After a lukewarm interview experience for first choice Harvard, my D had her Princeton interview. They interviewer was extremely relatable and full of helpful insight for the school. Princeton is now in a tie with Harvard. 18 year olds are super impressionable but if they interview with a like minded individual it can make them think more about fit. Both are super reaches for anyone so point is probably moot but I think interview does really matter at least to the student. I give interviewer more weight than a tour guide…my D does as well. We have had some really crappy tour guides but if the school felt like a fit it stayed on the list.
I agree @veryapparent. This is a pretty stressful time and a lot is mood-driven, after all these are still teenagers. Again, all will be reviewed after all the decisions are in. I told dd not to expect questions on grades and she was just caught off guard having to recall her 4 year schedule and and recall all the scores (which the interviewer wrote down) I’d say it wasn’t how most interviews go but life throws us all curveballs and it’s a good life experience. The interviewer also told DD she was interviewing two other kids from her school, which is unusual too from what I hear.
That sounds horrible. My son interviewed with an alum from Northwestern and he specifically told him that he is not allowed by NU to ask about scores and grades. They want to get to know the applicants as people. My son had a very relaxed, fun interview and left feeling great about NU. Truly that is what it should be – the kid feels good about your school and you engage your alums and keep them supporting the school!
@fashionella My Brown interviewer met with three students from my school in a row at a coffee shop. It seemed totally fine but got a bit awkward when the student after me arrived early. I guess it limited our time together since she scheduled back-to-back interviews, but it was very positive.
My son interviewed with a Cornell alumni and no questions like that were asked.They have a best practices guideline : https://caaan.admissions.cornell.edu/Guidelines&BestPractices.pdf
In particular? This:
"4. We, as CAAAN volunteers, do not conduct evaluative ‘interviews.’ The best Contact Report
Forms normally include observations from the contact meeting and any salient information about
the applicant that might not appear on their application (such as a change in a family situation or
an award received after an application was sent in). If there is nothing new or informative to report,
it is perfectly acceptable to state on the Contact Report Form, “No additional information about this
applicant arose during the course of the Contact Meeting.” "
I wouldn’t be surprised if Harvard had a similar set of best practices and guidelines. Maybe after this is over and your daughter decides where she wants to go, you could offer feedback to Harvard around this particular alumni?
I probably wouldn’t do that, it’s not as though H has a problem recruiting the best students in the world and clearly some interviewers know this and take liberties. They don’t have a yield issue, otherwise I’d possibly consider it. The woman according to DD was nice, they had a good conversation for most of the interview until the focus on scores/APs/grades. If my dd was really upset, which she isn’t, I would suggest she do her own bidding (prior to decisions, which she probably wouldn’t anyway). But a parent doing that just sounds like sour grapes.
Well one of mine applied to Dartmouth because the tour guide mentioned that the theater department had given him keys. At 17, my son loved keys.
The daughter in question may have all kinds of criteria in her head and she may have lot of nice choices that she can apply them to.
It’s just a shame when interviewers give the wrong impression, for any school. They really are not supposed to even ask about grades and such.
Good luck!
So sorry your daughter’s interviewer scared her so much! 
Whether the woman was serious or not about the friend thing, Harvard is Harvard but it’s important what you make of it. You can go to any school and only come out with one friend and only stay in touch with them, or you can come out with multiple meaningful and significant relationships. My brother currently rooms with 2 of his friends from college, stays in contact and is always meeting up with other friends and grads, and is going to be best man at his freshman roommate’s wedding.
@fashionella Your daughter is not alone. I had a subpar experience with my interviewer, who didn’t bother to ask me any questions and demanded that I asked them questions the whole time. It was strange and uncomfortable, and he was rather rude, and it certainly put me off a bit.
Unfortunately, one person can make a huge difference in how something is perceived. I had a great interview with Georgetown-naturally, my perception of Georgetown has grown exponentially. It is putting a face on what in our minds is a scary, faceless, cold institution, who holds our future in their hands. And if the representative is poor, then the school’s image becomes poorer to the student, as they have no other frame of reference (even if the school is absolutely wonderful). I have never even BEEN to Harvard - I can only imagine it through my interviewer.
Oh, and my Smith interviewer asked me to go to her house. It was kind of weird. I prefer meeting in an office or a public place.
@fashionella My D has had interviews for at least 12 schools (maybe more I have lost count). Not a single interviewer asked for any grades. One asked about courses but along the line of interests not rigor. I wonder if these alumni have any sort of training?
I’m so sorry the interview turned her off— the alumni interviewer’s first job is to be an ambassador for the school and make all the applicants not only comfortable, but excited about the possibility of attending. That said, I just want to clarify one point: when I started as an interviewer for Harvard many years ago, they had us request grades and scores and report them, as well as use them on a comparative ranking scale for academics (there are also scales for extra- curricular and personal qualities, as well as overall desirability of the applicant). It was also common to interview at the interviewer’s house. Several years ago, however, they changed the brief: now they absolutely say to interview in a public space, NEVER at your house (or the applicant’s house), and they say requesting grades and scores is completely optional. If you decide to ask, however, they suggest you do it in a low key way at the end of the interview, and never push the request if the applicant seems hesitant or uncomfortable in answering. We’re still asked to do those numerical scales. My point is that the interviewer clearly did a bad job as ambassador, and clearly should have interviewed in a public space, but did not really “break the rules” in requesting numbers— though totally did it badly.
