Calling Alumni Interviewers!

Parents Social Lounge
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<p>As the selectivity goes up at my alma mater, the quality of candidate seems to be going down. Is it just me? This year I drew kids who mostly didn't visit the school (affluent kids), knew nothing about it and simply decided to apply to all ivies. Lots of iffy scores and no passions--academic or EC.</p>

<p>I'm on the opposite coast this year so I'm wondering if that's the key factor or we're just looking at a lot of unqualified candidates for many reasons from upper middle class aid/no loans to the ever increasing romance with ivies.</p>

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<p>IYO, what is an “iffy score”?</p>

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<p>Depends on the school at Penn, but generally under 2100.</p>

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<p>Yale specifically requests that you not inquire about GPA and test scores, so I’m flying blind as whether my interviewees have the stats. The mix hasn’t changed too much over the years for me–some kids who are way out of their league, lots of great, well-rounded, smart kids who won’t end up being accepted (and a few who will) who are very nice to meet, and one kid every once in a while that makes me say, “Wow!”. </p>

<p>Every year, around a third of my applicants are pretty clueless about Yale and at least two applicants a year will answer some variation of “it’s prestigious” when I ask the “Why Yale?” question.</p>

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<p>“his year I drew kids who mostly didn’t visit the school (affluent kids), knew nothing about it and simply decided to apply to all ivies. Lots of iffy scores and no passions–academic or EC.”</p>

<p>That always has been typical of the students whom I’ve interviewed for Harvard. That’s why the ones always stood out who had some kind of intellectual or EC passion and whose conversation reflected curiosity and good critical thinking.</p>

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<p>Most I interview give me brag sheets that have this info.</p>

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<p>Maybe Ivies are sending thousands more of those “Apply to our Ivy School” letters to students and those students believe that they have a chance at admission (after all, why would Ivy School send me a letter if I couldn’t make it?).</p>

<p>Advertising is working!</p>

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<p>As an applicant, I am curious… what kinds of qualities hint to you that he/she will be automatically rejected or likely will be accepted?</p>

<p>Or is this something that is difficult for you to determine when you are interviewing?</p>

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<p>This is totally aside from your post, but I have a really simple question about alumni interviews. My son is applying to G’town, sent their 1st part and interviewed sometime in October. When he finally sent the second part this past week, he was sent another alumni name. Weird, isn’t it? I would have thought they (computer-generated probably) would not have sent this after each part. I suppose he should call them to explain and send an email to decline. Can you think of any explanation for this?</p>

<p>BTW: my son was quite surprised there was such a difference between interviewing w/ alum vs w/ admissions rep. He wanted to have a dialogue, but the alum just wanted to know, “why ___?” while the admissions guys have wanted to really get to know him.</p>

<p>Agree w/ ellemenope. I think more kids feel they must be qualified b/c they’re getting lots of direct mail.</p>

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<p>I’m not surprised that this has always been the case for Northstarmom, I think it has spread to the lower ivies.</p>

<p>Hardworker, the difference between those that will and should get in and those I think won’t is stark in most cases. They gush with enthusiasm for their passions. They can cite academic accomplishments with pride. When discussing their ECs, the conversation has depth and accomplishments trip off the tongue.</p>

<p>The 85% who won’t get in tell you they’re “good” at English or math when asked about their academic interests and tell you how many hours they spent in service rather than what they accomplished, and how many clubs they belong to rather what the clubs made happen.</p>

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<p>Lima, in the end, most alumni interviews are pretty much useless. When I ran them for my region and read all of them, many were quite funny. We had a lot of old guys with time on their hands who would tell us what a “good family” the young man was from. They knew nothing current about the school or what it was looking for. They knew sports scores.</p>

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<p>I’ve been interviewing for Brown for 25+ years, and haven’t seen any dramatic changes in quality of the applicants. We are also told not to ask for SATs or GPAs, so I never know if a student is “qualified.” In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever learned the SAT scores of any of the students I’ve interviewed.</p>

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<p>“what kinds of qualities hint to you that he/she will be automatically rejected or likely will be accepted?”</p>

<p>The likely accepted students have excellent stats (Harvard asks alum interviewers to find out about the student’s current courses, SAT scores, gpa and class rank.), can talk in depth and with interest about ECs and classes that they enjoyed, have done far more than is required in activities that they loved; and are genuine pleasures to be around even if before meeting them I had no previous interest in whatever their passions were.</p>

<p>The likely rejects are students whom I catch in lies. I am interested and involved in a wide range of activities, and I know a lot of people, and have caught students in lies that the students didn’t realize I had caught them in. For instance, a student mentioned on their resume being involved in a service organization that I happened to volunteer with and that my son had been an officer in for 3 years. </p>

