<p>How extensively should I be researching my interviewer’s background? I mean, aside from knowing info about Brown, how much time should I devote to knowing what my interviewer teaches, books written, interests, personality, etc? (if the interviewer happens to be a professor, it is fairly easy to find out a little bit about his/her personality and attitude…)</p>
<p>So, how important is prior knowledge of “who” your interviewer is to doing a Brown interview?</p>
<p>I’m an interviewer and I’m an MD/PhD student so I would find it odd if someone had googled me (they wouldn’t find particularly much either). I would imagine the vast majority of interviewers expect you to know nothing about them as we are not part of your Brown experience per se. We are simply meant to be a face for you as well as a chance to have an actual person from Brown interact with you one on one to supplement your application.</p>
<p>You absolutely should know a lot about Brown University though - I have dinged kids (whether or not this actually had any impact on their app I’ll never know) for not appearing to know much about Brown beyond “open curriculum”</p>
<p>An interview has time constraints. Ordinarily, it lasts no more than an hour. If you spend that hour talking about "what my interviewer teaches, books written, interests, personality, etc,” you’ve wasted a great opportunity to let him know more about YOU!</p>
<p>Gee, can I flip that and ask how much I should google the student I’m about to interview? Should I check his/her Facebook page and Twitter feed and Tumblr?</p>
<p>OP: You shouldn’t need to know anything about your interviewer at all. I have never expected my interviewees to Google me, and to my knowledge none of them have. The only reason I can think of to do a little stalking is to find out their age and profession, because that may help you decide what to wear (you might dress differently for a 2012 alum who works at a foodbank than an investment banker who graduated in 1970, for example). I would be a little creeped out if one of my interviewees started talking too intimately about me.</p>