<p>I’ll post one from an interview for law school (back in the old days when you had to walk 40 miles uphill both ways through four feet of snow to get to school).</p>
<p>I had gone to college at Washington & Lee at a time when the college was not co-ed and about 95% of the students were in fraternities. Some (probably the same 95%) drank, but not pedestrian products like beer, usually cocktails or some other version of alcohol. I had enjoyed my time there and was trying to get into law school. My track record for admission was not good and here I was being interviewed at Syracuse Law School by the Dean of Admissions. The Dean was relatively young and I would guess, these many years since, that he was mid-thirties or early forties.</p>
<p>Dean: I see you went to W&L. Did you like it there?
Me: Yes, I did.
Dean: (Now looking at my GPA - probably about 2.5) Ah, yes, I see you did. So how were your LSATs?
Me: I got *** (I don’t remember, other than the LSAT was much better than my GPA.
Dean: (Leaning forward somewhat conspiratorily and enthusiastically) So, are the grain parties as good as I hear?</p>
<p>I confirmed to him that grain (Everclear to some of you) parties were a lot of fun, but assumed that my application was probably dead because of my GPA. I don’t remember much more about the interview and returned home to await the thin letter. However, I did get in, and maybe the LSAT convinced them, because ultimately I graduated cum laude which I’m sure my fraternity brothers would not have believed possible. I often wondered if the Dean was debating scheduling a recruiting trip to W&L and wanted to find out if it was worth it.</p>
<p>My Princeton interview was pretty dreadful, haha. Some memorable moments:</p>
<p>Me: So why did you choose to study literature? (He was a professor of the classics)
Interviewer: A lifetime of suffering.
<em>silence</em></p>
<p>Me: Why did you choose Princeton?
Interviewer: They gave me money.
(It turns out he got rejected from Princeton undergrad, went to Harvard, and later went to Princeton for a graduate degree. He also described how there’s nothing to do outside of campus and how the students lacked a “passion” and “fire.”)</p>
<p>Throughout the interview, I tried to present myself as a calm, chill person, but then he told me later, “So, it seems like you’re the type of person who doesn’t care about anything.” Fail. </p>
<p>He also asked what it was like to grow up as an Asian in Indiana. What is that even supposed to mean?</p>
<p>Anyway, the whole thing was rife with awkward and plain bad moments. :P</p>
<p>Don’t worry too much-I think the professor is not as awkward and cold as he seems. He is a true person who sees the truth and directly tells it. Just my own opinion-if your interviewer is too “sweet” and only says how great you are it might not be all good…</p>
<p>At my interview for the honors program, I was asked this question:</p>
<p>“So pretend that you are a therapist. If someone came to you with a fear of butterflies, how do you think that they developed this fear?”</p>
<p>I obviously was not expecting this question, but I think that I handled it well enough. I said, “Well, I would first assume that this person had some kind of childhood trauma associated with butterflies.” That was my attempt at being serious about it, but then a finished with a joke, “Or perhaps this person is afraid being attacked by insects. Some are loud, and they can be heard. For example, a bumblebee can’t sneak up on you because they make a noise. However, butterflies can sneak on you. They’re stealthy like that.” I finished that with a little smile.</p>
<p>While I realize that it was a bit of risk to refer to butterflies as stealthy, the interviewers (yes I was being interviewed by two people at the same time) loved it. The lady was laughing warmly, and the man was frantically scribbling down notes.</p>
<p>And it worked. I was accepted into the program with a generous scholarship.</p>
<p>I had an interview in the admissions building at a LAC a week ago. The head of admissions greeted me, and told me to sit in her office for a few minutes until she was ready. Apparently, she said to wait in room 400 I went to 406. Sat there for around half an hour until I finally peeked out to see when she was coming. Turns out I was in the wrong room for that time period, and she had gone out to lunch and wouldnt return for another three hours!
Humiliation!</p>
<p>I am a socialist. My interviewer was a big Sarah Palin fan. Trying to explain exactly what I wanted to do with my life and why probably didn’t make her think too highly of me.</p>
<p>I did not get in, but it was most likely due to my GPA, not my interview.</p>
<p>As a future poli-sci major, I love politics. At all my interviews, politics played a big role.
At HYPS, I got interviewers who were even MORE liberal than I am. We talked a lot about politics, mainly fiscal matters. We did venture a bit into social issues, but we agreed on basically everything, so after that, we had a normal interview.
At G-town, and Rutgers, my interviewers were both barely out of college and obviously new at interviewing. These were my first interviews, and we got through it together.
