The OPs mom feels uncomfortable with the situation and the anxious applicant needs to know how to handle it and please both her parent and the interviewer. I think the poster who recommended being honest while “blaming” the mother gave a good option. If mom is uncomfortable, the applicant is trying to respect her parent while not “ruining” her Harvard chances. Even though the interview is supposedly low on the importance of applicant activities, it never feels that way to the applicant.
@fauve I was content to let his thread fade away but you brought it back up. Btw, I didn’t revive the four-year old thread, someone else did and I merely commented on it because of my daughter’s experience with the issue.
Oh, on the one hand you say the “majority” of colleges are discouraging the practice these days (I wonder why if it’s only stranger danger paranoia), but on the other hand, if a student is uncomfortable with the practice (that again, most colleges are finding inappropriate) why should they have no other recourse but to apply to local U’s? That sounds a little extreme doesn’t it?
You got me on this one. I had a memory lapse and forgot we were talking about Ivy-level alums. No security risks there whatsoever. If your son or daughter gets a call from a Harvard alum named Theodore to interview them at his cabin in Montana, by all means, send them with the full confidence that Ivy-level alums don’t act inappropriately.
I do agree with you that this thread has run its useful course. It will only serve to reinforce to future applicants the notion that if they make waves about not wanting to go to an empty office or a stranger’s house, it will reflect badly on them and that is not something I wish to perpetuate.
Falcon1: I really don’t appreciate the personal attack about a four-year-old post on a zombie thread.
The fact of the matter is, this is purely a cultural issue. If it were not for CC, I would have no idea that this was an issue at all. My kids had interviews in people’s houses, in their offices after hours, and in public places, and neither I nor they gave it a second thought. So did I, at their age, except for never in a public place. My attitude, and theirs, was that the interviewers for colleges to which they were applying were people essentially just like their parents and teachers, or the parents of kids they babysat – the sorts of people they felt they knew, even if they had never met, and with whom they felt comfortable. My children, male and female, were never “programmed” the way you seem to think is universal, and, frankly, I would be ashamed if they had been.
Obviously, I recognize that not every kid is going to feel that way, but it’s a learned, intellectual recognition. I don’t meet kids like that in the normal course of my life. Even my kids’ friends from very different backgrounds didn’t have that kind of attitude – but saying they were my kids’ friends puts the rabbit in the hat, because it meant in some cases that they were comfortable stepping outside the cultural norms of their parents’ communities.
No college interviewer I know, and certainly not I, would want to punish a kid for feeling uncomfortable about a meeting with an unfamiliar person in circumstances that were sketchy from the standpoint of the kid’s normal life. (My dad was hilarious describing his discomfort at a Yale interview in 1948. To his knowledge, it was the first time in his life he had spoken with a WASP. He didn’t get into Yale; I suspect one of many factors at play was that it was a very different generation of college interviewers, whose attitude was the opposite of what you would find today.)
But emotionally . . . I don’t like being treated like a prospective child abuser. I suspect other people like me may have the same feelings. And, as you acknowledge, there is something of a substantive issue, too. If the kid does not outgrow some of that discomfort within the next six months or so, the kid would miss out on some valuable aspects of the academic and social experience at my alma mater and similar colleges. That’s not much of a strike against a kid, since as far as I can tell, the DO grow up. To be clear, generally they assimilate to my cultural norms. Generally, one of their goals in applying to my college and its peers is to assimilate at least somewhat to its (my) cultural norms, whether you or their parents like it or not. (Of course, that “generally” includes many exceptions and variations.)
My point is, just as it’s fair to ask me to be sensitive to the cultural attitudes of kids I may interview, it’s fair to ask those kids and their families to be a little sensitive to me, too. It is not a question of they are right and I am wrong. In close to six decades, I have yet to hear one example of a kid being abused by an Ivy League college interviewer, notwithstanding that until maybe 15 years ago it was almost unheard of to interview in public places. Objectively, there is no risk. So get off your high horse a little if you want me to like you.
(By the way, I would never schedule an interview with a kid alone in my house now. Not only because I have been sensitized to their discomfort on CC – just as much because I would fear a false accusation that would be hard to disprove. In other words, I no longer view applicants to my college as if they were already trustworthy members of my community; I could be as suspicious of them as they may be of me. That’s not a positive development in the history of the world.)
@jhs Well, I apologize for the fact that I addressed a four-year old comment of yours. When I scrolled up to read some more posts I didn’t notice that the date had shifted from the present to the past. That being said, they were your words and either you feel they were justified or you don’t today. I really couldn’t tell from what you wrote above.
I am not going to engage in a war of words with you because I know that words are your craft and it is a battle I will surely lose. So respond back as you may to what I have say but you’ll hear nothing more from me. I think my stand on the matter is pretty clear and I don’t want to risk getting it all twisted up defending attacks by you.
