<p>I haven’t interviewed for the last several years, but I have been an interviewer in the past.</p>
<p>1. What kind of questions do they ask, and do they tend to be more informative or more evaluative on who you are as a human being?</p>
<p>The goal of an interview is to find out something about you that the admissions committee wouldn’t know just from reading your file, and to report that to the committee. The interviewer will know almost nothing about you going into the interview. I often ask some opening questions about the applicant’s background, school experience, academic interests and extracurricular interests. I choose from among those topics the one that seems most interesting, and most likely to show the candidate off to his or her best advantage, and then I try to initiate a conversation.</p>
<p>I do try to give information about Harvard, if that’s what you mean by “informative,” but the interview is evaluative.</p>
<p>2. Where do the interviews most often take place, and what time of year?</p>
<p>Some interviewers like to see applicants in their homes (meaning the alum’s home, not the student’s) or offices. I like to see students in a neutral, public setting like a Starbucks or a bagel shop.</p>
<p>EA interviews come pretty fast and furious after the EA deadline in November, and are usually supposed to wrap up by Thanksgiving. RD interviews happen mostly late January to early March.</p>
<p>3. Who usually gets to be offered an interview, and does an interview mean that your chances of admission increase?</p>
<p>(NOTE: This part applies to U.S. applicants only. I’m told it’s different overseas, but I don’t know the details.) Harvard interviews every applicant it can. But sometimes there aren’t volunteer alumni living near applicants from rural areas, and sometimes there aren’t enough volunteers to interview every applicant in more densely populated places.</p>
<p>No screening or evaluation takes place before applicants are matched with interviewers. Being invited to interview means nothing about an applicant’s prospects for admission, nor does not being invited to interview mean anything.</p>
<p>4. How important is the interview in the entire admissions process?</p>
<p>In all but the rarest cases, not very important at all.</p>
<p>This makes sense if you think about it. Harvard has hundreds of alumni in all corners of the country and the world conducting interviews. They can’t control the process very tightly, and they can’t do much to control the quality of interviews or interviewers’ reports. Some people, frankly, do a pretty crummy job of interviewing. In addition, there’s no national yardstick by which to measure applicants. If a graduate in Laramie, Wyoming, says an applicant is “outstanding,” and another alum on the Upper East Side of Manhattan says another applicant is “remarkable,” and a third interviewer in Evanston, Illinois, calls a third applicant “superlative,” who’s the best applicant?</p>
<p>**5. And lastly, how should I prepare for an interview? **</p>
<p>Know something about Harvard before you show up–something beyond the fact that Harvard is prestigious. The interviewer is probably going to ask you, “Why Harvard?” You don’t want to give him or her the impression that you just said, “It’s Harvard, so…what the hell?”</p>
<p>Begin with the end in mind. Before the meeting, think about what you want the interviewer to know about you when the interview is over. The interviewer will surely ask you questions, but they’ll probably be pretty broad. This gives you the chance to steer your answers in the direction you want them to go, in order to tell the interviewer what you want him or her to hear.</p>