I had a horrible interview with Hotchkiss today. Here is a thread that will probably reassure you that your interview wasn’t as bad.
First off, I thought it was an hour later than it actually was. I was gonna use that time to prepare.
Second, the link I received didn’t go anywhere so I had to email them and was 10 minutes late.
Then, I brought up a book I’m reading (that I read 2 months ago and didn’t finish) and my interviewer asked me questions. I FORGOT WHAT THE BOOK WAS ABOUT so I just kind of made it up…
I accidentally called Hotchkiss Thacher at the end.
I forgot to prepare questions and made them up on the spot.
Anyway, I hope I made you feel better about your own interview. I will remember the cringe I felt in this interview for the rest of my life.
it’s okay. a bad interview isn’t everything, and it’s just one school. You’ll get through it if you’re rejected. @mondaydevil can clarify this
Everyone has bad interviews in their life! Great that you can learn from it now. I suspect links not working/interviews starting late are pretty common this year. Also interviewers don’t expect perfection. Hang in there!
It didn’t come across as a totally horrible interview . You will never know exactly how the interviewer perceived. In fact, maybe your adaptability could come through as a strong point.
I have heard so many “I don’t know how I got accepted at XXX, my interview was horrible”, so please don’t beat yourself up, you may be very surprised!
I was unable to open the camera in the interview. So facing a black computer screen, it was basically a ZOOM phone call.
My andover interview was equally as bad despite it not being my fault. My interviewer was 15 minutes late and was not apologetic. During the interview she asked like 10 questions on the beginning and just didn’t want to talk to me. She clearly did not respect me and didn’t want to interview me. She crunched on her lunch loudly as I talked. Don’t worry, I think the behavior of the interviewer reflects directly on their school, and I don’t think it would be good to be in a community like that.
That interviewer sounds horrible. I feel like you handled it really well! Good luck.
Oof. I mean, at least you can see the interviewer’s face, that’s better than a phone call. I don’t think they would “take any points off” though.
@SammyCat2, thanks a lot for sharing your experience. One bad interview doesn’t mean much. You still have good chance to go to one of your dream schools. I wish you the best luck!
That might have been an isolated incident, but I do feel the manner and respect some of these schools display speak volumes about the schools. When we applied a couple of years ago, we remember both being very positively impressed by some and being very negatively shocked by (equally famous) others. On the positive side, the interviewer was genuinely interested in getting to know about the kid’s interests. The best interviewers seemed teachers or educators, in our experience.
As for the opposite, I can list a few distinct types: (a) those who would cut off and start asking a new question the moment the kid started answering (why did u ask if not interested to hear the answer?); (b) Those whose sole question consisted of “what other schools are u applying? Name each and every one!” (the moment the kid named a rival school, one interviewer went “berserk” throwing diatribes. the kid said never in his life the venerable school looked so small.); and © Those who were simply tired and uninterested. (10 min interviews). These tended to be either professional “AOs” or alumni interviewers in our experience (but never teachers). They simply crushed the esteem we held about the schools and cast doubt on the fairness of the process: they seemed only interested in protecting their yield, going through the motions to go home, or they have already filled their entering class. This was quite a surprising experience. I took a consolation from the fact that none of them were educators.
WAY too accurate. All the short interviews I had were from professional AO’s. It’s always the teachers and coaches that actually seem interested in talking to you and engaging in the interview…
We had a couple of stinkers. One interview was irritated to hear he was scheduled on a holiday, tried to cancel and other mixups, then was pretty disinterested in son, knew nothing about him, and then I mentioned one thing and he actually sat up in his chair, ooh, that is very prestigious and actually paid attention to son and asked a few, better questions.
Another school grilled him about why he hadn’t spent weeks at sleep away camp from birth (could be lots of reasons, including dying mother and/or expense) but it went on and on.
As someone who has conducted job interviews over the years, I tend to think preparing beforehand is overrated anyway. I usually don’t care if the interviewee has the right answers. Instead I want to get some insight into how they think and interact with other people.
Now maybe interviews for schools are different, but it seems to me that they probably already know a lot about what you know from your transcript.
Prep boarding school interviews seem to focus on two or three main areas:
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Answering questions about the school &
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Testing the maturity level of the applicant ( those applying for 8th or 9th grade)
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Gauging the applicant’s interest level in the particular school–although #1 above typically reveals one’s interest level.
So accurate. This particular school was one of my top picks, and I felt like I didn’t want to be in a community like that. It is just so disrespectful. After the interview, I was upset and felt like I ruined my chances. My mother said “well, why would you want to go to a school like that? She is in charge of the 9th grade girl dorms so you might end up with her.” I realized that this was true. She also went bersek when I mentioned I was applying to a rival school when she asked. Ultimately, even as I recognized that the people who were in the virtual sessions were kind for this school, and that my friend really loves it there, I completely lost interest. She was a hockey coach, and I feel that her behavior reflects badly on the school. You’d think that if you show up 20 minutes late as a interviewer, you would try to be on your best behavior to the candidate, or at least I would.
