Hey all! I just had my interview recently. Is it normal to have an interviewer who’s just straight up unenthusiastic and perhaps even slightly rude? When my interviewer shook my hand (gave me the ultra dead fish), I already knew something was up. Perhaps my interviewer was having a bad day, but I just thought it was rude she was checking her phone every 5 minutes or so. To make matters worse, while I was being my ol’ energetic self, she was yawning… What really put me off, however, was her tone. I come from a disadvantaged background, and I told her early onward. Accordingly, she’d reply to any of my questions with, “at a school like MIT [which is a place you haven’t done enough research of, obviously…since you’re busy with your plebeian affairs]…” or “…at least for me [but of course not you]” implying that I had a horrible chance at getting into MIT and that, if I did, I’d have a miserable time there. As a side note, I brought my laptop to show her some projects I was working on (computer programs etc.), and she told me to put it away because “[she] didn’t care that I could do math problems,” even though they were computational biology related .____. …Any feedback, guys? Thank you!
I have no experience with MIT interviewers but I found this story hard to believe at first because of how bad this interviewer seemed. I feel like you should get another interview or at least get into contact with admissions because of this. I’d wait for someone more knowledgeable to answer however, really sorry to hear this.
@superbowser12 Thank you very much for your concern! I’m very fortunate to have had somebody look into this for me, so all is good. I don’t know what’s happening in the admissions room, but I hope it’s good stuff. Though I began doubting my love for MIT after the interview, the blogs have really helped me see the perhaps “more representative” aspects of the student body 
Yeah, this is a highly unusual experience for an interview and is certainly not representative of the school that MIT is. Get in contact with the admissions office (which you seem to already have done) and try to schedule another interview so MIT has a better idea of the person you are.
For MIT? What are you basing that statement on?
Probably from comments on these boards. I am a regional chair of the MIT Educational Council. Having heard about several thousand interviews, I can recall those that went badly in my region. And some have. This year I am aware of one bad interview experience that one of my region’s applicants encountered. Last year I know of 3 (all from one interviewer - and I fixed that). Now we interview hundreds of applicants per year. I have enough data points to be convinced that bad experiences are highly unusual. That being said, if globally, 1% of experiences are bad, and we interview 15000 applicants, that is still 150 bad experiences. Which is still too high.
@Mikalye The problem with your theory is that it requires someone to notify you that they felt the interview was “bad”.
Do you have a Quality Assurance plan that covers interviewers?
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Do you have a Quality Assurance plan that covers interviewers?
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Wow.
Wow, what?
ETA: Maybe you don’t know what QA plans are?
I think interviews are a very subjective thing. Maybe this person was having a bad day or maybe it was just a mismatch of personalities? My son felt like his went well but he could also say a lot of things you said. His interviewer also checked her phone a number of times because she had something important going on for work but did warn my son and apologize. He also brought a project on his tablet but they had enough of a back and forth conversation that they never got to it though he did feel like she wasn’t that into it or she would have wanted to see it. His interviewer also implied a number of times that it would be difficult to get in which is true for any candidate. She was cheery and positive but that is the reality of the situation. Some interviewers never have any candidates admitted and they feel bad interviewing wonderful candidates that they know would be successful but the odds are just very low. I’m glad you feel like your issue was resolved but I don’t think your experience was that far off the norm when people just don’t click.
Sorry, let me clarify. I am defining a bad interview in which the interviewer did not meet the requirements of the interview, or did not represent MIT. Not merely an interview that did not seem to sparkle. I had one about 8 years ago which was like pulling teeth (and I am heavily paraphrasing below):
Me: So what sorts of things do you enjoy?
Candidate: Oh…[very long pause]… stuff
Me: OK, Stuff is good. Can you give me a for instance. What is any one thing that you really enjoy?
Candidate: Hmmmm… [even longer pause] I like reading.
