<p>My Dartmouth interview was by far my worst. First of all, It was at Giordanno’s, a pizza chain in the Chicago area–that struck me as a bizarre place for an interview, as all of my others were at coffee shops.</p>
<p>So, I get there 5-10 minutes early and the waitress brings me to an empty table. She points to a table a little ways away where my interviewer is still busy interviewing the kid before me. So I sit and wait for what feels like forever until finally he finishes and invites me over.</p>
<p>There was a tray of deep dish pizza on the table which had clearly been sitting there all day. (well, at least a good hour or so.) Upon sitting down he promptly shoves a huge piece of cold, congealed pizza at me and says “I don’t care what you say, you’re having some.” Um, okay…</p>
<p>Throughout the interview he was incredibly blunt and basically made it clear that there was thousands of other students “just like me” that apply to Dartmouth and only a small percentage actually get admitted. I had to refrain from blurting out “thanks for the confidence boost.” He also asked me about all the other schools I’d applied to and had me rank them in order of preference. Then he proceeded to scoff when I mentioned UMich and said, “why would you apply THERE?!” as if it was a horrible joke of a school or something.</p>
<p>Ended up being waitlisted, which was actually a shock given the disastrous interview…</p>
<p>Sorry to resurrect the thread, but I think this is worth it.</p>
<p>Had my first interview this evening, with a UChicago alum (my top choice). We planned to meet in a Starbucks in a nearby town, but it was crowded and we moved to the bakery next door. No problem yet. But an hour later, the place closes and we move to a bench outside. A few minutes later, a haggard gentleman comes up to us, and after speaking about the local Catholic college to me, he starts… pan handling.</p>
<p>I guess this is one of those things that might go horribly wrong, but my alum gives a dollar, and so do I, and our “homeless, jobless, welfare-less” friend leaves us to finish. No problem, though, 'cuz I think the interview went better after that.</p>
<p>At my Muhlenberg interview, I was asked what I could be seen doing with my friends in my leisure time. My response?
Without hesitation— “eating frozen yogurt.”
The interviewer said, “Oh, I did that last night!”
Then I realized that, although frozen yogurt is undoubtedly delicious, no one’s going to want me at his/her college if they think I have a constant flow of frozen yogurt entering my mouth. So, I just tried to fix it by saying, “Yeah, I don’t really have much spare time because I’m so focused on college lately.” That didn’t really make it better, because it made me seem like someone who spends night and day shut up in my room, researching every college in North America…</p>
<p>Also, when I was asked what my schedule was this year, I couldn’t remember all of my classes! I spent what seemed like 5 minutes (not really though) muttering my periods of the day under my breath, blurting out random classes as I remembered them, and interjecting in intervals with “I’m sorry…” and “Do I really have no classes?”</p>
<p>Ouch.</p>
<p>I guess it was a good interview otherwise! Still my top choice.</p>
<p>By pure chance, I ran across the CC account of someone who I was fairly sure was my alumni interviewer a few days before my interview. (Name, ethnicity, age, and city matched, and it’s a small college.) So the whole time, I had this checklist going in my head, to make sure it was the same person. </p>
<p>Accent matched apparent country of origin: Check.
Switched major from ____ to ____? Check. </p>
<p>I was then very careful not to blurt out something I knew (SAT score, high school GPA, etc.)</p>
<p>Aaaaaaannnnnddd let’s hope she doesn’t run across this. Awkwardness suddenly doubles. </p>
<p>(But thanks, and great interview if you do see this!)</p>
<p>My ED-school interviewer called me when I was expecting a call from my mom (she had just arrived that day back from a month-long business trip). Naturally, I picked up the phone and said “Hi mom!” </p>
<p>I had an interview today! There were a couple awkward moments.</p>
<p>30 seconds in:
Interviewer: You know, if you have any questions for me I’ll give you a chance to ask at the end but don’t be afraid to interject them during our discussion.
Me: Um ok thanks.
<em>awkward silence</em>
Interviewer: So do you have any questions?</p>
<p>Later:
Interviewer: So what accomplishment are you most proud of, outside of academics and ECs?
