<p>Hinsdale/andrew- OMG I’m sorry but that is simply hilarious. 
Holy Sheeet. I can totally imagine how that must have happened. Yep, that’s how I roll!!! Priceless. That sounds like you’re confirming your own name to yourself haha.</p>
<p>Nil: I voice what the other users did: How did you get them anyway?</p>
<p>bump… we need more awkward interview moments</p>
<p>I recently had my 7th and final interview and went into it feeling pretty good as the others had gone well. Unlike the rest, however, this interview took place in the interviewer’s house in a nearby town. After driving past it three or four times, I finally got to the man’s house. His incredibly nice wife told me to take a seat until my interviewer came down from his office. When he came down after a few minutes I introduced myself and shook his hand.
Before even sitting down, he fired off a rapid series of questions.
“What makes you special?”
“How are you different?”
“What makes you stand out?”</p>
<p>All I could say was “ummmm, I’m spunky?”</p>
<p>SPUNKY?!?</p>
<p>He later asked me about one of my ECs. When I finished explaining all he said was “well, if you had written about THAT, you would have gotten in to School X.” He read my actual college essay the day before…</p>
<p>Mine was with Carnegie Mellon University.</p>
<p>It took place at Starbucks.
She was in her late 20s or early 30s and she brought her husband along.
And I brought my girlfriend. (She sat in the corner so they didn’t know)</p>
<p>After the interview, she was like “My husband went to CMU as well! You want to meet him?” (he was sitting in the other corner)</p>
<p>But because I didn’t want to meet him to avoid awkwardness (I mean…what would i say to him? Ask him the exactly the same questions as the ones i asked the lady?),
I said… “Oh, he did too? That’s cool…”
And i completely ignored her offer.
This isn’t necessarily awkward except we had about a 10 second pause.
“So…Thank you for your time and I really appreciate it!”
End of the interview.
But this isn’t it.</p>
<p>After the interview, we said good-bye and she went to her husband and got ready to leave and I went to my girlfriend.
And then we had an eye-contact and I felt it necessary to introduce my gf to her.
So I did.
“Oh, this is my girlfriend. Hey, this is Mrs.XXX”
“Hi!”
“Hi!”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“So…Thank you for your time and I really appreciate it!”</p>
<p>-_- really?</p>
<p>Nucking Futs!!!</p>
<p>I had my MIT interview in a few months ago. </p>
<p>Interviewer: Do you like crossword puzzles? ( I have no idea how he came up with this question)
Me:No, I like tic tac toe!
Interviewer - looked at me awkwardly and said after a looooong pause: So does my wife.
Me:REALLY??THAT’S AWESOME! Let me teach you a little trick so you can beat her!!! here it goes… </p>
<p>The interviewer stared at me for about 3 minutes without a word then moved on to the next question. and i was like “goodbye MIT…”</p>
<p>Can’t stop laughing. Love these!</p>
<p>@tersezy </p>
<p>Buahahhahaha! Let me show you a trick so you can beat her! </p>
<p>Wow, that was great. </p>
<p>:D</p>
<p>My Penn interview:</p>
<p>I awaited for my interviewer in the lobby. Then I heard two people chatting somewhere behind where I sat. I wanted them to leave so that I could have a moment of peace before my interviewer comes. Finally the man said “see you” to the lady, and I expected him to leave as well. Then he said “hi,” and I turned my head, “are you fatum?” I gave him the most blank stare, and he looked at me strangely. Finally I rose and said “oh yes!” and shook his hand. I think he must thought that I was weird.</p>
<p>During the interview he asked me if I went back to China recently. I said that I did two years ago. “Yeah…but I like Canada better (I’m in Canada).” Then I thought, wait, I don’t want him to think that I’m hating on my country!
“But it’s only because the school system is so different here!”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah! My classmates back in China went to school for twelve hours per day!”
“wow.”
Oh no, now he thinks I hate school…
“Well…not that I don’t like school…it’s just that I have so much more free time to do whatever I wanted…” To prove myself…I then said, “even my classmates back in China told me that they were jealous of me.”
Oh god, what am I saying? I’m just marking it darker and darker. With my last attempt to save myself and my country…
“But China has good food.”