Me: [Getting slightly desperate] Reading is good. I also like reading. So what do you most enjoy reading? Fiction? Biography? Epic Poetry? Physics Textbooks? What?
Candidate: Oh a whole bunch of stuff…
This interview did not sparkle. The interview report was very hard to write. I am not sure that either of us had wild and crazy fun, but it was not a inappropriate interview. I was not detached, neither of us failed to show, both the interviewer and the interviewee were fully present physically and mentally at the interview. The conversation was broadly cheerful and I did my darnest to be supportive without mis-setting any expectations.
You ask how I as an RC feel that I have a view of what is going on in my region at hundreds of interviews that I do not attend. MIT grades each of the interview reports we write. On those occasions when an interviewer, usually a new EC, gets poor scores, the regional chairs tend to step in fairly quickly. And the poor scores are often an interviewer who does not really get the role of the MIT interview (often they are people who interview a lot at work, and wrongly think that the MIT interview would work the same way). I also talk to the ECs in my region quite a bit. I fairly quickly find out when I need to do something. @JustOneDad says that I need some notification of how every interview went, or I cannot meaningfully stand behind my 1% figures. I can tell you that I do get some (albeit limited) visibility of every interview in my region, and I do stand by my claims earlier.
I didn’t say that at all. I asked what your claim was based on and I asked if you had a QA program because I was curious.
And, yes, I am still wondering if the figure you quoted was based on voluntary feedback. We’ve had several “strange” interviews, but, unlike some of the storytellers here, we have no interest in hurrying to “report” someone.
There are elements of QA, and ongoing training, but obviously, there are only two people in the interview, so all that can be reviewed are artifacts of the interview. It is an interesting question. I would say that if an ordinarily good, competent, interviewer delivers one “strange” interview, then I doubt that I would catch that. However, if I have a regularly poor interviewer, then I am confident that that would be caught, but usually of course only after a few bad interviews.
I cannot speak for other universities. As far as I know, MIT is the only university which does grade its alumni interviewers and when I talk to regional chairs at other reasonably peer schools, they are quite taken aback by that. I can confirm that the overwhelming majority of “strange” interviews that I look at did not arise from voluntary feedback, because, as you say, people are loathe to come forward. I would also add that just as MIT is familiar with most of the secondary schools that regularly send applicants, they too are familiar with the ECs and know how to interpret our reports.
…did not expect this thread to come back to life .____.
@Newdle I have “known” you since the MITES thread. You are the ONE person in this website I strongly feel will get admitted to MIT. I had that same feeling about you and MITES and I was right! Hopefully, I’m right again and you get good news this Dec. Good luck!
Okay, so there is an evaluation process?
It seems like it would be easy enough to send an e-mail questionnaire to the applicants to get responses to a few basic questions;
- Was the location appropriate?
- What did you think of the interview?
- Did you get all your questions answered?
@kittymom1102 Wow, that was a year ago already, wasn’t it??? Geez, time goes by so fast, yet so slow right now as we wait for those decisions XD! I think it’s super duper sweet you still remember me, by the way (though just to clarify, I had to painfully say no to MOSTEC for SSP, which I probably won’t ever regret due to all the awesome friends I’ve made). And geez… Your comment’s very flattering, haha. Im sure many others are more deserving of it ;)… I’m sure your child’s bound for good news this December too!
It’s far-fetched dreaming as of now, but if I ever end up blogging for MIT, I’ll definitely have to mention my experiences with CC and this post in particular. There’s just so much to take out of it, lol…
@Newdle Of course I remember you! You are a really nice girl with an interesting story, in addition to being super smart and a good writer
I look forward to hearing from you as decisions start rolling
It is an interesting idea that @JustOneDad is proposing, though I am not sure how much value it would have. The only question there that I would potentially value is “What did you think of the interview?” It might provide some information, but it would be unusual. I cannot recall any interview experience I have ever had as a candidate from applying for jobs, to applying for charity and volunteer organisations, where I have been asked afterwards to feed back on how my interviewer did. Just because it is unusual does not of course mean that it is wrong, but I do think that this would be harder than @JustOneDad thinks it would be.