Me: …</p>
<p>Later:
Interviewer: If you had 10 million dollars, which charity would you donate to and why?
Me: Uhm, well… I’d probably donate to help fight Kony 2012 (OMG SO CLICHE KILL ME NOW)
Interviewer: Oh, really? What interests you about that cause?
Me: Uhm well you know it was just such a tragedy… I mean I just really want to help those kids…
Interviewer:…I see.</p>
<p>To start off with it was all I could do to just come up with the name of any sort of charity/cause. On top of that clearly I had no idea about kony 2012, plus it is the most overused and fake thing ever. I don’t even know what it was about except it was all over my facebook for about a month… It was about some kids in Uganda, right? Please tell me it at least involved children?</p>
<p>Also when he asked me for weakness for no reason I said I was bad at english?! I hope he realized I meant the class, rather than thinking I’m some illiterate idiot. I really should have planned an answer to that beforehand. I’m not at all bad at english I’m just better at math. Oh well. He wasn’t writing anything down so hopefully he forgets about these awkward bits. :p</p>
<p>How about when you have been in contact with your alumni interviewer through email and then suddenly the email address becomes user unknown and you lose your sole method of communication with them. Hopefully they don’t say: ‘candidate lost interest suddenly, not reliable’ in the report…</p>
<p>My college interview process has not yet begun (thank goodness), but I had an awful moment when I interviewed for the Georgia Governor’s Honors Program last January. I was majoring in communicative arts, so of course the lady asks me if I like poetry. I froze up and said “uh, not really. It’s kind of confusing for me.”
…
And this coming from the girl who memorizes T. S. Eliot for fun.
Oh, but it got worse.
She asked me what my favorite class was besides English, and I immediately said drama and told her about how I had been in all these plays and how I had recently (as in, the day before) done this Hamlet monologue for drama class because Hamlet is my soul mate and everything, and she says, “why didn’t you major in drama instead?” Which is terrible because I gave her the impression that I’m a good actress, when that’s not even completely true. I’m just okay.
But uh, it got worse.
Since we were on the topic of drama, she asks out of nowhere if I’d ever read A Streetcar Named Desire. Well, I absolutely HATE ASND only because I can’t understand Vivien Leigh when she talks, so I said no in a kind of disgusted way, and then realizing my mistake, said quietly, “but I have read The Crucible.” She asked me what I thought of that, and I kind of shrugged. Then she gave me this kind of evil glare and said, “you DO know that Miller wrote that about the McCarthy hearings, right?” I nodded kind of frantically. The interview lasted all of ten minutes, I think, and because I had been reading a biography of J. D. Salinger at the time, I managed to the refer to The Catcher in the Rye about 10 times.</p>
<p>I basically sold myself as an angsty teen who thinks that reading The Catcher in the Rye makes you a deep thinker, or something. </p>
<p>And I have a scholarship interview (full ride ahhhhh) next Friday.</p>
<p>Me: So, what were the favorite/popular leisure activities or extracurricular things to do when you were at G’town?
Him: Well, the drinking age in D.C. was 18 back then, so I’d have to say alcohol would be number one.
Me: …okay!</p>
<p>OH MY GOD
I realize that what I am about to say isnt about an interview, but I just realized I said something really dumb on a scholarship app.
