She had her interview last night DD said it went pretty well, though a bit hurried bc the woman had a performance she was going to (dd could tell the woman’s husband was trying to rush the wife) It was at the woman’s apartment. DD said they had a nice discussion and then the woman said “now let’s get down to the nitty gritty” and asks what’s your rank, how many in your grade, how many APs did you take? When dd answered 16 APs, dd said the woman was kind of incredulous and then asked her to tell her from freshman year, exactly what APs were taken in each grade and what her score was. DD said she got a little flustered at that part. DD also asked the woman (she was talking about how she is looking forward to making college friends etc and asked the woman if she is still in touch from people from harvard she said “one. Plus my ex husband if you want to count him”. LOL. DD said she was happy when it ended, enjoyed the experience but it didn’t do anything for her impression of the school, if anything it detracted from her impression as in if she got in to Yale, Brown, Harvard, and Dartmouth…so far she would rank Harvard last.
She also asked her her SAT scores….
Someone can take 16 APs?
op-yes. In dd’s public school at least.
Please tell you daughter not to judge Harvard from one alumna who happens to be volunteering as an interviewer. in our experience, Harvard interviewers don’t even mention grades and courses but instead used the interview to get a sense of who the person is, really. As for friends, most grads still have lots of friends from their Harvard years. This woman’s answer about her ex-husband sounds like dark humor. Not appropriate at all unless your daughter showed the same kind of humor.
Teens are immature and many get an impression from tour guides as well, that end up influencing their choices. You and I know this is ridiculous. You may or may not be able to help her see that this interviewer does not represent Harvard well. In fact, in the end, admissions doesn’t even care so much about stats and AP’s as long as a benchmark is made.
You might want to email admissions about this. Perhaps they would have someone else talk to your daughter. But please try to help her see this means very little about Harvard itself.
I’m probably injecting my opinions into this, and I realize after re-reading that DD never expressly said she is turned off to Harvard bc of this experience. She actually didn’t really want to talk about the interview all that much, but when she finally did she mentioned the above. However, I asked if she would choose H over Dartmouth and she said “probably not” She didn’t complain about the interview exactly, I was more sort put off than her. She’s a musician and had just had a very long day of classes and a performance and then this interview. We got to talking and she referenced her Dartmouth interview, the guy was 25, really cool, really enthusiastic gave a really good picture of the school, they talked about Game of Thrones etc. So to an 18 yo, one felt like a great experiment and the other was more like an interrogation.
I think the interviewer was inappropriate. Their purpose is to report back on the personality, poise and demeanor of the applicant, not the test scores.
My opinion is that no one should allow the indirect college experience they have with one individual influence their perception of a school.
Interviewers volunteer for many reasons and not all of them are necessarily benevolent.
I know the Alumni interviewer in our home community very well. I guarantee if your daughter had met with my friend her experience would have been vastly different. Our daughter is a three year plus tour guide at Harvard, I guarantee if your daughter had gone on a tour she was leading or had a conversation with her she would have a very positive opinion of Harvard.
An experience with one individual shouldn’t define her outlook, that isn’t realistic or fair to your daughter or to the school.
I would have her talk to as many Harvard alumni and current Harvard students as she possibly can, encorage her to attend Visitas if she is accepted, do all of the due diligence she can.
To arrive at a conclusion based on interaction with one person who she may not have aligned with personally or who may have been distracted is not a good idea.
I do not agree at all with the line of questioning that your daughter was exposed to. The interviewer was likely attempting to assess her probability of admission but went to far. It would have been so much better had she spoken more about the culture of the school and what makes it special.
Our daughters experience at Harvard has been nothing short of exceptional.If I come across strongly I apologize! I just hate the thought of potentially important decisions being made as the result of a arbitrary experience.
Best Wishes to your daughter and your family! I hope she is thrilled with where ever she ends up!
