@QMusic YAYYYYYY IM SO EXCITED FOR YOU! I commented on another JRF post yesterday. So I’ll just copy and paste the same information I told someone yesterday. But first I’ll answer your questions. I feel like when I went it was business casual but they will let you know in an email. Female was like slacks and nice blouse or dress and men i think you could wear a suit and definitely formal pants. It was a panel interview that lasted approx. 30 minutes (30 especially if it went well). I waited in a conference room at a really nice hotel where a lot of other conferences apparently occurred also (i’m from florida) until they called me.
@QMusic I personally would do my background check on JR if you don’t know who he is. It doesn’t have to be in great detail because I don’t think they just want someone to regurgitate the facts as much as want to see what you take away from his experience.
Really be calm and be yourself. I say this not to be cliche (because i’m a realist and personally when people tell me this all the time it’s not always accurate lol) but because I think they can really tell if you’re being yourself and who you say you are. I met another candidate who was going before my interview and the parent was very friendly and encouraging but the candidate wasn’t / didn’t seem to be as engaging so just try to be as engaging and yourself as you can.
I personally just thought of questions they may ask like “why do you want to be a scholar”, “what do you know about JR?” etc and prepared myself for the answer i would give. They asked me about myself, one mistake i’ve made (really important to focus on what you took away from here), and a social issue etc. Literally I also combed CC for past JRF questions and when i found out they asked social issues i tried to think of at least 2 current ones/ recent ones. One of the interviewers asked me what was a question I thought they would ask and IM NOT JOKING my guess was the social question they were going to ask which was on the BLM. DON’T BE STIFF. lol. You’re not a robot, you’re a human who is supposed to change the world and be engaging. I joked around and actually made them laugh as well as showed them/ had prepared on my phone some stuff about me (like the fact i draw portraits and landscapes so i showed them and they were impressed ).
Finally something I find sometimes helps is if you gear your responses to the mission, goal, or general purpose. In this case, I learned about the life of JR and the JRF and tried to gear my responses towards his life purpose.
Really this whole experience is about leaving a good first impression. Leave them memory of someone who is a person and not just one of the people they are interviewing. Leave them memory of someone they can talk to casually but also professionally. Give them insight into who you are, and what you want to be. Like my dad always says, you only have one chance to make a first impression!
I hope this helps, feel free to message me or tag me on here if you/ anyone has any other questions! I love CC and helping if I can.
@QMusic Congrats on being named a semi-finalist. Good luck on your interview.
Congratulations, @QMusic! I wonder if all semi finalists have been notified.
@BlackHuntress Thank you much!
@CountOlaf Thanks for the luck, even if you didn’t get semi-finalist you’re still a cool person in my book. Good luck in your future endeavors.
@Ceciliaagnes I think so, but I think people were notified on a regional level because contact persons and interview locations are different based on your region from what I’ve heard, so there could have been different notification times. Anyways, thanks and best of luck in your future endeavors as well!
Thank you.
Has anyone gotten nothing? I wonder if I didn’t make the cut considering I didn’t get anything
Just got the semi finalist notification this morning! I literally gave up on the scholarship because I knew people in California that got the notification weeks ago. Hope isn’t lost yet!
Same I got mine today too!! Don’t lose hope folks!
I have my interview tomorrow! I’m nervous, excited, anxious and confident all at the same time. I really hope this goes well!
@QMusic Good luck!!! How did it end up going?
@QMusic I hope your interview went well!! What kind of questions did they ask you? I’ve got my interview on the 20th
@GreaserGyal @evodie I think it went pretty well. They seemed very impressed and commended me on my career goals and how I’m working towards them. It felt like went by quicker than expected but it was still like 20-30 mins. I felt a little more comfortable because one of my interviewers was an alum to the school I’ll be going to in the fall. They were all very nice and genuinely seemed like they wanted to help me out which put me into a good mindset going into the interview.
As for the question they asked. Make sure you know about Jackie Robinson and the Foundation because they will ask you about that. They also asked about your goals and how you came to them. The first question they asked me was what would my biggest fan and my biggest critic would say about me. They also asked about the hardest decision I’ve had to make. Overall, the questions kind of flowed with whatever I talked about. At the end, they asked if I had any questions for them. I would recommend having a couple of good questions because they seemed to like that.
Good luck on your interview!
1 Like
Mine is tomorrow!!! I’m doing mine over skype because I dont want to fly to california! I’m pretty nervous.
Good luck @ikenwan
@ikenwan good luck! I have mine today over skype too - flying from Alaska to California is too much, haha. Tell us how it went! 
I had mine. It went alright. But am I the only one that comes out of interviews saying “oh dang why didn’t I say that?” or “ugh I shoulda mentioned that!” Oh well.
Does anyone know how many people they will chose out of the 140?
@GreaserGyal Was the interviewer overall pretty welcoming and nice? How did the flow of the conversation go? Also, they choose 60 finalists.
@evodie they were really welcoming and sweet. They always had multiple questions to ask me and the first was where I was going. Then they asked me about my goals in my major, things I did outside of school, talked about my education and just things related to that. The flow was based on them looking through my application and having comments or questions about it because each of the interviewers in the round table was holding it and looking through it. Overall it was a nice experience. Did you have yours yet? How did it go?
@ikenwan How did it go?