<p>I also live in New York. I just got my interview call today!</p>
<p>@2d34bl, i live in dallas and just got contacted this afternoon.</p>
<p>My interview is confirmed, date and time set, any advice from those who have already had theirs. How were they, informal chats, or more directed questions.</p>
<p>**** my interview with an m&t alum lasted 30 minutes. My MIT interview was nearly 2 hours. But I feel like I made a good impression, how long are interviews supposed to be?</p>
<p>Wait, so am I the only one who scheduled their interview the day after November 1st and already finished it as well?</p>
<p>@TheWikiMan</p>
<p>My interviewer had me come to her apartment, where she had a conference room reserved for a chunk of time, which makes me think she had other interviewees lined up, but I didn’t see any other people that might have been interviewed. We sat down, and she was new to interviewing but really nice, and asked me questions that I think might have been from a list that Penn gave her but I’m not sure, it seemed like she was trying to remember questions. Anyways, she asked me: </p>
<p>-What kind of school I go to (I go to a special magnet school so she asked me about that)
-My favorite/least favorite classes
-What I like/what I would change about my school
-Why Penn
-She said she didn’t have a copy of my application or anything like that, so she asked if there was something I really wanted to stress to the admissions committee</p>
<p>She told me to dress casually and I wore leggings, a niceish dress/tunic, boots and a scarf (I’m a girl hah). </p>
<p>For anyone about clothes: </p>
<p>I talked to my stepdad who is an interviewer for Yale and he said that as far as clothes go, just look put together. If you know that it is a casual or coffee shop interview, don’t go full out suit because that makes it automatically seem as though you are trying to hard, but don’t wear sweat pants and a tshirt. Find a happy medium. </p>
<p>And my stepdad also said that a REALLY nice touch to the interviewer is to send them a thank you note. Just tell them you enjoyed your conversation, and try to add something personal about your interview to make them remember you specifically rather than just “Thanks!” (like if your interviewer told you that she just got a new cat and you guys shared a cat story or something, just a random example, show that you remember something about them and make yourself stand out a little more if she/he did get a lot of notes). </p>
<p>Anyways, this turned into a novel, best of luck! It’s really a lot easier than you think, just be yourself.</p>
<p>(Oh and my interview lasted ~45 min)</p>
<p>My meeting is at a Starbucks but my Guidence Counselor repeatedly said wear a suit anyways. I feel really conflicted…</p>
<p>Staller, have you spoken to your interviewer yet? I think you should go with how they speak; for example, my interviewer was a highly exuberant woman who spoke just as fast as I did. I went to the interview in a Polo and khaki’s; she came in something similarly dressed (for a woman, of course).</p>
<p>I’ve only spoken with the interviewer via short emails… I’m really tempted to go suit and tie but no Jacket as a compromise. I don’t know…</p>
<p>If you’re going to a Starbucks, I’d say that dress pants and a dress shirt would be fine (maybe even pushing it a bit). Then again, that’s just my opinion lol.</p>
<p>@samesis </p>
<p>Thanks for the info, that was pretty helpful, I think I can handle those questions pretty easily. As for clothes, I think I am fine, just a dress shirt, dress pants, and no tie should be good for me.</p>
<p>would a school uniform be acceptable if the interview is after school at a starbucks?</p>
<p>@yellowroses - yes…that would be ok…I’ve interviewed various candidates straight after school who have come in uniforms. </p>
<p>everyone else needs to chill out RE attire…just wear something that makes you look respectable…polo or dress shirt with some khakis is fine…just don’t show up looking like a slob. Remember these meetings are just an informal conversation (they aren’t really real interviews). Obviously your interviewer will fill out an interview report but no good interviewer will dock you for what you are wearing unless you are super unprofessional and rude. </p>
<p>All you really have to do in these interviews is express how passionate you are about Penn and show how much you know about the school which will show how passionate you are about the school…be friendly, professional, etc. You won’t get asked any hard questions (all you’ll really get asked is why penn? why wharton or the college or whatever? what are you passionate about? why a school in Philly? what do you want to study and why? etc etc etc). Come prepared with interesting questions about penn, etc. </p>
<p>Some of the best interviews I’ve done are with candidates that are friendly and know their stuff about penn and I can tell that they truly want to be at penn and nowhere else. </p>
<p>The worst interviews are with candidates who have no idea what they want to do, aren’t passionate about anything, don’t know that much about penn, don’t know why they want to study X, and are just flat out boring. I had one like this the other day…pretty much after 15 min i wanted to shoot myself and asking this person questions was like pulling teeth. Suffice it to say that the interview lasted no more than 30 min…when normally my interviews last 1 hour.</p>