I totally get what you are saying, and there is a 95% chance this is a moot point. On the slim chance she has to make anything even close to that decision, I assume the interview will play a minor part after doing a revisit, etc., although 18 year olds are funny creatures so who knows. As it is, dd had already reached out to a current H student via the H website that allows you to ask questions. And apparently DD has several informative back and froths that were helpful. Dd did that the woman said regarding her AP classes/scores/rank/sat that "we kind of have to gloss this over bc I can hear my husband putting on his coat…but that she did rapid fire interrogate her but DD said if she had more time she would “picked me apart even more” so that is why she was relieved that they had to go.
Her goal right now is to not be influenced by one interviewer, to get accepted at as many schools as possible, then go to admitted student days and make a more informed decision based on meeting more people and kicking the tires a bit. Until she receives acceptances, I wouldn’t spend time worrying about how she is ranking them in her head.
I’m pretty sure seniors keep a running ranking in their head at all times and adjust it accordingly as time goes by. And they do this before and after acceptances. So I’m not sure what your point is. My point in posting was to express one applicants experience and its affect, which is basically the point of college confidential. Maybe these schools should make sure their interviewers are following their guidelines and not going rogue.
Wow that sounds like a really terrible alumni interviewer. The purpose of an interview is to learn things about the student that are not already in her application. When I do interviews, I’m trying to understand what the student is truly passionate about, what they might contribute to the college beyond academics, what motivates them and their fit for the college.
Seems creepy to meet in the person’s apartment. Does anyone else agree?
From recollection our daughter had interviews at an elderly male attorney’s business office, a restaurant, with a younger male interviewer, another restaurant with an elderly female interviewer and at a ski centers lodge with a female interviewer who was hanging out there while her children were skiing.
She traveled any where from a half hour to an hour to meet these interviewers. I can say confidently there was no correlation between her interview experience and whether she was accepted at a particular school or not. There was also no correlation as it related to her sentiment about the particular school the interviewer was from as a result of the interview that took place.
I do wish that the vetting process for interviewers was more stringent as they are a representation of their school. We were fortunate in that we visited every school our daughter applied to prior to her applying and went back to a number of schools that she was accepted at. She also had friends that were at schools that she was interested in so she could pose as many questions as she wished to.
We all relate better to people who are similar to ourselves, it is human nature. You are definitely going to get some hard charging type A people coming from elite schools. This is one of the things I believe should be addressed in the vetting process.
Harvard’s music department and extracurriculars are wonderful. Tell her to feel free to PM me.
telling her to PM you would include me telling her I came here and described her interview…which would not go over well. But thank you very much!
I hate the short time that is given to edit our posts. I have a spelling error and a grammatical error that I would like to correct.
I find it very strange that she was interviewed at someone’s apartment. I am pretty sure that would not be something Harvard would think wise. I think alumni are instructed to interview at a neutral location. My D had hers at a coffee shop and her interviewer was pretty young. I thought that was an unusual choice as well. It went well enough but the interviewer was not a ringing endorsement for the school. It’s still number one though.
Forming preferences for schools based on the interviewer is extremely misguided, but 18 year olds do this kind of thing. They also judge based on tour guides.
As parents, we can try to put these experiences in context but that is all we can do. The quality of an interview(er) has absolutely nothing, zip, zero, nothing to do with the experience of attending a school.
If the OP’s daughter chooses Dartmouth over Harvard, that’s not exactly a tragedy, either.
It’s entirely possible that a particular individual could feel happier and more relaxed at Dartmouth than at Harvard, and for that reason have a better overall academic experience. I would not argue that Dartmouth, as a university, is superior to Harvard, but there are plenty of individual professors and students at Dartmouth who are the equals of, or even superior to, their counterparts at Harvard. The Dartmouth alumni I know are extremely happy with their college experience and very loyal to their alma mater, much more so than the Harvard alumni I know.
I’m sure the OP’s daughter could have had a great interview with some other Harvard interviewer, and a crappy interview with some other Dartmouth interviewer. But it doesn’t really matter either way.