I imagine that HS applicants – the main constituency of this thread – will if need be read past what might be seen as a “tough love” tone in the OP. Gain from it, as well as subsequent postings, a better understanding of what it’s like on the other side of the interview process. Perhaps adjust some things related to how the interview is approached, as they see fit. After all, their next stop is college: Critical evaluation of diverse information and opinions is pretty much what they will be doing for a living.
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And if a kid hasn’t learned common courtesy by senior year of HS- it’s not too late now. Please, thank you, show up on time, don’t bring your girlfriend or your dog, don’t check your phone midway through the interview. Are there exceptions? Of course, and that’s where common courtesy comes in. “Mr or Ms interviewer- I am so sorry, but I am on a kidney transplant list so if my phone buzzes during our meeting, I will need to check it to make sure it isn’t my kidney, in which case I will have to leave abruptly. I apologize in advance.” Don’t eat dinner during your zoom call. Trust me, it won’t help your case.
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I am wondering if applicants “checking their phone” are actually looking at their notes of items they wanted to remember/ questions for the interview.
So many young people keep notes on their phones and may not realize that consulting them could be misinterpreted as being distracted.
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I’ve had students do that during meetings and they’ve told me up front that they’ve written down their questions for me on their phones. Zero problem with that!
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Agree. And there is a difference between consulting your notes (which happen to be on a phone) and responding to every ping and ding!
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Thank you so much for all of the insights on this thread. i had my daughter read through all of them before her interview with Yale last night and she came out saying “that was the best interview I have ever had”! Don’t get me wrong, we know the odds of gaining admission are stacked against her so she is simply taking this as an amazing opportunity to shine - we’ll take any "win’ regardless of how little it is! And a big thank you to all the alumni interviewers - it can’t be easy. I wish I could thank her interviewer directly for making this process an enjoyable one and making my daughter feel like “Yale material” regardless of the outcome!
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“Yale material”
Meanwhile, if your alma mater was in a cash crunch a few hundred years ago, and the first guy to pony up the required $5k for naming rights had the surname…
Long story short, we tend to avoid mention of “brown material”, especially if spoken.
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Let me tell you that a very good friend of mine’s daughter who was a very hopeful Brown applicant 3 years ago would have been totally fine being called “Brown material” had she been admitted lol
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@Brown79 it sounds like you mean really well. The points I have taken away is that my kids need to answer phone calls and of course set up their mailboxes. We as a family tend not to answer numbers we do not recognize. Also, if someone called them even from Brown or Harvard, they would assume it was some kind of solicitation and may not be receptive, they absolutely would not realize it was an interview and probably would not even think to ask. Thank you for the notice! As I will warn them! As for the timing, my kids are often getting home from sports at 6 or 7 PM so mid afternoon is a luxury they and their classmates do not have, the same as any kid with a longer school day or commute.
One question for all interviewers, Thank you emails? Yes or no and how quickly
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The vast majority of the students I met with sent a thank you email within 48 hours of the meeting. I appreciated the gesture.
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Same for me.
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I always recommend a thank you email that includes specific reference to the conversation ASAP. When I say ASAP I mean try and get it to the interviewer prior to him/her finalizing and submitting their notes. Otherwise it is surely an appropriate and polite gesture with little if any impact.
My kid would literally write it as soon as he got into the car to leave the interview.
FYI I was an alumni interviewer for 20 years whatever that is worth (very little).
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A thank you note from a HS kid can be a REALLY simple thing.
"Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me about Super college. I am even more enthusiastic now about exploring the campus than I was before we met! I appreciate you telling me about the archive of Lawrence Welk ephemera- as a big fan of accordion music, I can’t wait to check it out. Best- "
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I have been on the other side for a number of kids, sitting in the car and am curious as to what I should have done in this situation. My child who did not drive met the interviewer for a medium research university on the level of Tulane or Rochester (was not either of those but prefer not to identify). The school was over 7 hours away so we had no plans to visit and in all honesty she was only moderately interested and mostly because they had EA and we wanted her to apply early. This was a few years ago. She met the interviewer in a Starbucks about 20 minutes away so I was stuck in the car. The interviewer was a middle aged woman who I believe either had grown children or had never had children. The interviewer kept her there talking about herself mostly for 1.5 hours! The woman was in STEM which is the last thing my daughter wanted to study (she is a graphic artist). Nothing she said made the school more appealing but my daughter is polite and did not know how to excuse herself. I was not sure what to do either but did not want to interrupt but was getting tired of sitting in my car. I also may have been coming from the gym or someplace so did not feel 100% comfortable going in. In the end my daughter got into the school which she should have anyway and ended up getting into her first choice ED. We never said anything to the school
What say you?
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I would have no problem with a student sharing that they will be having a parent dropping them off and asking about the approximate timing of the meeting; or that their ride is waiting and that they need to go.
There is also nothing wrong with declining a meeting if a student is no longer interested in the school.
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She was mildly interested in the school and this was early in her process, around October, the issue was the interviewer was awful, did not relate to my child, talked about herself throughout the interview and not with relevant information. My children have probably done over 20 interviews, This is the only one that stands out as being really awful but honestly sitting in that car for 1.5 hours I felt trapped and I had no idea that my child was not enjoying herself or even getting useful information.
Personally, I do not feel like there is a need to say, when will this interview be over before you sit down, most have taken the normal 20 minutes and sometimes the child and interviewer click so why interrupt however, when the interview goes off the rails like this one did, what do you do, especially if you as the parent think it should end but you have no idea why it is taking so long, good or bad
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I usually tell students to plan on 30 minutes when I’m setting up the meeting. When my D was interviewing, most of the folks she met with told her what to expect on timing and if they didn’t, I told her to ask since often I was chauffeuring too.
Honesty I’m not sure what I would have done in your position. 90 minutes is way over the top, especially for a crappy interview. Pretty sure my daughter would have just waited it through too and I would have been left fuming in the car ; )
I still think it’s fine for a student to ask for clarity.
Totally as an aside, for others reading this thread, it’s worth remembering that alumni are volunteers. And some really aren’t very good. I think it’s helpful for admissions to get the feedback if a particular interviewer was horrible.
I chaired my region for a few years and we got negative feedback about one of our older volunteers. She meant well but was grandparent age to the students she was meeting with, was not even close to current with what was happening on campus, and wouldn’t follow basic instructions on making contacts. I ended up not assigning any students to her and used her help to make congratulations calls after Ivy day and invite students to the regional reception.
Sadly it’s hard to fire volunteers. Thankfully most people start to self select out.
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We probably should have but she was my first one applying to the school and her sibling was right behind her and we did not know where the comments would end up
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Also true for “arts” high schools.
Mid-afternoon is just a starting point in the wide net I cast: Sometimes I get lucky, and it works out well for both of us. But I “go where I’m needed”. I’ve done a few interviews which started at midnight, simply because that’s the earliest the applicant was available.