<p>creativecrew: Yes, if you’ve received any awards/accomplishments you should notify admissions. You don’t need to go through your regional admissions officer – just send it to admissions.</p>
<p>idaisyi, glad to help out.</p>
<p>Do you think they would care about the recent news of being a Semi-Finalist for the Coca Cola Scholarship?
And wouldn’t writing to the “Admissions Office” risk any updates not getting to the PA territory rep who is responsible for this region? Or doesn’t Brown divide their candidate pool by terrorities? Are readers randomly assigned files?</p>
<p>Fire and Rain–You are a great resource of info on Brown. Thanks for all your advice. Wonder if you know much about the PLME program. Some friends that applied ED class of 2015 have already been accepted and know they are in PLME. Do you know if they hold some PLME seats for RD? Since PLME is a “liberal arts” pre-med program are they looking for candidates who have strong humanities backgrounds (academic + extracurricular) vs science focus candidates that some of the other 7/8 year early acceptance med programs enroll?</p>
<p>Hi Creativecrew,</p>
<p>I’m a current PLME, so I can give you some info there. I don’t know if they formally “hold seats” for RD, but I can promise you that they definitely do not enroll all their PLMEs through ED. I think I heard that out of the current 2014 PLME class of 59 or so, 22 of us were accepted ED.</p>
<p>As for what they’re looking for, they really want well-rounded students who will take advantage of the opportunities that PLME gives! They don’t want people who will take nothing but science classes, but they also do want strong science students, clearly.</p>
<p>About the Coca-Cola Scholarship, I would definitely write in about that. Sending the update to the general admissions office will get it to everyone who reads your application, including your territory rep.</p>
<p>so I applied ED to Brown and to the PLME program and was deferred. I had done an alumni interview in the fall for ED but I have been contacted again to do another interview for RD. i think that I am going to do the second interview but I just do not know what I am going to ask because I had most of my questions answered at the last interview</p>
<p>Does anyone know when we will be contacted for RD interviews?</p>
<p>sara: Some people have already been contacted and been interviewed. Others may not be contacted until later this month. If you read this thread from the beginning, you’ll understand why – it’s up to the alum who is in charge of your region and the person who gets assigned your name.</p>
<p>hunter: You are not supposed to get a second interview. That is a mistake. Given the number of applicants and the tough time we have finding enough alumni to interview everyone, we really should not be talking to the same student twice.</p>
<p>Hello. I was recently e-mailed by an alum to set up an interview. I’m generally very personable, but I have a tendency to get very nervous and thus I have given both decent and miserable interviews in the past. I’m worried that an interview might harm me more than help me, or in the case that it does go fine, won’t go so well as to really make an impact. Should I go for an interview anyway? Is it bad to reject the opportunity?</p>
<p>If you turn down the interview, the alum still fills out the form, and checks off a box that says that the applicant did not want the interview. </p>
<p>Part of the reason for the interview is for you to ask questions and learn more about the college. </p>
<p>You are going to have to do many interviews in the future. If you want a job, you’ll have to endure lots of interviews. It’s important to start practicing and getting good at them. May as well start now. </p>
<p>It is very rare that the interview makes a difference in the admissions decision. You would have to have an incredibly bad interview – just horrendous – for it to result in a denial. I think there are more pros than cons to an interview, even one that isn’t amazing.</p>
<p>I just had my Brown interview and I can honestly say I loved the experience. My interviewer was very personable and the interview was basically just a conversation, which started off with my goals and interests, and her experiences at Brown, but quickly veered off into a discussion about the most random and interesting topics. One thing that really shone through was how much my interviewer loved her experience at Brown; before this Brown was sort of just another college on my list but now I’m considering it as one of my top choices. My interviewer did tell me that a lot of kids go in really nervous, so they don’t get the most out of their interview. Don’t let that happen! It sounds really cliche, but my advice would be just to relax, and enjoy the experience.</p>
<p>It’s great that you had that experience, idiosyncracy. That’s what I strive for in my interviews, and I love it when it works.</p>
<p>Also had an incredible Brown interview today. Anyone who is wondering about talking with the alumi interviewer, I say “YES–GO FOR IT” We had a lovely 1.5 hour conversation over lunch. It was really informal. In fact he ended up not having any child care for his 6 year old daughter and so she had lunch with us and I just loved how our conversation included my interest in pediatrics and love of working with kids and the pleasure of interacting with both him and his daughter. He completely sold me on every aspect of Brown.</p>
<p>I had my interview today too, and it literally could not have gone better. I was really nervous about having a phone interview because I suck at talking on the phone, but it was much more of a conversation than an interrogation. It also turns out that I actually know my interviewer’s sister, indirectly. She’s on the drumline at the high school literally down the road, so I got to talk about that extensively with him. It was PERFECT. I wish interviews were a larger part of the application now…</p>
<p>I too had my interview recently. I wish I could say my interview was as awesome as the past few people have posted, lol. Mine was decent to good overall. Conversation flowed well the entire time, which was good, but it was also kind of bad because I didn’t get to say anywhere near what I wanted to say about why I wanted to go to Brown because our conversation just kept of going off in different directions and my interviewer had time restraints. The worst part was that we had to go over the fact that my ECs were clearly lacking compared to other Brown applicants but it was w/e. The strongest part of my application is my academics, but we didn’t really get to talk about that since that’s not what the interview is really about 
