I have my Andover interview tomorrow. In the email I got from my interviewer, she said the format would be around 30 minutes just with me and then 10 minutes with parents. Unfortunately, I don’t think the parent thing will work out, as my dad won’t be home and my mom is the one of my parents who’s “on board” but not “enthusiastic”. Additionally, the interview will be under my preferred name which I’m using to apply to schools (Trans) and my parents aren’t too accustomed to that name so I don’t want to put them on the spot and make everyone uncomfortable…Is it ok if at the beginning of the interview I say something like “Unfortunately my parents won’t be able to join us.”? Do I have to offer an explanation as to why? Or how else should I approach this?
I promise you that you are not the first student an Andover AO has interviewed with bumpy family relations, and as there is simply no way that you will get an offer from Andover w/o a parent or guardian participating, you might as well get your head around it now.
If the interview is virtual, can your father not join the call from wherever he is?
Either way, try not to let your anxiety about what your parent(s) will say about you distract you from the bigger picture: you want to go to Andover because [X]. You are a good fit for Andover because [Y]. Your hopes and aspirations are [Z]. Every minute that you spend trying to explain your parent(s) and their behaviour, or on gender & names, is time away from the AO getting to know you and how great an addition to the campus you would be. Answer questions clearly, forthrightly- and succinctly. Stay focused.
Interesting. My kiddo did not get into the two schools her Dad and I talked to the interviewer, and the one she did get into, we weren’t available for the interview. And we are supportive. Is that just an Andover thing? And how do you know? (the three were all HADES interviews). I think, your interview would go much more smoothly if you were not stressed about your parents part in it.
We didn’t interview with any of the four schools our son applied to (including Andover). We only visited one campus during his application round. No remote interviews. Heck, we never set foot on the Choate campus until revisit days. This was 2011 though.
…was there really no interaction between you & the schools? even when it was all virtual (as it was when we were doing apps from overseas) there was some direct parental involvement (typically phone conversations).
We did several zoom informational meetings, and before we had to commit had an informational zoom with her EC director with a few other kids, but no, I never talked to anyone from the school before she applied, or after accepted. After she was accepted I did speak on the phone to one parent who was assigned to us to answer questions. But that’s it. She picked 3 to apply to, we had never considered boarding school before, there was no way I thought we could afford it. She applied, did zoom interviews, was accepted to one with FA and decided to go sight unseen and knowing no one.
I can also confirm that parents did not interview at all our schools, not out of disinterest but sometimes scheduling made it not possible. And, some schools did not ask to interview with parents at all. (Speaking about last year. Pre-covid with different daughter I did meet every AO because we were right there in person doing campus visits and interviews.)
In any case, this did not seem to have any impact on admissions.
You will, however, likely need to include parents on the admin side of the equation at some point in the process if you end up going to BS, either in FA paperwork, student accounts, health forms, etc.
