<p>My interviewer didn't actually ask me any questions. My interviewer only asked me to describe some of the activities that I participated in which were on the resume-ish sheet I gave to him at the beginning of the interview.</p>
<p>Is this something that commonly happens?</p>
<p>How long did your interview last?</p>
<p>If you feel like you didn’t get a fair chance to discuss yourself, you could contact the admissions office (sooner rather than later!) to politely ask for another interview.</p>
<p>It was about 1.5 hours. I definitely talked about what I did, but I just found it odd that I wasn’t prompted with specific questions…e.g. describe a situation where “x” happened, etc.</p>
<p>I’m just wondering whether I can chalk this up to general anomalies in the process or if something is actually problematic here.</p>
<p>90 minutes is an unusually long interview. Don’t they usually last somewhere between 30 - 45 minutes?</p>
<p>You had an extremely long interview since most last from 30-60 mins.</p>
<p>With all of that time, you had plenty of time to talk about whatever you wished. The point of an interview isn’t just to sit back and wait for the interviewer to ask what you consider the best questions for you to highlight your strengths. Interviewees need to be proactive by introducing into the conversation (because that’s what interviews really are) information that will support their being viewed as a good candidate for that college.</p>
<p>Harvard especially values students who are assertive and proactive because it’s definitely a place where students are set free to pursue their own academic and extracurricular passions.</p>
<p>Definitely do NOT contact admissions and complain about this interview. There is no evidence that the interviewer did anything wrong.</p>
<p>Saying all of this as a Harvard alum who has been an alumni interviewer.</p>
<p>yeah, mine was a lil over an hour i think. my person just asked me about every detail on my resume and then went on tangent’s about his experience at harvard. i dont think yours was that strange. and if u had an elderly person like i did, there is a chance that he/she may have lost track of time or just enjoyed having u talk for forever</p>
<p>I agree with Northstarmom that this does not seem like a problematic interview!</p>
<p>Great, thanks for all the valuable feedback. One reason why my interview may have been long is because I have asked several questions at the end?</p>
<p>I brought this up because I felt the course of this interview had been different from the others I had already completed. Essentially, we started talking about what activities I have/are participating in, and I tied those into my interests and/or educational goals.</p>
<p>“Interviewees need to be proactive by introducing into the conversation (because that’s what interviews really are) information that will support their being viewed as a good candidate for that college.”
–> I think I did just that so hopefully everything is fine.</p>
<p>Also, one random specific question on the interview: I talked about a “gap year,” but I don’t know whether my interviewer viewed that as just taking a year off before entering college and doing nothing or doing an internship/structured program (my plans were the latter). Should I worry about this or just hope he was thinking the same thing I was?
If he thought I just wanted to do nothing that might come across negatively, no?</p>
<p>Mine was about 90 minutes too. But hte first 10 min or so was him talking about how it’s ridiculously hard to get into Harvard and asking about my numbers (gpa, test scores, etc). But he was really straight forward, told me what the report asked for, and asked me those questions, and we talked about a lot of stuff that was tangential to those things (French literature, the differences bw Italian bread and french bread (I mentioned I liked ot bake), our favorite jazz artists). At first, I thought he was a really mean old man, but I think I really liked him. He even said he’d email me what he said (he does this for everyone) bc he thinks that if he isn’t willing to tell the kid what he said about them, he prob shouldn’t be saying it. (I think thats a very good approach to life in general)</p>
<p>Also:
Mine was like this too, except it was an hour long.</p>