“I see.” My interviewer noted down some stuff on his page. What could have it been? <em>likes Chinese food</em>?</p>
<p>When the interview was over, he asked me if I knew where the subway was, and I said no. So he said, “come, I’ll show you.” Then we arrived at the block before the subway. “See the sign? there it is.” So I was thinking, why isn’t he saying bye to me? So I said, “well, it was great meeting you,” and extended my hand. He hesitated for a bit, slowly took out his hand from his pocket, shook my hand, and said, “well, I am going to the subway as well…”</p>
<p>I died. When we walked down the stairs, I suddenly remembered that my mom wanted me to text her when I arrived. I gasped and took out my cellphone, but we were already heading down. My interviewer looked at me and said, “if you want to make a phone call to your parents, you should do it now, there won’t be signal…” “no…no…” 
“Okay.”</p>
<p>Then we went into the subway station, and the subway broke down. My interviewer then said, “oh I should have made a call before I came down here.” I was like…“sorry…” and he said “oh no, I forgot it myself.” So awkward./</p>
<p>My Cornell interviewer met me at a local Starbucks, but it was really crowded inside, so we stepped outside and sat at an outdoor table. Then some construction workers showed up and started jackhammering away at the concrete sidewalks not ten feet away from us, so we relocated to a spot further down the street. But then even MORE construction workers showed up and made even more noise, forcing us to walk two blocks away and sit in a random sandwich joint.</p>
<p>Besides that, the interview went smoothly. I did my homework on the guy and Cornell, so I was able to successfully manipulate the direction of the conversation, and being in control of the interview put me at ease. He did ask ne what I thought about Cornell’s reputation with suicides, which struck me as slightly odd. I played it off by saying I wasn’t going to allow a few high publicity suicides taint my image of Cornell, but I still thought it was weird of him to ask.</p>
<p>This is an interveiw of a sort: </p>
<p>I first heard about Barnard from my mother, well, from my mother who was on the phone talking to my very exasperated older sis. From what I still remember, she had been dining out with my nasty grandfather (yes, nasty is the best word to describe him) that evening and she brought up colleges that she thought would serve as a good guidline for me as I began my college searching. He retorted many of her picks, including Vassar and Sarah Lawrence, saying that they were for preppy rich girls and that they wouldn’t be my friends and probably wouldn’t admit me based off of my financial need. This, coming from a guy who is loaded. It gets even more rediculus though.
Keeping face in the midst of his rebuttals, my sister went on to name the rest of the schools she had considered, Barnard being the last that came to mind.
My. grandfather. went. ape. “You can’t tell Meanderer to go to BARNARD! That school is for Jewish princesses! They’ll invite her to their bar mitzvahs!” (word for word his actual dialogue) -and apparently they wouldn’t be my friends either. Now, he happens to be an incredibly egotistical jerk and I knew this from a lot of past experience. So the first thing I did when my mom got off the phone, was, of course, to check the school out myself. My logic was basically, hey, if HE hates it, its gotta be something real neat.</p>
<p>At my USC portfolio review for drama, I was being interviewed by two ladies. One of them asked me what other schools I was applying to, and I replied that Carnegie Mellon was the only other school I’d be applying to as a drama major, though I preferred USC over CMU because the people I had encountered from CMU were really cold individuals and my friends there don’t love it too much. The lady then said, “I got my undergrad at CMU.”</p>
<p>AWKWARD!!!</p>
<p>I was talking about my language arts class, and my Columbia interviewer asked what “language arts” was. I was like…uhhh…a class you learn english in?!! And then she asked me if I could change one thing about my school, what would I change, and I talked about how my writing classes didn’t have a whole lot of writing – it was mostly just worksheets, and I wished discussions on books were more in-depth, etc. Then she asked if I had discussed my issues with the teacher in kind of a condescending voice. I was like…“Well…no…” Then she talked about how if you haven’t been challenged in high school you will have trouble adjusting at columbia. I wanted to scream, “I HAVE BEEN CHALLENGED IN HIGH SCHOOL, I’m taking 4 AP classes!!! I’m just answering your question!!” But I just sat there awkwardly and nodded my head.</p>
<p>Needless to say, I was deferred. -____-</p>
<p>after my 2 hr interview, my princeton interviewer invited me to go around the shopping complex with him. we ended up in a bookstore, and he bought a lot of books. i was tagging along all throughout! i didnt buy a thing. im a lower middle class guy and im not sure if he noticed that i was amazed with his all his purchases:)</p>
<p>^ 2 hour interview? that’s impressive. mine for usc lasted about 20-30 mins</p>
<p>Princeton alumni give the best interviews. Mine lasted an hour and a half, and we only stopped because it was nine o’ clock on a Tuesday.</p>
<p>Mine lasted an hour and a half too for Pton! Haha. By far the longest one.</p>
<p>Bump! Read almost of all them, haha</p>
<p>Hey, I’ve been in splits over many of the posts here, and now that the application process is almost over, I thought I’d make my contribution to this awesome thread.</p>
<p>UPenn Interview:</p>
<p>Interviewer: So which other schools are you applying to?
