<p>When I first met my interviewer, I shook her hand, greeted her, and she jokingly said "you should work on that handshake, your stronger than that," I tried once more, same thing, and then stupidly replied "well I thought because you were a female I wasn't supposed to shake it so hard"...........she looked at me really awkwardly while we were walking. I felt like a dumb a**. It was a four-part interview and I rocked the other 3 though lol. I still have to wait on an answer.</p>
<p>For my interview to transfer to Harvard: my alum interviewer cancelled at the last minute, so the area coordinator (I forget his official position, but he was in charge of scheduling and training) decided to do the interview himself. As we sat down, he said, "The most important thing I tell interviewers is never to talk about religion or politics. . . So, are you religious?"</p>
<p>What followed was 45 minutes, I kid you not, of me being grilled brutally on personal, controversial topics: everything you're not supposed to talk about at cocktail parties etc., including both religion and politics. All brought up by the interviewer, not by me. The interview featured gems like this:</p>
<p>Scary Harvard Man: "What exactly is this event on your resume?" [about OneLove, a big fun performance night for various Christian groups on campus]</p>
<p>Me: "Oh, it's a fun Christian outreach night, where. . ." [planning to say some things about the orchestra and the step performance]</p>
<p>Scary Harvard Man: "Wait, 'outreach'--so you're, like, proselytizing?" </p>
<p>Me: :O</p>
<p>Yes he did use the word "proselytizing." No he was not joking. Maybe one-third joking.</p>
<p>I did eventually go to Harvard and never had another brutally confrontational conversation about church, faith, or--ahem--proselytizing.</p>
<p>And who knows? Maybe the interviewer was just bored.</p>
<p>I had an interview with a pompous Yale alumnus thirty years ago whose questions included this one: "Discuss your position on on of the following topics for five minutes: abortion, capital punishment, ..." I picked abortion, and spoke about it for what seemed like five minutes. His response when I finished: "You still have one more minute."</p>
<p>He ended the interview by saying, "Yale will probably accept one or two applicants from this area," and pointedly stated that two people with much higher class ranks than mine had applied.</p>
<p>My MIT interview last year went ... well, it was an interesting saga.</p>
<p>I looked up the name of the guy in advance, and it turned out he was the head of the Whitehead Institute, so I thought, 'That's cool.' So we scheduled an interview. He gave me this early morning time, but didn't really say where. But I thought, it's cool, I know where he works so I'll just go to his office. </p>
<p>Okay, except the building was locked. So I waited for a while....luckily, another researcher in the lab comes and opens the door for me. Sweet! So I go up to his office, but he's not there. I hang around for a while...eventually, I ask one of the other guys in the lab who happened to be hanging around, who was all confused. After a long time, I just left.</p>
<p>When I got home, he had an email saying sorry, he had a family emergency to attend to, so reschedule. Okay, that's cool. Except he didn't reschedule for quite a long time, so I'm just waiting...uhm....okay. He wasn't responding to my emails, so I keep pressing him, because, well, the deadline is just about to pass. FINALLY, he responds, and lo, he tells me the location too, it's at a Starbucks nearby. At like 8 in the morning.</p>
<p>So we drive there, and I wait around for a while for him to show up (I arrived a little early - first interview, wanted to make sure everything went right). Luckily, I brought a new book to read while waiting, Jules Vernes' From the Earth to the Moon. So I started reading it...</p>
<p>...and then I finished reading it. No joke, I started and finished that (short) novel while waiting. I mean, I didn't arrive that early. So I hung around for a bit more, but I didn't really bring any other reading, so eventually I got bored and left. And now it's like, okay...w/t/f was that? </p>
<p>Around this time I realize the head of the Whitehead Institute had a different middle initial than my interviewer, so those guys must have been really confused when I told them I had an interview and asked them where the prof was. At the same time, that means this random guy scheduled an interview and never told me where it was, and even when I kept referring to "your office at the Whitehead Institute", he didn't bother correcting me. What?!</p>
<p>So at that point, I got a new interviewer. Thankfully. Scheduled an interview at a Starbucks in Boston. Went well, except I didn't go to the right Starbucks at first (since there's one just about every block :-P). Never heard from my original interviewer again. Don't know what the heck was up with that.</p>
<p>Oh well :-P</p>
<p>tako, your stories are too funny :D</p>
<p>and cc admins, why are you censoring '***?' I mean, it seems like that's pretty censored already.</p>
<p>my mit interview went well i thought. except at the end when i was leaving. and i was so relieved that it was over and it had gone well that when he was like "bye it was nice meeting you" i just waved awkwardly over my shoulder and ran off... but it might not have been that bad... but i feel like it was pretty awkward... but maybe he didn't notice.