I have absolutley no idea what this “cultural” issue is that you keep referring to. Are some cultures just cowards and don’t possess the “learned, intellectual recognition” (whatever that is) you refer to? This cultural thing that breeds kids you would be ashamed of, are you also ashamed to associate with the cultural parents as well? I am baffled.
In HS, my daughter was not some shrinking wallflower who imagined danger at every turn. She was an extremely social, vibrant, larger than life kind of kid. She also knew how to handle herself because we let her spend time running around in large metropolitan cities since the age of thirteen (in small groups at first but later by herself). However, she was raised to be prudently cautious as most young men and women should be. This is not a cultural thing as you suggest but a function of what I believe is normal parenting. All of “her friends” who came from different cultures seems to have been raised to be smart and sensible about what kind of situations they put themselves in. Where’s the shame in this?
When our kids first went off to nursery school, we were advised not to have them wear anything with their names on it so that a stranger could not call to them by name. I had never heard of such a thing (this kind of concern did not exist when we were young) but it certainly sounds like decent advice especially when its backed up by evidence supporting the fact that it is a tactic often employed by would be kidnappers and pedophiles. My point is just because we didn’t do something in the “good ole days” doesn’t mean the practice is inane or a negative sign of times. I’m pretty sure the school officials who asked us to do this were not acting because of some sort of cultural flaw, or as of yet “unlearned, intellectual recognition”
Anyway, I digress, when my daughter was asked to go to a semi-secluded house at dusk in the dead of winter to meet an older man she did what any prudent girl would do and tried to find out more about the situation. She didn’t assume the person was a child abuser and she did not shy away from task. The point is a young lady (or man) should not have to be put in this kind of situation and it is becoming widely accepted as being sensible for all parties involved.
We did a lot of things 15 years ago and earlier that we don’t do today and most of the changes have been for the better. When my wife was a young investment banking intern, the Managing Directors all puffed on their cigars and pipes while she and the other female interns were charged with fetching the coffee and other tasks not assigned to the males. I’m glad those good ole days are gone. Speaking about inequality in the workplace, watching Mad Men makes me even happier to not have lived in those times. I’m sure you feel the same. Not all change is bad.
Finally, to your point about your being asked to be sensitive to the “cultural attitudes” (again, whatever does this mean?) of the kids you interview and wanting the kids to be sensitive to you too. I am quite certain that virtually everyone you have ever interviewed has treated you with a high measure of respect. After all, they perceive you to be holding the keys to their future at Yale or wherever you interview for. If they ask to change the time or location of the meeting, they do so with great trepidation because they know they risk engendering your disapproval so I’m quite sure you shouldn’t be thinking they are being insensitive to you.
Well, I’ve rambled on more than I cared to. I will not even bother to address your “high horse” comment and I don’t need you to like me. Lots of hopeful kids read these posts and I just want them to know that they have the right to feel comfortable (and for interviewers who read this, please do the sensible thing as even JHS somewhat acknowledges he will do in his last paragraph although couched in another disparaging remark about the times).
Again, if a college asks its alumni interviewers to conduct interviews in a public place but they ignore that request and continue interviewing applicants in their homes, they aren’t doing their job.
I have to agree with @JHS on this one. S has his Harvard interview in a couple of days…GASP…at the interviewer’s house. I really don’t understand the issue. It is not as if a parent cannot drive the student and sit in the driveway-although I have no intention of doing that. I actually find it gracious that the interviewer is extending an invitation to his home, and I imagine it will be a comfortable and welcoming environment for an interview. Plus it will eliminate that awkward “are you my interviewer?” moment.
“There is no inherent right to have every step of admissions geared to make students feel warm and fuzzy. The idea that an Ivy-level alum, in his or her house, poses a security risk is simple paranoia. Until you can prove even one “incident” has ever occurred, the fear remains groundless.”
While I agree that there is no inherent right to have every step of admissions geared to make students feel warm and fuzzy, and the risks of something happening are so low as to be close to zero (and the drive there is likely far more dangerous), I don’t see what being an “Ivy-level” alum has to do with anything. Scumbags are scumbags and good people are good people regardless of what college they went to 20 years ago. It’s not as though Harvard has an appreciably different rate of eventual child-molesters, pedophiles, and people up to no good compared to Nowheresville State U.
"Anyway, I digress, when my daughter was asked to go to a semi-secluded house at dusk in the dead of winter to meet an older man she did what any prudent girl would do and tried to find out more about the situation. "
What difference does dusk or the dead of winter make?
And remind me again why someone up to no good would do so in a situation where it’s known that Helen Hopeful will be at his house between 7 and 8 pm on Tuesday night?
I am an interviewer for Harvard. Admissions office does recommend that we schedule an interview in a public place but if it is not possible/convenient scheduling one at your office or house is also fine. That being said if you are not comfortable coming to an interviewers house, just ask them to suggest another place. I cannot imagine anyone taking offense with that.
Please do not resurrect old threads. This one is from 2011! I am closing it.