At Columbia, I got this nasty woman who called me out at everything I did. The interview did not go well. But I ended up being waitlisted.
At UMich and Dartmouth, I got two conservatives, one male, one female respectively. Both were Palin/Limbaugh/Bachmann lovers, and had posters. I hoped that we wouldn’t talk politics, but both interviewers instigated it. We dueled for about two hours each time, and I’m pretty sure I won both arguments, because I flustered each more times than Minnesota has electoral votes.The Dartmouth woman was a lot nicer about it at the end, telling me I was a great debater. The Michigan man kicked me out of his office without even so much as a goodbye. Although, it was probably the interview before me when the earlier interviewee made him so agitated (I heard it from outside).</p>
<p>The interview itself wasn’t so awkward for my current school. I got to the admissions office a few mins early and they told me to wait in the waiting room which all the interviewers’ offices opened out onto. My interviewer(I recognized him from the website) came out of his office about 5 mins after my appointment time had passed and went up to the front desk and chit chatted with the receptionist for about 10 mins before finally coming over to me. It was so blatantly rude I thought it had to be some kind of weird personality test to see how I’d react! It totally started things off on a bad note but the rest of the interview went ok.</p>
<p>This thread is hilarious! It’s interview season . . so any more stories?</p>
<p>I don’t think I have any. But then I could be really awkward in an interview and being myself, wouldn’t realize it.</p>
<p>In the Tufts interview I did mention that my friends are not popular. She was like "Oh, that’s okay. "</p>
<p>For the not recognizing your interviewer thing - try googling them. Yes, its a little creepy. But sometimes on their company page of something like that there is a picture of them so you have some idea of what they look like.</p>
<p>Oh boy, I still have nightmares over this one.
At my William & Mary Interview, everything went really well EXCEPT:</p>
<p>Interviewer: What food best describes you?
Me: Ummmmm… </p>
<p>(Not knowing what to say, I thought of what I’d eaten for breakfast that morning.)</p>
<p>Me: A grapefruit…?
Interviewer: A… grapefruit?
Me: Yeahhhh
Interviewer: Aren’t they really sour?
Me: uh, well… not if you… put sugar on them…?
Interviewer: Interesting. I don’t think anyone has ever said they were a grapefruit before. Let me write that down.</p>
<p>NOT my shining moment there. Everything had sounded like a question coming out of my mouth for that question. Very awkward. 10 minutes later when he was walking me to the front of the building, he looked at me, crooked an eyebrow, smirked a bit, and muttered “grapefruit.”</p>
<p>@kinderny I won’t know until April. I hope so, because I loved it there, but we’ll see. Lol it would be me to blow my chances over comparing myself to bitter citrus fruit.</p>
<p>Oh my gosh, reading through this thread is making me think that I shouldn’t take up any interviews. I HATE awkward moments. Partially because I always end up thinking later on about what I should have done instead.</p>
<p>But anyway, I only had one interview, for Mount Holyoke. It was with an admissions officer who traveled to this part of Europe. I thought the interview went well, she was really nice and we laughed about things and generally got along fine. Buuut then there was an awkward moment…</p>
<p>She asked me about my school and what I think of it.</p>
<p>her: “So, what’s your high school like? Do you like it?”
me: “Mmm no, not really, I kinda hate it…” (oh god, what did i say. no, i didn’t say that. ohnoohno) “uhhhh… I mean… yeah, it’s great and all, but like… you know… I feel like I’m not getting the right education” (by this time I was breaking a sweat and damn near dying. I couldn’t help but think that she’d automatically consider that I’m not cut out for the college because apparently the education in high school wasn’t that good) “But uh, it’s one of the best highschools in the country! Yeah, it’s great, it’s awesome. Totally awesome. Great faculty. Awesome.”</p>
<p>I just wanted to die. I sent her a thank you letter and apologized for my rambling and she was very nice about that, saying that it wasn’t rambling and that she enjoyed my quirkiness.</p>
<p>Oh and while talking about ECs I said that I was county coordinator for EYP and student body president, but that this year (senior year), I had to give up presidency. When she asked why I said that I had too many things going on and had to let something go. <em>facepalm</em>. Why did I say that. She probably thought I can’t handle things too well</p>
<p>No, that’s actually very mature of you. They don’t want you to overload yourself, that shows irresponsibility and unreadiness for college life. Good job :)</p>
It totally started things off on a bad note but the rest of the interview went ok.</p>
