<p>I know interviews aren't suppose to be an indicator of how likely you are to get into a specific school, but for Penn's M&T program, I heard that if you are able to get an interview, that you have a better shot, that they give interviews to those who are more likely to get into the program. Can anyone confirm or deny this?</p>
<p>Deny.</p>
<p>Ultimately has the most to do with availability of interviewers in your geographic area.</p>
<p>Believe it is random after that with maybe them making sure they interview the same % of applicants from every school to avoid bias. </p>
<p>These interviews are assigned before the files are read. They can’t have much of an opinion at that point.</p>
<p>Unless I am severely mistaken, every application is given to alumni volunteers, who interview as many applicants as possible. It averages out to around half of applicants, but most of it is based on the availability of volunteers and has nothing to do with the quality of an application.</p>
<p>Yea, handala, I thought that my penn interview, compared to my other school interviews, was alot more in-depth. the interviewer asked me for all the colleges I was applying to, like wondering how I ranked Penn on my life of colleges, asked a lot of different kinds of questions too, compared the the usual extracurricular, interests, etc. stuff. Mine wasn’t by area too, I had to drive over an hour to get there. The person was also an M&T graduate, so I didn’t think it was random chance (50/4000).</p>
<p>Mmmk, thanks, just wondering if it was suppose to be kind of different.</p>
<p>lol yea. hopefully we’ll see each other next year then (if its ur first choice or something)</p>
<p>i was actually worried about not having an interview a few weeks ago, so i contacted the head of m&t and she told me they were tyring to scheudle all of the m&t applicants with m&ts. the interview was EXTREMELY difficult- much less of a conversation than any of the other interviews i’ve had- so i would say it would actually be an advantage NOT to have one.</p>
<p>well, i guess if you’re not into M&T and if you don’t know what you’re talking about it might really screw you over or something. my guy asked alot of hypothetical questions and stuff that took a while to answer. The whole thing was closer to two hours, longest interview I’ve had, but overall, I enjoyed it, some parts were iffy but i probably had more decent answers than fluff. I think that if you do ok, the interview should, at the least, help you. </p>
<p>The thing i’m curious about is whether an M&T interview matters more (my interview noted that it was required, dunno if that meant whether you had to have one or whether you had to accept the offer) and whether it means that we have a slightly higher chance.</p>
<p>ahhh so i just got an email today and my interviewer wants to do a phone interview with me for the M&T program. I live in orange county, CA, he lives in San Francisco. </p>
<p>Based on what you guys said about the interview being intense, is it better if i decline the interview? Does this lower my chances?</p>
<p>Nooo I’m so nervous :(</p>
<p>my interview said that the interview was “required for full consideration,” and with all the effort they take to connect us w/ the M&T grads, I think declining the interview would work aganist you more than anything else. I don’t know about the other two people who answered, but i didn’t think the interview was “extremely” difficult, only different. If you do ok w/ other interviewers I’d think u’d be fine.</p>
<p>Alright, thanks for the information. Looks like I’ll be scheduling an interview after all. Did anyone else have to do a phone interview? I’m a bit surprised that there aren’t any M&T graduates from Southern California…</p>
<p>Do you think you can tell us what kind of questions your interviewer asked? Just so that we can get an idea of what the interview is like. Thanks</p>
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<p>They have to want to do admissions interviews and sign-up to do them.</p>
<p>Judging from what the others before wrote, I think my interview might’ve been a bit different. But my interviewer was really intent on seeing how interested I was in the program, more so than the other interviewers who’ve interview me. He asked about my other colleges and why I wanted to go into penn. But he questioned my reasons and asked me to go into more details. I don’t know whether your interviewer will do this, but he asked me to talk a bit about why I wanted to go to the other colleges I applied to. When I talked about business, he asked about what kind of business I wanted to do (marketing, finance, etc.) and more specific stuff about why penn. for that part i kind of ended up talking about how penn M&T allows you to incorporate art (something i’m interested in) into the curriculum (thru tech), badminton, and other smaller details.</p>
<p>Some different questions asked were like if you had a million dollars what would you do w/ it. What do you plan on doing in the future. Most of the questions were pretty open-ended and it felt more like my interviewer was making up his own questions than following a question guide. good luck.</p>
<p>There’s no template for general pool interviews and I doubt there would be one for M&T. There are guidelines for behavior (don’t interview them at your house) but none whatsoever for specific questions.</p>