The location question is an odd one. The official guidance on location from MIT (and almost all the peer schools) is highly clear. The interview should take place in a public place, a coffee shop, library, etc. We do not interview in either the students or the EC’s home, and we try not to interview in workplaces if at all possible. Beyond that, I am not sure what the question would give. I recall one interview that I held in a coffee shop where I had interviewed many times before without incident, but on this day, we were blessed with a full on screaming, yelling fight going on across the coffee shop. It did make the location inappropriate on that day, and I noted that in the interview report, but it had been appropriate on all previous occasions.
Did you get all your questions answered is another tricky one. I have had a student ask me about MIT’s Balinese Gamelan ensemble (which I actually was able to talk about), one ask about the MIT Assassin’s Guild, and one about the MIT Tiddlywinks association (arguably with Cornell, the strongest collegiate Tiddlywinks program). I have no problem with that. I think that it is great that a student should ask about all of their interests, but I am not sure it says much about the interview, if I cannot go into depth about everything.
But I could see the value in “What did you think about the interview?” The question is whether the value is commensurate with the effort required. I would think that these reports would need to be read centrally, by the admissions office in order for them to have most value. However, from late October until the Spring, the admissions office is reading hundreds of pages, letters and reports. I don’t reasonably think that they can read them until after the class is admitted, which would allow them to correct any serious issues only in retrospect. The applicants would need to fill in this form after the interview, understanding that it would not be read for 6 months or so. I fear that applicants who have had bad or strange interview experiences would struggle to be open about these given that they are still in the process of applying. Also, the sanctions that we have are limited. We do drop interviewers who are not working out, but our EC community are unpaid volunteers who donate vast numbers of hours to MIT.
Th other obvious problem is what to do with those interviews that really have gone badly for other reasons.I recall one occasion when I asked an applicant what their hobbies were, if any, and one applicant replied that they really enjoyed [a quite rare pastime]. By blind chance, I was an afficionando of precisely that pastime, and my face lit up and I started to try to talk about it, only to find that the applicant wasn’t really interested in it at all, but had made that up in an attempt to appear more interesting. Then there is the whole question of deliberately-blown interviews. On a rare but regular basis, we encounter kids who deliberately sabotage their interviews. Sometimes they are quite open about it, saying something like “Look, I really do not want to go to MIT at all, but my parents are insisting that I apply. This interview is the only part of the application that I submit that my parents cannot see, so what do I have to say to get you to write that I am a lousy candidate for MIT.” Sometimes they do not say it as clearly, but the intention is quite clear. The interview feedback form would be seen by the parents, and I suspect would be quite savage.
But even with all of the pitfalls and challenges, I do acknowledge that this process would give us clearer feedback on every EC. Then someone in the educational council office in Cambridge would need to go through all of the interview feedback forms and determine what action needs to be taken for each EC. And our sanctions are limited. We do and have dropped ECs that aren’t working out, but our ECs are all unpaid volunteers that donate dozens of hours of work to MIT each year. It can be hard work to recruit ECs. Really I think that the output in most cases might be more individualised training for each EC, but that is tricky too, because someone in the admissions office would need to be paid to put these messages together for delivery to the ECs. I will submit the idea formally to MIT, but I have my doubts that it will happen.
My EC asked to meet in his home. My parents were uncomfortable with that. He also asked for a list of accomplishments. That sounded like a resume and I wasn’t comfortable with that. I had a love for learning but I didn’t feel that accomplished yet and I thought the list would look dull. In the end, Hurricane Sandy seemed to be heading straight toward the area my EC was from. He was being evacuated and had to cancel and I was given a new EC. The New EC met me in a coffee shop. She didn’t ask for any lists and the conversation went really well. Even though the storm was bad this particular turn of events was something that I think worked in my favor.