OP: You’ve held us in suspense… how did it actually go?
The interview went fine. He just wanted to talk about the ethos of Yale with my parents/really sell Yale to the whole family.
^^ That’s very odd. Was he a recent graduate, or someone who had been out of college for a while?
My son was tol hi parents were not to come into Starbucks!
It just goes to show us that with the diversity of the alumni volunteer corps, you get different styles and ways how to handle situations.
Perhaps in my career/life I’ve just been in many strange social interactions that I feel equipped to handle unusual scenarios?
Once, I had a mom sit right down next to her kid at one interview. I smiled graciously and simply told her that my interview was only a one-on-one private conversation and that I’d be happy for her to join us after we were done. I didn’t assume or judge her nor did I knock the student either. It was something that was certainly out of protocol but so what, right? No harm no foul.
I certainly wouldn’t bar anyone’s parents from entering the darn café! sheesh!
That’s good!
Did it work? 
Are you and your family sold on going to Yale?
Yale has been in the news a lot lately. Maybe interviewer wanted to approach the parents to discretely dispel any concerns they could potentially have.
When my daughter had her Harvard interview at our local Dunkin Donuts, the mom of a classmate overheard the conversation and sat down next to her and stared at the whole interview. She was so afraid that the interviewer thought it was her mom. After that she requested interviews to be somewhere other than our small town.
Memmsmon, yikes that is a tough one, and not very perceptive on the part of the classmate’s mom IMO . . . unless she was actually trying to make it difficult for your daughter.
@canoe2015 I doubt that she understood what it really was and the importance it was to my daughter. She messaged me that she saw my daughter and asked me about why she was interviewing with Harvard. But her intent listening to the conversation was uncomfortable for my kid. My daughter was rather low profile about where she was applying. We are in a small town so it was going to happen that she saw someone she knew.
@Memmsmom, I’m sorry that happened to your D. We were low-key about where DS was applying with the travel hockey club that my kids played for, even though he was no longer playing (concussion, too busy). At school and around town, it was not unexpected to be applying to an Ivy, but the hockey team was still in awe of a student a few years earlier who was accepted to Harvard. Under relentless questioning by someone I thought was a friend, I allowed as how DS was applying to Yale, with lots of murmuring about lottery, unlikely, etc., but it still elicited eye rolls and gossip. I’m probably too sensitive for my own good, but it really affected my feelings about the nature of friendships in the hockey community.
Tbh, I’m a bit of an eavesdropper (which I’m not proud of), but if it is obvious (staring, for example), then you’ve crossed the line into obnoxious and egregious behavior.
@IxnayBob She was more low key because she really sees herself as an ordinary person and not someone that stands out. Its funny because even her teachers were surprised where she was applying because although she was a great student in their classes, she wasn’t competitive, she was a cheerleader and they had no idea all of what she was involved in outside of school. She was more concerned of being criticized if she wasn’t accepted. This mom that stared at her is a little odd in general so that made her uncomfortable. I asked her what she did when Mrs P did that and she said that at the end of the interview she apologized told her interviewer that its a very small town and so kids and parents not only knew her but would be curious. She said that she wished she had said something earlier but was worried that she would have been judged. It was her first interview so she was already a ball of nerves. It all worked out in the end.