<p>One reason I am so upset when I hear of poorly done interviews stems from this point. The interview does not play a huge role in the admissions decision, but one thing we alums are told over and over and over again is that the main reason for these interviews is to personalize the application process, to give applicants a real person to identify with, to put a face on Brown. </p>
<p>So when the alum does such a horrendous job, it does Brown a disservice. It puts the university in a poor light, gives it a bad image ā and that is exactly the opposite of what Brown wants.</p>
<p>Students should not decide where to go to college based on their interview, but clearly the interview plays a role. Iāve met several students who said a good interview helped them in their decision-making process. </p>
<p>Interviewers are NOT supposed to spend the entire interview asking the student about where else they are applying. They are NOT supposed to ask tricky questions like Dāyer Makerās son had to endure. Those interviewers need to be outed. They should either be banned from volunteering or get some training from their area chair. </p>
<p>I know how I do interviews, and I know how some of my friends do them. We most definitely do not ask ridiculous hypothetical questions or grill the student on other schools or criticize the school or show up drunk. I truly hope and pray that the vast majority of interviews are done properly, and that these examples are the exception.</p>
<p>But the ONLY way that these bad interviewers can be stopped is if you call Brown and describe what happened. If you donāt, then some other student will be subjected to this nonsense. Even if someone at Brown were reading this forum, they couldnāt do anything because we are all anonymous here. So please, please, please call Brown and describe what happened so we can try to make sure stuff like this doesnāt happen again. I cannot imagine in a million years how a phone call like that would affect your admission chances.</p>
<p>I agree with everything you said, but you lost me here:</p>
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<p>In this year (and the 999,999 to follow) I bet that most applicants can think of a million ways a phone call like that would affect their admission chances. (Half of them worry if a B in Phys Ed will doom them, so weāre not dealing with optimists to begin with.) These scenarios they run through may not be rational, level-headed ways, but I think the fear for applicants is 100% genuine.</p>
<p>This happens in the workplace, too. There are ways you want to get noticed. And ways you donāt. Complaining about an interviewer could be viewed as being unsportsmanlike. Or maybe itās perceived as a defensive move to undermine the alumās credibility after you had an awful interview. And what if your experience was an aberration or youāre the only one whoās willing to stick your neck out and contact the admissions office about this interviewer? They might think youāre the one whoās a problem. There are plenty of applicants out there who didnāt seem to have a problem with this interviewer (because, after all, nobody did anything about him/her before your interview was scheduled, did they?) and who wants to be known as a complainer or whiner or malcontent? They barely know who you are and that type of reputation canāt possibly help. Iāve never known anyone to complain about interviewers in the job market. So I can understand why that wouldnāt happen with alumni interviewers for college.</p>
<p>Rationally speaking, youāre right. I just donāt see applicants being very proactive about this. They could, of course, wait until the process is over. But if they get in, there was no harm done. And if they donāt get in, they might feel foolish for having waited (because maybe that interview made all the difference!) or they might just want to move on. And why help Brown improve its process if youāre not going to matriculate?</p>
<p>Dāyer Maker, I made that statement specifically directed at your concern. Because you are correct ā students think that anything they do, sneeze the wrong way, forget to dot an i, will result in a denial.</p>
<p>From the bottom of my heart, I really truly do believe that an applicant who calls in a legitimate complaint about an alumni interview will NOT be hurt. </p>
<p>Hereās how I believe it works: The complaint will be handled by an admin assist, who will pass the call onto the Alumni Relations Office. Alumni Relations deals with alumni interviewers but has absolutely no impact on admissions. Alumni Relations will contact the area chair.</p>
<p>I used to be an area chair. If I got a call like that, I would delete that interviewer from my list immediately. The only circumstance under which I would not do that would be an interviewer who I knew personally, who had been interviewing for awhile, whose reports I had read ā someone who I would be shocked that he or she would behave inappropriately. I might have a conversation with that person.</p>
<p>Under this scenario, admissions officers would never know that someone had called, so there can be no impact on admissions. Unless, of course, the student felt the interview went so badly that the write-up could hurt them. In that case, I would urge the student to have their guidance counselor call Brown to discuss the situation.</p>
<p>99.9% of applicants will do nothing, as you said. And thatās the shame of it. Future students will be subjected to really poor interviewers. Why help Brown improve? Because the next person interviewed by this rotten alum could be your sister or your best friend. Because itās the right thing to do. Because sometimes we should do things that are in the best interest of improving the system instead of in our own best interest.</p>
<p>I had my Brown interview earlier today, and I can honestly say that I enjoyed it. The guy who was interviewing me was out of town so we had to do a phone interview, which freaked me out at first. He asked me the typical āwhy Brownā and āwhy did you pick this as your major,ā but then he asked me several others that I wasnāt expecting. He asked me what I would do with ten thousand dollars, and then what i would do with one million dollars. He asked if there were any books I would recommend to him, and it turns out that the book I recommended to him he had just finished a couple days ago. I was completely freaking out about the interview the whole day because im just a naturally awkward person, but he was very personal and I am so glad that I did the interview. </p>
<p>Itās somehow complicated: I go to school in country A and I currently live in country B. So an interviewer who currently works in country A was assigned to interview me. He emailed me and suggested the times we meet up. However, I replied and told him I donāt live in country A anymore and whether we can conduct the interview in a different way. Then he told me he has to report on the applicants by the 15th of February, the only possible way is for me to get creative by email. He gave me the four main questions under the āInterview Contact Form Guideā. He told me to give him my responses and heāll forward them on to the BASC office and that my comments will help the admissions people have a fuller picture of me. </p>