Possibly you can extrapolate from a bad interview, but possibly you cannot. I vividly remember my S2’s interview at a school, with a professional AO where half the time (it seemed) she talked about how much she wanted to retire! Very bad impression!
My son ended up repeating 9th grade, so the next year he interviewed again at the same school. This time, he had the Dean of Admissions interview him, and it was amazing! And my son ended up attending, and it was a perfect fit for him, and the school totally changed his life.
So, a bad interview doesn’t always mean a school is like the interviewer.
I know this cannot be a consolation to you and it hurts the same but at least this year was zoom. Imagine yourself with your parents to fly all the way from somewhere on the opposite side of the hemisphere or the continent, let your dad drive many hours in the middle of o-so-common New England snowstorm on a rented car, stay overnight at a motel, only to receive a 10-min interview of indifference. It has been that way all previous years.
Now, I know what some of these schools would say. But we are not talking about rejection here. I too think rejection is not only necessary but when done with candor and integrity could actually help the kid. There was one professional AO interviewer who told, after asking so many questions at our kid “I would advise you to cast a wide net because he would not find our discussion-based type of teaching most conducive to his learning.” Rejections are always painful but we quickly got the message and were thankful to her for being open about the fit.
On the opposite extreme, there were schools that actually said “We found the perfect candidate in you! You are God’s Gift to Podunk Academy! Hallelujah!” only to send the kid a rejection (no, they did not even waitlist God’s Gift) on M10. Such schools tend to send “encouraging emails” to make you watch their icehockey games until M9, by the way. The kid will either feel he has already gotten in and cheer for Podunk or will ask “Will they check my login record to judge my interest in them?” To which every sensible parent should say “Only if you like to watch the game. Read nothing into it, and never feel obliged to do something because you want to get into Podunk. If done on M9, this is just to protect their yield - i.e. since they are prohibited from sending anything selectively to their preferred applicants, they simply do to ALL because they do not care about those who will get rejected tomorrow anway whereas they care mighty that those they have already chosen would find special meanings from their lovecalls. You are far too valuable for that. No matter where you go, remember - the school exists for your education, not the other way.”
So I think your parents are very very wise.
To be fair to these schools, I found out that many among their alumni and teachers do not endorse most of these practices. Administration and teaching should be considered different worlds, although your logic about dorm room and sports coach seemes solid to me. But they must also have some very dedicated too. They do have some of the best teachers and best students - as well as those who fall into drugs.
All I can tell you is this: Never ever think one interviewer’s bad day reflects on your candidacy in any way. They have not even read your file except the most basic interests you provided yourself on their portal (no, not the Part I) - to keep the process free from bias.
Now, this is what I would like to tell the schools and interviewers: These are 13 year old kids and you are adults. This is one 10 minute segment of your life you will push into oblivion this evening. But it is one 10 minute segment the kids will remember after 100 years, on their dying day. Just because you have to reject 9 out of 10 kids or whatever, you dont have to hurt their dignity. Please be respectful and kind to them. And for god’s sake, unless you are gonna let someone intelligent enough to judge these uber-smart kids who apply to your schools, just do not make the interview the centerpiece of the application process. How do you distinguish between fit and diversity? You want someone who fits and yet at the same time diverse? So you want someone who only looks different but similar in the head? I understand you don’t want IQ diversity, but still, diversity is such a wide concept if applied in a true manner that it tends to cut into fit. Interview, when so subjectively and yet decisively applied, may look little more than a disguised form of gatekeeping - something the Ivy League had done in the past against the Jews and are still accused of doing against ORM today.
Sorry for the long post, but some schools need to change, I feel.
Yes, I completely understand, however, I feel many adult interviewers do not realize how discouraging they may be with their words. Whether or not an applicant gets into the school, their job is to “sell the school.” They must make it seem like the best place for the applicant to have continued interest. “Oh, our kids are so interested in the STEM program and we really make coding a huge part of the curriculum!” Or try to build off of your kid’s interests.
If the interviewer feels strongly that it is not a fit, then it is a different story, and still there is no need to disrespect the kid.
Honestly, I really admire you and your son for your determination to follow through, even after such an interview. Your outlook is really refreshing, and taught me to see how the interviewer is not always like a school
It is a consolation, and helped me realize how fortunate I was. I understand rejection is necessary, and more than likely, but it is very important to maintain a mask of positivity in front of the kid. It is actually very kind to break it to you that way.
The God’s Gift one made me laugh, but it must of been very painful to your kid.
I also feel a similarity between the ivy leagues and prep schools is that they may send you pamphlets to apply even if you are not really in their applicant pool. The lower their acceptance rate, the higher the school rating.
I hope your kid found success in a good school despite all the negligent and indifferent interviewers out there!