<p>^small world.</p>
<p>my interview is tomorrow as well, and i was actually going to ask the same question. i wrote down a bunch of questions, and i don’t want to forget any. honestly i’m not that nervous–my chances of getting in are pretty small anyway–but i don’t want to seem unprepared or disinterested.</p>
<p>You want your interview to be a friendly casual conversation. I generally describe aspects of Princeton that are of interest to the candidate that I am interviewing. I encourage them to ask questions as I tell them about Princeton. </p>
<p>If your interviewer talks about their life at Princeton then it is appropriate for you to ask your questions to continue the conversation. If you were to ask questions from a notepad I would consider that an indication that you were interested in Princeton and had prepared for the interview. It would not seemed rude in any manner to me. </p>
<p>Relax. The discussion is about you. And you know you better than anyone. Be yourself. Most alum interviewers are outgoing and friendly. As ib612 pointed out, you do not need a great interview to be accepted. But a good interview can help.</p>
<p>@jerseygirl2011 and @lullinatalk—best of luck today!!</p>
<p>Just to confirm. My Princeton was extremely causal. I recommend it to every applicant. I learned a ton about the school- things you won’t learn from anywhere other than an alum. Was a good time. The interview was FAR more about Princeton and the alum’s experience than it was about myself. </p>
<p>My only advice is be prepared to ask questions- 85% of the interview was just a Q&A from me to him about the school. I wasn’t exactly prepared for that but the questions came naturally- about rigor, social scene, senior thesis, passion, stress, blahblah. These guys love their school and want to talk about it-- let them! Work details about yourself in when it’s applicable and when it’s natural- they don’t need to hear a list of your accomplishments.</p>
<p>^ Yes I agree. My interview lasted two hours because of it.</p>
<p>I have the same question as loveneweng - who buys the coffee? Should I wait for her if I’m early, or should I buy a coffee and then offer to buy her one?</p>
<p>During my interview it was mostly about him and Princeton as opposed to about me. I ran out of questions pretty quickly so I would definitely commend having a list ready to go!</p>
<ol>
<li> Dress nicely (though not formally).</li>
<li> Arrive 5 minutes early</li>
<li> Come prepared with questions about Princeton, your interviewer’s time there, etc. You can even show up with a pad of paper with the questions written down. In fact, i encourage it. It shows you care, are interested, prepared, and professional.</li>
<li> Be polite, engaging, and interesting</li>
<li> Thank your interviewer at the beginning of the interview, at the end, and then send a follow up note/email to the interviewer thanking him/her for their time.</li>
</ol>
<p>PtonAlumnus, thank you so much for writing this. 
I found it very helpful and it cleared up some doubts.</p>
<p>Thanks PtonAlumnus. found it very helpful</p>
<p>My D. has applied to 8 universities and colleges and was only contacted for an interview by Yale so far. We are remote but what is the protocal for asking admissions for an interview? I know some opportunities have all ready past the time limit.</p>
<p>I completed my last interview this week. I may now be assigned additional interviews. When I interview applicants that live a distance from my town I offer to interview them via Skype or phone. Given the large number of applicants it is normal for some interviews to be completed in February. The date of the interview does not indicate anything concerning her chances of admissions; it is just luck of the draw. </p>
<p>Make sure that your daughter checks her email everyday. I have had trouble contacting applicants that text and never check their email and their phone voice mail box is full. If your daughter has not been contacted by next weekend it would be appropriate for her to email admissions and simply state that she is interested in having an alumni interview. In the unlikely event she is not offered an interview admissions will give her application full consideration.</p>
<p>Thank you very much for this information.</p>
<p>Candidate interview vs applicant interview. I’d assume that not every of the 35K applicants gets an interview but only “candidates” get interviews, for Princeton or other schools.</p>
<p>As far as I know, Princeton tries to make sure that every applicant gets an interview but doesn’t always have enough interviewers to assign to applicants, regardless of their qualifications.</p>
<p>lake42ks: your assumption is incorrect. Smudge is right. Pton would want to interview everyone if possible. Interview or no interview is not an indication of potential admission. There’s frankly no time to pre-sort. Zero chancers and shoo-ins are treated equally.</p>
<p>As a Princeton interviewer I wanted to answer the coffee house question… Do not expect the interviewer to buy you a coffee nor should you offer to buy anything for him/her. This will avoid any awkwardness, as well as the subject of a candidate’s ability to pay. I typically say something like “If you’d like to get something, feel free to do that now” but rarely does anyone do that. Hope this helps…</p>
<p>** Great advice in all the 5 parts. I would suggest marking this as one of the IMPORTANT: threads in the Princeton Sub-forum. **</p>
<p>I know that it’s been a long time since this thread has been active, but I wanted to put in my two cents because my interview experience seemed to be a little different from that of some of the other people in this thread. Like the OP said, all alumni interviews are different and they don’t follow a specific format.</p>
<p>It seems like most of the people here had had interviews that involved a lot of question-asking centered around the alumnus. Mine was the opposite. </p>
<p>My interview started out with “Why Princeton?” and the rest of the conversation was pretty much an in depth conversation about my interests. If I said that I was interested in studying and doing biology research, he would ask me why I liked biology and what kinds of things would I be interested in researching. If I mentioned that I was also interested in studying English literature, he would ask me who my favorite writers/novels were or whether there was a specific literary movement I liked in particular.</p>
<p>The only question that I really had a hard time answering was about what I thought my strengths were. I only asked two questions–why he chose to keep in contact with Princeton by interviewing applicants and what he enjoyed most about Princeton–mainly because my alumnus graduated from Princeton quite some time ago with a PhD and not an undergraduate degree.</p>
@PtonAlum I know it’s been a while since you have been on this site, but if you are still active I wanted to know if you have any idea about my chances of admittance based on my stats:
Valedictorian, 4.208
1900 SAT
Graduating with an Associates Degree of Criminal Justice and Honors and Distinction High School Diploma
President of 3 clubs, Founder of 2 county wide organizations, active in a few other clubs, about 2000 hrs of volunteer work
I am not posting this to brag on myself, I REALLY want to know. I may have damaged myself with such a low SAT Score by Princeton standards (and not taking it a second time), but I want to know if the degree will offset that.
Thanks so much!