This is a very atypical interview and I would say not representative of Harvard.
Weird interview. Alum interviewer isn’t supposed to ask about SAT & other standardized test scores, Please do not let your daughter interview in an unknown person’s apt. as that is what Starbuck’s is for.
FWIW, DS had an interview w a Dartmouth alum two years ago and the interviewer talked all about how much fun he had with his fraternity which was apparently the “Animal House” fraternity. Def turned off son. I hope the interviewers don’t have much of a role because they are typically just “regular people”.
Dartmouth alums seems to like to portray the school as a country club. Many years ago, the Dartmouth admissions officer referred to the school as a country club party. Never applied. Really beautiful campus & nice kids.
It’s just silly to form an impression of any institution, much less a university, based upon an interaction with a single person who is no longer at the school.
Fashionella. Your daughter’s interviewee was a bad and an immature person. She should not conduct interviews and if she would like to continue, she should get a re-education on the process. She does not represent Harvard, officially. She was not supposed to ask for your daughter’s grades nor test scores, nor number of APs, nor test score grades. It seems she asked to quench her own personal curiosity and even to compare them to her own.
Alumni guidelines are specific. School already has those data and it is not the interviewer’s role to bias yourself by considering the stats. The school just want your humanistic opinion about the candidate, and the interviewer apparently failed that her. Most Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc interviewers will tell you not to send them your profile , before and after. They will not need them. They simply want to meet you and evaluate the real YOU! I did alumni interview for over a decade for three of the 8 Ivies, and I followed the school guidelines and never once I asked them to bring a resume.
I hope you had a better experience with the rest.
Alumni are asked not to meet candidates at their homes. This serves few purposes. Something can go wrong and the interviewee can accuse the interviewer and report to the school if the candidate did not get in. The interviewer can do something stupid and can get into trouble. YOU NEVER ask the candidate to your house, NEVER! Always meet in quiet public locations, easily accessible to the student by public transportation. If not alumni should ask!
We have many amateur interviewers who think they know what they are doing. Before taking on the role, they should seek guide from their schools and see you can follow the rules!
A couple recurring themes here that need some clarifications:
Regarding the interview protocol:
Each school has a different set of interview policies. Unless Harvard has changed its policies since 5 years ago or so when I was active, it DOES NOT instruct the interviewers to NOT conduct the interviews at their home. It does basically instruct, though, to be aware that there are students who might not feel comfortable about this arrangement and therefore be willing to be accommodating to their needs. It does, however, specifically instruct them to NOT conduct their interviews at the student’s home. Irregardless of what the instruction specifically states or not, I do not know of any fellow interviewers in my region that have conducted their interviews at their home. While the OP’s interviewer was in her right to conduct the interview at her home, I do find her at fault for not having given the interviewee an option.
Regarding the interviewers’ request for the GPA, SAT, EC’s, etc.:
Harvard requests each interviewer to submit the “Personal Interview Report” which contains the candidate scoring in the various categories, one of which is “Academic” scoring based on the candidate’s GPA, SATI, SATII, ACT scores. The same for all other categories. As “Optional” the PIR also requests the interviewer to report the candidate’s actual test scores, GPA and even the class rank. Harvard DOES NOT (again, as of 5 years ago) instruct to NOT ask for such scores. It’s basically up to each interviewer to either ask or not, but I’d assume that most do simply because of the format of the PIR, especially given the need to numerically “score” the candidate in various categories.
In my opinion, Harvard needs to make some revisions in its interview mission. Whether it has made any changes to this since 5 years ago, it’d be great if there are any current interviewers out there to let us know.
From my experience, I can assure you that there are all kinds of interviewers. Some like to conduct the interview in 10-20 minutes while some take 2 hours, some like to conduct as if it’s a job interview while some just like to have a nice conversation, some are very kind and understanding while others are curt bordering on being rude and unfriendly, some have hidden personal agendas, some are nosy, some play politics, and you throw in their stressful professional and messy personal lives on top of all these mix, you’d get the picture, I’m sure. These interviewers are all human beings and therefore can be very subjective. For this reason, the interview itself does not make or break anyone’s chances. I’ve known students who were admitted to Harvard with the interviewers’ negative reports and those who were rejected in spite of the most glorifying reports.
As someone already said, one shouldn’t judge Harvard based on one encounter with one someone who has very little influence in the candidate’s chances. One shouldn’t make up one’s mind until after all the results are in, INCLUDING the FA offers especially. From my own NPC runs on all Ivy League colleges using the exact same figures, HYP offered the most generous FA packages, significantly more than the rest. One needs to balance the student’s fit along with the FA offers. What your encounter with one interviewer is the least significant in these equations. Harvard, by the way, has about 4,000 more applicants this admissions cycle than the previous year. Get in first and we’ll talk.