<p>I'm interviewing at Chicago this upcoming Friday the 24th. While I'm not nervous per se, it is my first college interview, and I honestly have no idea what to expect/how to prepare besides the obvious online guides. UC seems to bill its interview as more of a way to get to know the student better; however, to me that seems like it's got to just be a nice euphemism for "we'll grill your pants off," knowing UC's academically serious rep. Any tips, insight, or knowledge about the interview would be really appreciated!</p>
<p>Expect delta-epsilon proofs.</p>
<p>Haha. As a future English linguistics major, I'd be screwed if interviews actually went that way.</p>
<p>General advice:</p>
<p>-- Dress comfortably dressily. Fact: I wore uncomfortable shoes to my on-campus interview that ended up giving me blisters so bad I still have scars from the shoes. Yes. Still. Now you know why I'm here.</p>
<p>-- Don't say something before you're ready to back it up. Like... "I love to read." Read WHAT? Be ready to answer.</p>
<p>-- Do a little research in advance. There's so much stuff about the school online it could make you dizzy. Look at the English and linguistics dept homepages, familiarize yourself with different dorms maybe, learn about the Core, look into some clubs you may be interested in joining.</p>
<p>collegecatalog.uchicago.edu
and
orcsa.uchicago.edu
and
rh.uchicago.edu</p>
<p>are fantastic home bases beyond things you can find on the admissions homepage.</p>
<p>-- Don't overthink the interview. If they ask you grill questions, say something like, "Let me think" without jumping in right away. Another trick: bring water or coffee with you, and take a sip before answering a question.</p>
<p>-- You might think about bringing something into your interview if it will help you talk about yourself.</p>
<p>Thank you very much! One more question: do you think that somehow flubbing the interview could actually hurt your chances of admission in any way? Or do you get the baseline brownie points for showing up, and can only do better from there?</p>
<p>if you come off as the type of person who wouldn't fit at the university at all, then of course its going to hurt</p>
<p>but the interview was definitely the icing on the cake that made me love chicago. at the beginning, i was totally stiff (and started off talking about how cooking was a metaphor for my personality... o god) but they're really good at making you feel comfortable and after 5 minutes, we were talking about the synechdoches in george eliot's adam bede and daniel deronda... i wish i could do another :P</p>
<p>Absolut3-- There are many, many, many kinds of students here. I think the only way you could come off as "not right" for the university is if you say something like "I hate school," or "I want to party till I puke every night in college." What's probably more common, though, is "I want to study business, nursing, or physical therapy."</p>
<p>It sounds like the interviewers are patient and used to getting students out of their shell. I think my on-campus interviewer started with "safe" questions for me: "Have you been to Chicago before?" and went to factual: "What are you taking in school this year?" From there, she asked how each of my classes were going, and pretty soon we were in full-blown chatter. I didn't get any weird questions or, "If you were a vegetable, what kind would you be?" questions.</p>
<p>yeah, i had a similar experience absolut, started of with why do you want to study anthropology and lead from native americans and the governments responsability towards them to Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums to led zeppelin's use of mandolins. Not at all what i expected and the main reason that Chicago is now my number one choice. My advice would be to not expect anything and just role with whatever they give you. It was really fun actually.</p>
<p>All mine talked about was my extracurriculars because my interviewer didn't really know much about physics. Which was most important to me and why... We then started talking about wine for a while and I made some recommendations. Then realized that that was probably a bad idea, lol. My parents have a vineyard, though, so I'm supposed to know all that. It really did just feel like a slightly one-sided conversation. It was my first interview too, and I'm glad it was. Very easy, not stressful at all.</p>
<p>From all these different accounts, it seems like the interview molds to fit the interests of the interviewee. For all of you interviewing, it's a great way to get to know the school.</p>
<p>Anyway, I'm happy you've all had such great experiences!</p>
<p>I've heard that the admissions counselors who interview have individual styles.</p>
<p>And of course the admissions officers will be different from the alumni interviewers.</p>
<p>Thank you guys for your help! I think it went pretty well; we ended up talking about Plato's Republic and went off on other philosophical tangents for a large part of the time, and I felt that the conversation in general flowed pretty well, though I was a bit nervous. It lasted around 50 minutes--hopefully, that's a good sign! I could really see myself at U of C--life of the mind and all that :)</p>