<p>I had never seen the student at any of the organizations activities. When --without mentioning my own or my S’s involvement – I asked the student for details about their involvement, the student greatly exaggerated what they had done. Then I asked the student if they had ever happened to meet my son, whom I modestly mentioned had “some involvement with the club.” The student said “no.” My S was the current president and had been VP!</p>

<p>Another time, when I asked a student the name of their favorite book, they mentioned an obscure book that just happened to be one of my favorite books. When, delighted, I asked the student what they liked about the book, it was obvious to me that the student had never read it.</p>

<p>Then, there was the student who dropped into the conversation that neither parent had attended college. Later, though, the student told me that the student had developed an interest in astronomy by studying his father’s college text books. When I asked about the discrepancy, the student said that he had “forgotten” that his dad went to college.</p>

<p>Then, there was the student who sat throughout the interview with snot literally dripping from his nose to past his mouth… Harvard asks alum interviewers to approach the interview and interview report from the perspective of whether the interviewer would have wanted to room with the student. No, I wouldn’t have wanted to have roomed with such an uncouth person!</p>

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<p>Northstarmom,
I enjoyed reading your interview stories. They gave me a good laugh :)</p>

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<p>To add to Northstar, there is the more subtle. One young man was telling me how accomplished his small town orchestra was that they were invited to play in many countries. He told me what honored guests they were, about the nice hotels and grand restaurants.</p>

<p>I was so impressed. I asked if they had to raise any of the funds or it was all covered. Turns out it was all covered. By their parents. Reminded me of all the kids in NYC who have played at Carnegie Hall. They just fail to mention the space was rented by their music teachers and the audience was friends and family.</p>

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<p>Hmom’s post reminds me of the student who proudly told me that he had made a speech at a national conference, and he said that doing so was a highlight of his life. Ended up that he was there with his parent, who was attending the conference, and the conference had offered a program for the kids of the attendees. As part of the program, the kids learned to make speeches, and each made a 5 min. speech to the other teens in attendance. Big whoop!</p>

<p>Bottom line: It’s not a good idea to package a trivial accomplishment so it appears to be a big deal. </p>

<p>By contrast, the students who stood out tended to think things were trivial that I thought were a big deal. For instance, one student was a board member of a local organization, something that she had gotten to do after being in a select citywide youth leadership program. </p>

<p>Although the board hadn’t assigned her specific tasks, on her own she was redesigning the organization’s web page. I only learned about this because I happened to have volunteered with her youth program, and I had heard that some of the top students there had been selected to be on local nonprofit boards. I asked her whether she had been assigned to a board, and then I asked her what she was doing on the board.</p>

<p>She hadn’t included any of this on her resume, and she didn’t think those things were a big deal. As she pointed out to me, she was redesigning the web page on her own because she thought it could be more user friendly, and she didn’t know if the organization would like or even feel that they needed her redesign.</p>

<p>I was very impressed by how she was going over and above what was expected of her, and how she was doing this to provide a service, not in an attempt to look good to colleges.</p>

<p>Anyway, she was an EA accept back in the day in which Harvard had EA.</p>

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<p>My son is very hesitant to mention any accomplishments. ever. He never felt anything he did was a “big deal” and was hugely embarrassed when I would even tell my own Mother - his grandmother. There is humble and there is whatever it is that he does. SOOO frustrating during college admissions etc. But all worked out in the end. </p>

<p>By the way – It might have just been our experience, but I felt Georgetown admissions was very disorganized and confused. To this day I doubt they ever got S’s scores for his SAT subject tests as they kept saying they hadn’t received when college board insisted they had. However, he did have a lovely chat with an alumni here in town who told him that he was “just the kind of student GT was looking for.” He was rejected, which I felt was just as well based on the before-mentioned confusion with admissions.</p>

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<p>I had to smile at this! My S is really into history. I mean, really. At dinner, when we all get together and share our days, he’s not content to say “I did some reading” but he regales us with stories (Last night it was all about Napoleon. To be honest, we all put on our game faces because it’s clearly of interest to him.) But … he can share that passion with us, but it’s kind of hard to work into an interview, kwim? ("So, the other day I was reading about Napoleon and … ") It’s a lot easier when it’s an “active” pursuit (“I was working in the lab when …” “I was on the soccer field and …”)</p>

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<p>I have a question for Northstarmom. The head of regional interviews for Harvard personally called me on my phone and told me that Harvard was interested and that the admissions committee really wanted to get my interview done, but later I was rejected. What is up with that? </p>

<p>While all those stories about people exaggerating thire ECs seem like egregious offenses from the point of view of the interviewer, I think you have to understand that applicants just really want to get admitted. And to be honest, very few high schoolers have accomplished anything worth mentioning so it is logical that they exaggerate.</p>

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<p>Except for those who get accepted to Harvard.</p>