<p>Is it a disadvantage not knowing what you want to do for an interview? I intend to talk about why me being undecided made me look to Penn…</p>
<p>And what are some memorable questions you were asked?</p>
<p>Thank you very much!</p>
<p>Still have not been contacted for an interview. I’ll admit - I only wrote 400 words on supplemental essay. Could this have done me in? Oh well - I can pick an alternate school and save 30,000 a year. Do I want to? UMM, NO!</p>
<p>this is a bit random but is it just mine or does all of your upenn portal thing say that the application status tracking “will be available shortly”?</p>
<p>and i havent been contacted yet either… so worried</p>
<p>apparently people don’t know how to read…just look at some of my previous posts.</p>
<p>STOP FREAKING OUT IF YOU DONT GET AN INTERVIEW! IT DOESN’T MEAN ANYTHING IF YOU DONT GET ONE. Here is how the process works:</p>
<ol>
<li>The regional secondary school committee (SSC) gets a list of candidates in the region (last year for example in my region there were 50 ED candidates)</li>
<li>Then the SSC splits up the candidates between their alumni volunteer interviewers (we only had 4…meaning we each had to take 12-13 during a 1 month period for ED…obviously since we all have full-time jobs no one can manage this many…we each interviewed ~6…which means that roughly half the candidates didnt get interviews).</li>
<li>How are they selected ??? RANDOMLY…especially since all we get is the candidates name, email, phone number, address, name of h.s., and school applying to (W/CAS/SEAS/N). In all honesty, we select them based on proximity. So if there are 4-5 candidates that live or go to school near my work or home I will choose them…</li>
</ol>
<p>SO STOP FREAKING OUT…if you dont get one it has no bearing on your application. If you get one then it has a very minimal impact positively/negatively on your application.</p>
<p>@staller - it is not really a disadvantage not knowing what you want to do…you can talk about how you are undecided and what attracted you to Penn since you’re undecided. </p>
<p>I would say that for the more pre-professional schools (Wharton/Nursing) this is a bit differerent since you are committing to a certain type of study. So you better have a reasonably good reason/idea for wanting to study at Wharton or in the Nursing school. I find it very annoying when I ask a candidate why they want to study UG business or why they want to study at Wharton and the response I get is…oh well it’s the best UG bschool, has great academics, i want to work in “business”…good responses talk about your career aspirations and how wharton will help you get there, giving specifics about classes or profs at Wharton that you’ve research, recruiting examples, anything to show that you’ve done deep research. </p>
<p>one particularly memorable response went something like this:</p>
<p>Why do you want to study at Wharton?</p>
<p>“Over the past few years I’ve developed a passion for finance and in particular the private equity space, despite the fact that PE has been pretty slow in recent years. In particular I hope to one day work at a mega-fund focused on LOBs, places like TPG, Carlyle, Blackstone, etc. One of the things that most attracted me to Wharton was, in addition to the top-notch academics and world-renowned finance department, the fact Wharton is probably the only school in the country that offers its graduates the opportunity to compete for PE jobs straight out of undergrad. I noticed in the annual Wharton career surveys that over the past 3 years Wharton has sent X candidates to Blackstone, Silver Lake, etc. Which is particularly impressive since most of these firms only recruit candidates with at least 2 years of investment banking experience. Additionally, I was researching some of the courses that Wharton offered and noticed that there was a private equity class taught by X professor - who I recently saw on CNBC being interviewed about the leveraged buyout of “NewCo.” Which on a side note, was a pretty interesting deal for X, Y, Z reasons. So given my interest in private equity I feel that Wharton will be the best place to prepare for a career in this field and in addition may afford me the opportunity to join a fund directly after undergrad.”</p>
<p>just as a caveat…so that people don’t freak out after reading that response…you obviously dont have to be that well versed in the industry or in anything. This candidate was just off the charts in my book…in terms of eloquence, ability to talk about finance concepts, the market, etc. </p>
<p>You wont really any technical questions or be asked to talk about the market, etc…although be aware that if you bring it up then it’s fair game and an interviewer like me may ask you follow up questions. So don’t try to sound smart or current or whatever by talking about something you briefly read about in the WSJ if you can’t really talk to it. </p>
<p>Speaking of that, I had a candidate one time tell me he was super interested in and actively traded FX (for those that dont know this is foreign exchange - or currency). So I asked him was positions he actively followed and if he was using leverage or not, etc…the kid just looked at me with a blank stare.</p>