don't overthink the clothing issue. The bottom line is that you want to make yourself look good in the eyes of the alumni. And without knowing how old he is or what his background is, you'll have to take an educated guess. Chances are, the alumni might show up in a fleece and jeans himself. Use common sense here and don't try to dress like anything you're not.</p>
<p>Having said all that, choice of clothing also gives a chance to reflect different sides of your personality. You can dress like a geek, you can dress like a jock, or you can dress like a worldly poet. Depending on who you are, and what you want to study at Cornell. If you like the image of yourself in a sports jacket and tie and that's what you feel comfortable in and you're applying to be a business major, you can try that. If you want to major in Philosophy or French, and you like the image of yourself in that swirling multi-colored hand-knitted wool sweater from Peru, you can try that. You're always taking a risk whenever you do any of these things, but if it rings true and reflects who you are from your heart, then it's almost always going to work in your favor.</p>
<p>Ahh- some say yes to my clothes, others say no. Not sure which path to take...</p>
<p>Most of these people are probably doing this because they love and care about their alma mater, and want to convey their regard for it to people who they think would profit from the experience like they did. And/or they are parental types who just want to help kids with this difficult decision and find a good match. But they think their school is, for many, in fact a good match.</p>
<p>So I would expect in many cases their preferred mindset would be more like boosters , and/or dispensers of information, rather than job interviewers. However to an extent they are tasked with both roles.</p>
<p>If there's something pertinent that you may not have been able to convey via the regular application process, be sure to tell them; this is the type of stuff they are likely to want to convey back to the school.</p>
<p>You will want to make the impression with them that you are smart, have a well-founded familiarity with the school, are a good fit with the school you are applying to, and seem to have a decent amount of interest in actually attending it if admitted.</p>
<p>If this happens, and they conclude you are a good candidate, expect them to go into sales mode, explaining the school, opportunities there that might interest you, etc. And maybe explaining the weak points as well, to help you make an informed decision.</p>
<p>Make sure you have some questions to ask, both generally, and specifically in case you get somebody who doesn't talk & you have to fill up the time.</p>
<p>("You will want to make the impression with them that you are smart, have a well-founded familiarity with the school, are a good fit with the school you are applying to, and seem to have a decent amount of interest in actually attending it if admitted.")</p>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p>BUT, the interview is not very important. It is probably one of the less important parts of your app.</p>
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BUT, the interview is not very important. It is probably one of the less important parts of your app.
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<p>Except when, you know, the alum happens to have a strong relationship with somebody in admissions. And you never know when that will be.</p>