Ethics Questions and College Interviews

Applying to College
1

<p>It seems to me that an ever-growing number of college interviews include some question related to ethics. I'm not talking about the broad Common App type of question ("Evaluate an ethical dilemma you have faced ...") but more specific ones along the lines of "What would you do if you caught a friend cheating on a chem test?" </p>

<p>One senior in my orbit told me that she was asked, "Do you think ethics are relative or absolute?" </p>

<p>I had warned her to expect a situational ethics query in her interview (like the one, above, about the chem test) but nothing theoretical like this. </p>

<p>So here's my question: </p>

<p>Current (or recent) seniors: Did you get asked any ethics questions in interviews? If so, can you remember what they were?</p>

2

<p>Well, not exactly. The question was: what did you think about your highschool experience. I turned it around to be a question on the ethics of education and its implications.</p>

3

<p>In an interview for a combined BA/MD program, a girl I know was asked, “If you were a doctor who was meeting with a patient in your office and you discovered, right after the patient left, that your purse was missing, what would you do?”</p>

<p>The student answered, “I’d cancel my credit cards.” :slight_smile: </p>

<p>I thought it was a good answer, but she didn’t get into that program (and went to Yale instead). Of course, that probably wasn’t the reason she didn’t get in, though she admitted she was very flummoxed by the question at the time.</p>