Even though I didn’t do fantastic or anything, I was proud of myself because I usually have trouble talking to people I don’t know well.</p>
<p>Overall, I don’t think my chances of getting into Brown were ever that great in the first place, but I would say that this interview didn’t really help or hurt me at all.</p>
<p>I’ve had a bit of a problem with my Brown interview, and I was hoping someone on the forum could give me some advice. </p>
<p>My interviewer first contacted me at 10pm last night, and when I answered the phone he sounded drunk, kept slurring his words, and could barely finish his sentences. He told me the interview wasn’t very important and he sounded extremely unhappy to be an alumni at all. He made a few scathing remarks about Brown and then said something like, “I don’t even know what the interview is for, but we can meet up somewheres.” I had to ask him his name three times before he’d even give me his first name.</p>
<p>I am tempted to decline the interview on the simple basis that he really freaked me out, and I do not believe I am being overly-sensitive about it. I thought about contacting Brown but I don’t want to jeopardize my standings or seriously offend him if it turns out he’s the only interviewer in my area. </p>
<p>Any ideas on what to do?</p>
<p>You should contact admissions. Do it tomorrow. Doing so will not jeopardize your chances at all. This person should not be interviewing, the area chair should know about his behavior and remove him from the list of volunteers. If you were my child, I would not allow you to meet with this person. </p>
<p>As a former area chair, I can tell you that if Brown called me about this, I would never call the alum and ask him for his side of the story. I would just reassign the student to another alum. </p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>D just had her Brown interview…woman spent most of the time grilling her about the other schools she was applying to…d very disappointed…the alumni only asked her “Why Brown”. And then ended the interview…</p>
<p>@suemag: That’s really unfortunate. Part of the reason that so little emphasis is placed on interviews is because of how unpredictable it can be with these interviews outsourced to alumni. I sincerely hope that it wasn’t too much of a turn-off for your daughter. There are plenty of people here – myself included – who would gladly answer any unanswered questions that your daughter might have.</p>
<p>Thanks! She was just disappointed mostly…her other interviews were very different…more fun and informative.</p>
<p>I was discouraged by all the wonderful, spiritually uplifting interviews reported here – until kathryns and suemag posted. My son had his alumni interview by telephone and it falls closer to the bummer of an interview that suemag reports than the preposterously awful encounter that kathryns shared. I was only around for part of it – which is more than I’ve been around any others as this was a phone interview. The parts I heard involved lots of substantive question. That’s how the British schools do interviews, so it was just weird in context. It was something my son was prepared to deal with…just not then. And there were bizarre hypothetical questions, like who you’d toss off the overcrowded life boat – laced with religious differentials that made me wonder at first if there was some bad barroom humor, “A rabbi, a priest and an imam are in a life raft…” (<– that’s what I was imagining was said on the other end of the line from what I gathered from my son’s end.) There was no wiggling out of the “What’s your first choice?” question about college. Or any of the hypotheticals. The only acceptable answers were the choices given. There was no tolerance for answers like “Well, I’d have to see about this…or I’d first like to find out more about that…”</p>
<p>When I got back from my run, my son was finishing up the call. All told it was well over an hour long, but it was definitely conducted in a confrontational style. I later tried to suggest that those things happen and that’s a good time to take control and start asking your own questions. Then my son said, “Oh, yeah, I tried to do that, but he shot me down and said he couldn’t tell me much about Brown since it had been decades since he’d been on campus.” Say what?!</p>
<p>So, here’s the big question: How much should the interview shape the PROSPECT’S view of the university?</p>
<p>Allow me to put some context to that. In direct contrast to this phone interview with a retired Brown alum, S had an interview for another college with another retired alum that he traveled to by train. It was an all-day trip; he met the alum at a pastry shop and they had a nice discussion. Toward the end, the alum realized that my son had to wait 4 hours before he could catch a train back home (which took over 3 hours). So the alum invited him to have a full meal at his nearby residence and then, because it was a miserable, stormy day, the alum had his driver take my son to the train station. And they still exchange e-mails about some NASA(?) space exploration project that they talked about. (At least they didn’t “friend” each other on Facebook.)</p>
<p>I would guess that interview went well…but I doubt it meant all that much, so I don’t think it’s worth any celebration. Conversely, I gathered the Brown interview went poorly (though son was not discouraged…partly, I think, because he’s clueless in that way). And yet I am irrationally more convinced it will hurt his chances even though it should count for just as little as the other interview.</p>
<p>The other concern I have is that these interviews will unduly influence or shape the decision making process later on (assuming there are choices to be made). And I am concerned equally by the influence of the annoying and peculiar style of the Brown interviewer (to dissuade my son from Brown if he has that choice later) and by the influence of the lively, couldn’t shut up about how great it is to be an alum of his alma mater interviewer for the other college. My son claims he’s immune to outside influences (and I can vouch for that when it comes to what me and my wife might try to suggest to him). Still, should he be in line for choosing the other college, I think this other alum has made it a little more difficult or awkward for my son to say, “Nah, but thanks for the offer!” This other alum is a one-man Yield-Increasing army for his college. And I don’t think that’s good either.</p>
<p>So…what are the kinds of things that should be taken into account by students when they think back to their interview experience? And what are the kinds of things that should be deeply discounted by the kids?</p>