and also.. well. when he asked what other schools i was applying too i told him and he had personal experience with all of them! (grad school at stanford. teaching at UT. wife went to berkeley) so we ended up talking about the (excellent) quality of all the other schools too. but i made sure to tell him MIT was my first choice... only it was awkward since he's a professor at UT (the interview was in his thermal dynamics room). soo. i didn't wanna insult UT. plus i'm applying there too! and in the end he was like "i'm sure you'll be successful at ANY of those schools" hahaha. but hopefully he put in good words for me with MIT...</p>
<p>i was holding my drink and gesturing animatedly and spilt some of it on the floor. I was at her house. luckily nothing landed on her.</p>
<p>i live all the way in bahrain but to my surprise a yale rep managed to come here and interview me.. Apparently, she used to live here so i got all excited and asked her: Cool! you lived here before? do you like it here?
There was an awkward pause there and she just kind of ignored the question and proceeded with the interview.</p>
<p>I recently had an interview at Bowdoin, and god knows how but we got on the subject of dancing. The interviewer mentioned the Crank Dat dance as a recent fad on campus, and I casually mentioned that I knew in fact how to Crank Dat. Then the interviewer asked me to prove it, so I got up and did the dance in his office.</p>
<p>so my yale interviewer asked me why i wanted to go to yale. obviously, i had prepared a response for this question, like any responsible interviewee. </p>
<p>me: "I actually have FOUR main reasons why I want to go to Yale."</p>
<p>(list 1 2 and 3)</p>
<p>interviewer: "and what's number 4?"</p>
<p>me: "uhh....uhh....give me a minute"</p>
<p>(awkward 15 seconds that felt like an eternity)</p>
<p>me: "When I was at yale, I saw students collaborating a lot...and I really like collaborating...so I am a good fit for Yale!"</p>
<p>totally not the 4th reason.</p>
<p>he was like uhh...ok and quickly moved on.</p>
<p>the rest went well though :)</p>
<p>Senior year of college, lots of financial companies were conducting interviews and people would gather at lunch to compare notes. A friend said that during an interview that morning, the person asked:" If you were a punctuation mark, what would you be and why?" We all laughed at lunch and went on. My other friend, who was at lunch with us, had an appointment with the same recruiter later that afternoon. As it turns out, the interview was going very badly and my friend knew he wouldn't get any further. During a lull, the recruiter said: "Do you have any more questions?" My friend quickly said to him: "If you were a punctuation mark, what would you be and why?" Thoroughly shocked, the interviewer stammered: "Why did you ask me that?"</p>
<p>We had a great laugh about it later!</p>
<p>The interview was in a conference room with glass walls and a wooden railing in the middle of the walls. After a reasonable interview I got up to go and did not remember how I came in. There were no obvious handles or knobs just the wooden railing. I pushed on one railing but it was not the glass section with the door. I continued nervously walking around pushing on the wall sections while the interviewer watched me with dismay. I wasn't even sure if I needed to push or pull at that point. This went on for what seemed like a full minute. Finally to my relief, I randomly pushed on the railing where the door was. Needless to say, it was very embarrassing that I had such a hard time just leaving the room. I felt like a real idiot. I blame the artsy design that didn't provide any cues for the exit.</p>
<p>jkmar21, you win. I only hope that you are telling the truth.</p>
<p>tako, I think I laughed for a good 15 minutes after reading your post. Everybody else, your posts were amazing too. </p>
<p>My recent interview for Cornell was held at my school in the guidance office. Unfortunately, it was the day of our HUGE girls powderpuf football game against our rival town, so I walk into my interview dressed in a spandex uniform with facepaint and my voice is hoarse from yelling all day... she was dressed in a business suit. She was definately surprised, I later apologized for my war paint.</p>
<p>My Georgetown interview was really strange. I'm on exchange in Germany and so all my interviewers have been really interesting (we have "being Americans in Germany" in common so that's always nice) but this guy was a German business man that went to Georgetown for just one year for some kind of law thing. His English was mostly really good, but you could tell he didn't use it that often and so there were some awkward moments.</p>
<p>For instance, I knew that I would have to explain my ec's in more detail for him, like Student Congress. After explaining policy debate a little he said, "Oh yes, one of these events with two orators?" "Yes, kind of," I said, and he said, "Ah, so basically, you have speaking ... battles."</p>
