<p>or are they like detectives trying to burn you or find out your weaknesses?</p>
<p>Depends on the interviewer and the college--they are more likely looking for strengths than weaknesses--they want to know if you are one of those cadidiates for admission they can't afford to reject--they also want to see what sets you apart from others with similar stats on paper and if you seem like someone who would fit in well at their school.</p>
<p>but i thought interviews don't even play that crucial a role in admissions</p>
<p>Grades and test scores are more important--but an interview can tip the balance in your favor if you are a borderline admit. Usually a neutral interview won't hurt you but a good one can help, although by itself it won't get you admitted. Some schools weigh interviews more heavily than others--especially those with more eccentric qualities where fit may be more of an issue.</p>
<p>As a Harvard alum interviewer, I agree with a lot of the info above. It does vary by school. Even at schools like Harvard, where interviews count the most because of the need to discern between many strong applicants, our interviews do not "get a student in" even if we ranked the student highly. Rather, our interviews are used to help give a personal dimension to applicants with similar statistics, and this information then becomes a part of the whole picture. Much more important are the applicant's statistics, quality of the transcript, quality of the extra-curriculars, personal profile of the applicant, and the personal dimension added by the teacher rec letters, since teachers have worked with a student closely.
In some schools, the interview is not really even used to find out more about the applicant but to give the applicant more information about the school.
But one area where interviews can "make or break" an application is if the interviewer raises any red flags about an applicant, such as questionable motivation, ethics, very difficult to get along with (as in arrogance, for example, not just being quiet). At Harvard, if this happens and it conflicts seriously with all of the other information about an outstanding candidate in whom the ad com is VERY interested, then a second interview will be given to clarify the discrepancy.
As far as whether we are on your side: many interviewers make their interviewees as comfortable as possible because there is nothing to be gained by putting a student on the defensive, and in evaluative interviews our goal is to find out as much as possible about the student, not to play "gotcha." But occasionally there are interviewers with problematic egos who can make you feel uncomfortable. In these cases, all of the students who have him/her are in the same boat, so the ad com will take this into account in your favor. So if "being on your side" means being humane and sensitive, then most interviewers will hopefully be that. But in evaluative interviews, even nice interviewers WILL be evaluating you, not to "get you" but to report to the ad com. This, or even a difficult interviewer, should not throw you off. Be thoughtful and genuine (but professional), and know that this is one of many factors in your application.</p>
<p>I would definitely say that they are on your side--looking for your good qualities as opposed to rooting out your bad. I had the greatest interviewer a year ago. She was so friendly, and very understanding when I was stumped with a question. Even after she put away the form, she kept chatting with me very casually. At the end she even told me how she thought it went. When I got in, eventually (waitlist). She sent me a nice e-mail saying how happy she was for me. She met me at a send-off by the alumni club and gave me a copy of her comments saying "I thought you might like to see." My two other interviewers were nice too, but she takes the cake.</p>
<p>My friend, however, had one of those not-so-nice interviewers. The man was clearly very liberal, and my friend, very conservative. The interviewer kept asking all of these really loaded questions about touchy politics (or that's how I heard it from my friend). That in itself isn't all that bad, but I would have been so thrown off if I had to debate an interviewer spontaneously. Definitely the exception rather than the rule.</p>