<p>Is an email interview common? I mean, I really want to get in Brown and Iām sure a face-to-face interview or a phone interview would really help me express WHO I AM and WHY Brown. AND Iām terrible at writing!</p>
<p>E-mail interviews are not common. My understanding is that they are only conducted for international students. In my opinion, they are useless. But I guess they are better than nothing. Can you suggest that you skype instead?</p>
<p>fireandrain: Couldnāt s/he get reassigned to an interviewer from his/her new region/country? That seems like a much easier and more practical resolution. If so, what should voidlove do?</p>
<p>If you look up thread, youāll see that this did happen last year, email interviews. I did a little digging, and learned that they are happening for international students, when there are no alumni volunteers in the area. </p>
<p>voidlove could call admissions, explain the situation, ask for a different more local interviewer, and see what happens.</p>
<p>I personally avoid conducting phone interviews like the plague. Iāve always hated being on the receiving end of them, and I have no desire to put someone through that. For me, a phone interview has all of the worst aspects of an in-person interview with none of the benefits. The result is that I never put myself in a situation where a phone interview is likely ā for example, I never volunteer to interview applicants outside my area. (Iāve been in regions with lots of applicants since graduating, anyway, so thereās been no shortage of applicants to interview in person).</p>
<p>Anyway, if I were in the situation where I couldnāt meet up with someone, I would offer them an e-mail back and forth as an alternative to a phone interview. (In fact, I did this once, but it was a bit of a different situation.) Thereās absolutely no reason that a correctly-conducted conversation with someone by e-mail canāt be as informative and revealing as a phone call, all without the terrible awkwardness of the terrible medium that is the telephone.</p>
<p>Of course, Iām a bit odd in my hatred for the telephone (although, from what I can tell, Iām certainly not alone in my generation). And, not everyone is going to do a good job interviewing by e-mail. I think just sending along the interview form questions is the wrong thing to do, and itās unlikely to produce a useful conversation ā not to mention the fact that applicants arenāt really supposed to see those questions.</p>
<p>About 14-15 kids in my high school in Northern NJ are applying to Brown. My best friend had her interview today, at a Starbucks well over 45 minutes away. While she was there, her interviewer asked her if she had any other friends applying and mentioned that our high school was in an interview ādead zoneā and not covered by any member of the alumni network; he was taking on extra by interviewing her. He mentioned that most students at our school would not get interviews and that those who had received random interviews were randomly picked (which I do believe is true because though my friend has very high stats and definitely has a good shot, another friend of mine who was offered an interview is not even in the top 10% of our class and is not an athletic recruit or anything). Is not having an interview offered normal and will it affect my application in any way?</p>
<p>Ok- I was just wondering if this was normal for Northern NJ, I guess I should have specified. It just strikes me as very strange that I live in such a densely populated area thatās rather close to the school-- (itās not right around the corner but itās not like I live in Wyoming or out of the country) and I just was wondering if anyone else in the area had experienced this. Also- Iām assuming the decisions of which students from an area receive interviews are random, correct?</p>
<p>OK, I canāt help but be snarky. How many times do I need to say that there is absolutely positively NO pre-sorting of applications before interviews are assigned? The people who assign interviews donāt know your grades, donāt know your SATS ā the ONLY thing we know about you is your name, contact info, and subject areas of interest. All of which was said in the first post. </p>
<p>I donāt know why there is a ādead zoneā in Northern NJ ā sounds very odd to me and Iāve never heard that phrase before. But donāt assume that because you live in a densely populated area that there are a lot of alumni volunteers. Thatās a lot of kids from one high school applying ā multiply that by all the other high schools in Northern NJ, and yes, itās very hard to find enough alumni volunteers to meet with that number of kids. </p>
<p>fireandrain- you do realize that as an alumni representative, your attitude towards a nervous high school student does not reflect well on your school, correct? If this is the way that alumni interviewers treat their students, maybe itās a better thing that I wonāt be receiving an interview.</p>
<p>Bandgeek: I canāt help but support fireandrain. If people such as you would read the first couple posts in this thread, most of their questions could be answered. That way, weād have more time to spend on people who have legitimate questions about Brown.</p>
<p>fireandrain is nothing but supportive to applicants who come here, and has helped hundreds of appreciative high schoolers. Every adult (i.e., non-applicant) who posts on here has certain hang-ups about silly questions and questions that have already been answered, etc. For me, itās chance threads, which are a stunning waste of human effort and thought. For fireandrain, it is answering this question about selective interviewing ā one of the very questions that the first post in this thread was intended to put an end to, and one of the main reasons this thread is sticky-ed. Weāre not paid to sit here and help people, and acting entitled to a long-winded re-explanation when you simply ignored someoneās advice to check out the first post isnāt going to make anyone more excited to help you out.</p>
<p>Thank you for your information. I think I have a better picture now of what is more suitable for me. Maybe an email interview isnāt that scary after all.</p>
<p>Thanks, bruno and mgcsinc. I wrote a really snarky response in my head, but held off hoping someone would come here and support me. Itās taking a lot of restraint for me not to say what Iād really like to say.</p>
<p>This thread was really helpful, thank you so much!</p>
<p>I am an international applicant from Turkey and I received an e-mail from my interviewer, who is Turkish, in English. Since MIT interview was in Turkish which felt a bit more comfortable I expected the same thing from Brown but now I feel anxious about this. Thatās okay though but if I only ask for having the interview in Turkish will this affect the alumās thoughts about me?</p>