<p>My son might be going out to RIT for an interview. What is appropriate dress? Khakis, dress shirt, tie and v-neck sweater? or Khakis and a nice polo shirt? etc.</p>
<p>Appreciate hearing from people experienced with this.</p>
<p>Khakis and dress shirt without the tie and sweater, or possibly khakis and polo if it is a very warm day.</p>
<p>Good luck to your son!</p>
<p>We have sent 4 kids to college, two of them dressed to the nines for an interview, the other two did not (blue jeans etc). I cannot see that it makes much difference anymore!
I have sat in so many admissions offices & seen all kinds of outfits! Even the interviewers have been in blue jeans & polo shirts! Unless your child is interviewing at a Top 20 University, I would not worry about what he wears!</p>
<p>Thanks for your help!</p>
<p>I think even for top twenty colleges all they need to be is clean and not wearing a t-shirt with an expletive or something offensive. I’ve seen some mighty uncomfortable kids in admissions offices who were clearly dressed by their parents and they need to and should be relaxed and themselves.</p>
<p>I have noticed that too, momofthreeboys, the kids who were all “gussied up” looked like they were uncomfortable & felt out of place, compared to the way the other applicants were dressed.</p>
<p>We were recently on a campus tour where one of the kids on the tour was wearing khakis and a dress shirt. All of the rest of the kids were in shorts and polo shirts. The letter sent out expressly said to wear comfortable clothing and good shoes for walking. I would take the on kids’ attire as not following directions :D. It was 95 degrees out. His parents were in shorts and polo shirts. By the end of the tour he was a sweaty mess. Poor kid.</p>
<p>Ad comms expect the kids too look like college students, not business executives.</p>
<p>Many parents are misled by the word “interview.” This is not like a job interview; it’s an opportunity to sit down with someone from admissions and ask a few questions. Yes, they will jot down some notes throughout, but it will have very little impact (if any) on whether or not the kid is offered admission. They should more appropriately be called “information gathering sessions” or something.</p>
<p>So yes–however the kid would dress for a campus tour is fine. (No ripped T-shirts, no dirty clothes, . . .)</p>
<p>As long as the kid is comfortable in the clothes, pretty much anything. Better to be yourself than to pretend because admissions is looking for reasons to admit you, not reasons to exclude you. That point needs emphasis: admissions is always looking for what’s good about a kid. The bad kind of sticks out, like low grades, low test scores, inability to speak coherently, etc. But lots of kids put conforming to their or their parents ideas about how they should act and what they should say over letting their particular light shine. The clothes don’t matter, with the obvious caveats.</p>
<p>At her job, which has a business casual dress code, a new female employee asked my daughter what to wear. The answer was simple: nothing sexy; nothing denim.</p>
<p>For a college interview, though, denim would be acceptable. Here, the code would be nothing sexy; nothing offensive. By offensive I mean things like T-shirts with rude slogans. A T-shirt bearing the name of the college you visited yesterday might also be a poor choice.</p>
<p>Marian–DS tried to wear a t-shirt from another college to a visit recently. He just couldn’t understand what the big deal was…kids 
</p>
<p>I was amazed at the number of Princeton T-shirts that I saw on members of the tour group – including parents – during a visit to Penn.</p>
<p>First impressions are first impressions. It is always better to over dress and take off something then wish you had something to cover up how you really showed up.</p>
<p>My son had 3 college interviews. 2 he wore the whole get up, sports jacket, tie and nice shoes. One at a coffee shop he wore a grey pullover sweater and jeans that were not torn.</p>
<p>My kid wore a green long sleeve T shirt, a blue blazer with brass buttons, clean jeans, and “keds”. He felt great and he nailed that interview. Depends on the institution as well, of course.</p>
<p>@Lakemom-That was my motto when I was dating “Always better to be over dressed than under dressed.”</p>
<p>Thanks for all the advice. Sounds like he should be dressed somewhere in between 2 extremes. Nice enough, but still comfortable enough to go on the tour.</p>
<p>S has worn chinos, oxford shirt, dress shoes. No tie. The other students interviewing were dressed similarly. Only saw one person with a jacket (out of approx. 20).</p>
<p>On our tour of Yale, we had some time sitting in admissions waiting for the info session, along with a number of parents/kids waiting for interview appts. Out of 3 kids taken for interviews that day, two were dressed either business casual or suit and one had flipflops, a basketball tank top and athletic shorts. I just wondered if that kid didn’t have to try or knew something we didn’t (like he was a Kennedy?) or just really didn’t want to go to Yale?</p>
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<p>Probably none of the above.</p>
<p>I think teaching your kid how to be comfortable in things other than just cruddy jeans, t-shirts and sneakers is a good life skill. I’m not saying that khakis, dress shoes and a button-down, tie and blazer are necessary for this kind of interview - they aren’t - but you have to give your kid enough moments where he has to dress up nicely so that if / when he does, he doesn’t look like an uncomfortable little boy playing dress-up.</p>
<p>^^yes and if they learn that skill you’ll never have to worry about what they will wear. S3 has two interviews scheduled (off campus). He’s leaving before I get home from work so I won’t see him, but I’m not the least bit concerned that he will be dressed inappropriately.</p>