<p>"Yes, yes, like that," I said, nodding my head and acting very affirming. Oh god, I was dying laughing inside. </p>
<p>Then, apparently, on the Georgetown interview instructions (he was following it line by line - eh), it says something to the effect of "tell the applicant that we offer full financial aid and money shouldn't be a problem" or just tells them to talk about how aid is available. His way of expressing this was "Ok, and about money. Do not worry about this issue. We, Georgetown, can take care of it. Let me tell you, we have these pots of money to give you if you cannot afford it. Pots of money."</p>
<p><em>facepalm</em> No, he was halfway joking, but if you imagine this all in a strong German accent -- yeah, very hilarious. Overall though I think the interview went well though, and the guy was cool to have a sense of humor about it all.</p>
<p>Just don't make the kind of comment that a student whom I interviewed made.</p>
<p>Me: (feeling myself like I had just graduated from college. After all, my oldest kid was just 5, and I was just in my 30s). "I graduated from Harvard in 19...."</p>
<p>Student : With a shocked expression, blurts out, "19... I wasn't even born then!"</p>
<p>Keep in mind that the interviewer may look old to you, but may be very young in their own heart. :)</p>
<p>NSM: I'm with you. One of my classmates was invited to be the highlight speaker at our alma mater's graduation. He joked that it was theoretically possible that one of the graduating college seniors could be his offspring -- a knowing nod to something done during Senior Prom.... it got hoots and hollers from the crowd! LOL</p>
<p>(PM me and I'll tell you who the speaker was if you can't already figure it out, NSM)</p>
<p>hahah. That happened to me at my Georgetown interview. I ordered a Tall Iced Cafe Latte (which isnt even that big) and I drank about 1 cm worth of it. I thought it would be rude for me to keep drinking during the interview. At the end my interviewer commented that I hadn't drank anything. Oh well. </p>
<p>But the worst part was when she asked me what Med schools I was looking into. I responded JHU, Northwestern, UChicago, and she asked "Why not Georgetown?" Well I tried to make up some stuff on the spot like "residencies like diversity in education..." (something I heard from someone, I dont even know if it's true).</p>
<p>I had one interview pretty early on the morning, and I was among the world's most sleep-deprived high schoolers (natural late-nighters should stay away from sports that require getting up at 3:30am to practice). I managed to fall asleep in the car on the way to the interview, and deeply enough that my mom did NOT have an easy time getting me up. So we arrived a little early and I kept saying "just five more minutes..." until the VERY last possible minute. So when I walked in to my interview, I'd literally been awake for 30 seconds. The entire thing was peppered with awkward staring-into-space followed by awkward silence followed by "Um...sorry...I'm kind of asleep." Smooooooth...</p>
<p>A few years down the road, as a college senior, I had an interview for a fellowship. I happened to be interviewed by the head of the organization, whose goal seemed to be talking me out of the opportunity (it turns out that she's really very, very nice, but this interview was intimidating as all get out). No answer felt good enough, nothing went unasked, and questions even seemed to contradict each other. But the highlight was really when she decided to conduct a portion of the interview in German. I stumbled PAINFULLY through a few lines before falling back on the one phrase I'd made sure to remember (just in case!): "I haven't spoken any German for nearly two years, so I've forgotten a lot, but [in English] I know that it will come back to me quickly!"</p>
<p>Didn't get into the school (big reach), did get the fellowship (bigger reach) :)</p>
<p>This was a great idea for a thread!</p>
<p>D was interviewing with a VERY old Yale alumnus. (He said he'd been retired for 20 years, no, D didn't think he took early retirement.) We had thought and thought about questions she could ask him, and one cropped up from our tour, about the "shopping" period where you could visit classes, etc., then decide what you wanted to take, and enroll the following week. So, she asked what he thought about the shopping period? He thought a bit and said that he was sure there were some nice shops in the vicinity. We hadn't thought what to ask if her interviewer was so old that he attended when there were only males and no shopping period. So much for preparing...</p>
<p>hmm this isn't really awkward for me, but weird lol.. it has to do with the "talking you out of the opportunity" thing that student615 mentioned.. at my MIT interview, i was asking random questions about MIT and went:</p>
<p>me: so, did you make any lifelong friends at MIT? <em>all happily</em>
him: no, not really. i was pretty much a loner.
me: <em>thinking "greeeeat"</em></p>