Me: Duke Uni, Smith College, blah blah blah…
Her: So, you’re decided on quite a wide variety of schools! I mean, Duke and Smith are poles apart!
Me: Yes, but there are specific reasons why I chose each one. <em>Names a few for both</em>
Her: Well, of course, that’s why you’ve applied. SO, what made you choose Smith in particular?</p>
<p>Now, I know a lot about Smith, although I’ve never visited. I know many alums in my country from Smith, plus I’ve had a lot of contact with them too, so I full on started highly enthusiastically talking in detail about Smith. It’s actually in the middle of my list, although stats wise it’s a near safety.
After ~3 minutes of me talking about “why Smith” (significantly longer than the amount of time I spent on the “Why Penn” question–I dunno as much about Penn) she goes:
“so…is Smith your first choice?”</p>
<p>I was like. 
Silence. Ha, I was only trying to convince her about my different choices.
Me: <em>smiling in what I hoped was a convincing way</em> Oh no no no. No no no.
<em>shaking head with more no s</em> No, of course not! It’s more like my safety…</p>
<p>Later, Her: Wow, you’ve done so much! I mean, you could go on and become a star sportsperson! (If it isn’t obvious by now, yes I play sports)
Why do you even want to go to college?</p>
<p>Me: <em>thinking gemmi outta here!</em></p>
<p>Dartmouth Interview:</p>
<p>They lived on the second floor, but you have to ring the doorbell outside the building. So when I reach, I see that there are four doorbells, with no names written.
I ring the first.
<em>straining ears for any sort of noise that might indicate that they’ve realized someone’s outside. waits for some time and decides to ring the second</em>
Second.
<em>waits and decides to ring the third</em>
Third.
<em>for good measure rings the fourth as well</em></p>
<p>Finally a man walks out. I ask him if they didn’t hear the doorbells. (Hoping to goodness that he didn’t actually hear all four).
As luck would have it, all four doorbells belonged to them and it just took time to come down.</p>
<p>Who even has four doorbells anyway?</p>
<p>Wesleyan University Interview:
Interviewer: People always confuse us with Wellesley…are you you sure you’re applying to Wesleyan?
Me: <em>thinking, well duh, I showed up for the interview didn’t I? And asked for one in the first place remember?</em>Oh yes, I’m sure.
Interviewer (she was a dean there visiting my country): So how did you find out about Wesleyan?
Me: well, the first time I heard about it was while I was researching Wellesley. <em>smiles sheepishly</em></p>
<p>Haha I’ve only had one awkward interview moment and it was with USC</p>
<p>He said in the beginning that if I needed time to think, it was okay. So a couple of questions he asked me I wasn’t expecting at all so I would look up towards the right a little and think about an answer for like 30 seconds. After the fourth time I did that, he turned around and looked in the direction I was looking…which just happened to be at the clock. I didn’t even realize I was spacing out at the clock. I figured he probably thought I was counting down the seconds.
Anyway he turned around and we made eye contact…I didn’t know what to say so I was just like “Oh I wasn’t looking at the clock” and he goes “Yeah…I was just checking how much time we have left”</p>
<p>…awkward silence…</p>
<p>Reading these stories I have felt that my experience might be helpful for future generations who one day read us.</p>
<p>I had my interview with Princeton, which is one my dream school. At first my interviewer kept asking me “why do you want to go to Princeton?” and I tried to list all the reasons I could think about. But he seemed unsatisfied with my answers and still kept asking"why Princeton?" I felt really embarassed because I couldn’t think about anything that might work and finally I started babbling something about “nude olympics”, a tradition that was started in the 70s and banned recently. He looked at me in a strange way and said he knew nothing about the nude olympics… and I felt so awkward and thought the interview would end that way. But it turned out to be a great interview. I had a good talk and actually felt comfortable chatting with him. A very thoughtful and sharp man. In the end he told me the nude olympics was started by him and his classmates. So I finally knew that at first he was being deliberately serious.</p>
<p>So I want to tell all those who worry about awkward moments in interviews, they don’t usually jeopardize your chances, and the important thing is to have a good conversation and let the interviewer know your dreams and ambitions.</p>