I sent in a short story as a supporting doc, and two characters mention Copernicus, and one of them says something about astrology class. Astrology. As in horoscopes. I meant astronomy, but I’m just changing it to earth science now. Other than that, the story is pretty awesome, but I totally blew that full ride that I otherwise had a real chance at…</p>
<p>I had my Duke interview over Skype because nobody lives anywhere near my town, and right near the end of the interview I see a big fluffy tail pop up behind my head on the Skype screen… And at this point I’m thinking “please don’t come sit on my lap” and my huge cat jumps up onto the keyboard and turns around so his tail is right infront of the webcam and the poor interviewer got a few seconds of my cats butt… Haha awkward!</p>
<p>Had my Vanderbilt interview a week or two which was semi awkward. For starters, coordinating was a mess since I think he accidentally was emailing me about a date and time instead of a different person and got annoyed when I said I could only meet at a certain time (which I had specified in my first email to him). Then when we finally got a date, I had to awkwardly tell him I would be late because of church. When I finally got to my interview I didn’t know where he was until 15 minutes later I realized he had a Vanderbilt hat on his table. Luckily his last interview ran late. Then we got to talking about sports and he asked about last nights game. I had been checking the scores but was volunteering at a hospital at that time, and when I told him that he’s like “we’ll don’t you get XM radio?”…um no. Then when he asked what 4 people I would want to have diner with, I froze and chose my cousin, Obama, my grandma and Paul Newman… Except I forgot Paul newmans first name so I said the guy that makes salad dressing :s. other than that I think it was a pretty good interview, but he was kind of aggressive which threw me off guard</p>
<p>Just had dinner at a scholarship weekend at a large public university and it went well except for this one horrendous moment at the beginning. Our seats had name cards at them, and I was trying to point my dad to his seat. He had been trailing behind me, so I sort of tapped the arm behind me and said, “your seat’s right here.” except it wasn’t my dad. It was, as I later found out, the dean of the liberal arts college. He smiled at me and said, " actually, my seat is right here," and gestured at the next table. I awkwardly apologized and sat down…
The professor I was seated by was Hebrew, and when I introduced myself, he noted that my name sounded Hebrew (it’s Aleyna). I told him I was actually just named after a Billy Joel song (All for Leyna) and he called me Miss Billy Joel for a while. I think, for once, I actually hit it off with an interviewer. Huzzah!</p>
<p>Seems like there are a lot of awkward interviews…
My first one (MIT) was tragic as well…
Seemed like the interviewer, upon knowing that I attended a competitive local school (unlike his american school) , promptly decided that:
I had no global perspective AT ALL.
I was utterly devoid of moral values.
And so I endured 45 minutes of lecturing. Complete FAIL on his part, I think.</p>
<p>I’ve finally gotten to the point that I can contribute on these! </p>
<p>We were in a coffee shop, and this was an “interview” for a CC-worthy school. I’d gotten there 10 minutes early and had a water bottle in front of me.</p>
<p>Interviewer:“Do you want something?”
Me:“No, I’m fine, but thank you!”
I:“Are you sure?”
M:“Yes, thanks!”
I:“Wait, so what?”
M:“Oh, I meant I’m sure that I’m fine!”
I:“So, nothing?”
M: <em>internally facepalms</em></p>
<p>luckily, the rest of it went great, but… maybe I was nervous, and so it was awkward, but it made me laugh looking back also, I was never asked why I wanted to attend said school, which I found interesting.</p>
<p>Reading these just make me LOL so hard. You guys. :3</p>
<p>I just had my Princeton interview and am getting on the bad/weird/forgettable interview train. We didn’t have much in common (he graduated before Princeton even went coed, and I’m a girl, if that says anything). Worse, he was far more knowledgable than I about the things we did have in common (math, science, nuclear power… I don’t know), so when I tried to talk about something that interested me, he’d let me flounder around for a bit and then explain it to me. Welp.</p>
<p>To top it off, he was fairly soft-spoken, and I couldn’t understand what he said half the time, so I went off on some random tangents. Pretty sure I came off as a blithering idiot, or something, anyway.</p>
<p>The best moment was when he straight-up asked me if I was afraid of the “preppy culture” at Princeton. At least he was honest. And despite everything, he was really sweet.</p>
<p>I arrived at Starbucks twenty minutes early, ordered a coffee, pulled out a book, and waited… and waited… and waited, but my interviewer didn’t show up. I finally called and left her a voicemail (basically saying that I was in no hurry and would wait for her, but I was wondering where she was). As I hung up, I glanced at the date on my phone, and suddenly it hit me:
The interview was tomorrow.
I called back and left a second message apologizing for my inability to understand calendars.</p>
also, I was never asked why I wanted to attend said school, which I found interesting.</p>