<p>It would certainly be a challenge to overcome something like shyness in such a short time. Even if there were no financial gains to be made from interviewing, it is important to get your daughter to open up and learn how to communicate effectively. We live in a multicultural world made up of all types of people and personalities. Has your daughter been exposed to much diversity? Usually the more exposed you are to people unlike yourself, the more open you are.</p>
<p>In addition to trying what everyone is saying, try propanolol like wjb suggested. It's meant exactly for situations like this, the once or twice a year event that seems overwhelming. Some doctors call it the butterfly pill, for obvious reasons. Just slows your heart rate down a bit to help you get through times like this. Makes you feel calmer. Just knowing it's there can help; after a few interviews, she'll find she doesn't need it anymore.</p>
<p>Tell her that if she wants your money to go to that school, she has to help you out by bringing the costs down.</p>
<p>Push her. How do you think she'll get a job in future? Through an interview. </p>
<p>Make her learn now about the real world rather than later.</p>
<p>Let your daughter decide for herself what she wants to do with her life. Controlling parents are the sewage of society.</p>
<p>If the difference could be $60k, it would be worth it to have at least one session of professional help. The least she would get is some help with her shyness.</p>
<p>lunitari, as someone who was once terribly shy (and still can be sometimes) but has gone on to teach workshops and college courses and make presentations to rooms of 1,000 people, I agree with most of the advice you've received. Meeting fears is how we grow. I would take the emphasis off of being judged for a scholarship and focus instead on the experience she will gain, and the fact that unless she throws up on somebody's shoes or something, she really has nothing to lose. And even if it doesn't go well, she will see that the sun is still shining when she walks out the door. Meeting her fear is a valuable experience regardless of the outcome.</p>
<p>It's also perfectly okay for her to begin the interview with a slight nod to her nervousness; e.g., "If my voice is a little shaky, I apologize -- this is the first time I've interviewed with so many people." But these are people who /already/ consider her to be among the very best, or she wouldn't even get to interview.</p>
<p>I'm not a fan of the "doping" approach; especially if she doesn't have the relevant symptoms, I think a heart-slowing drug would be a bad idea. And the messages it would send her (you can't do this without drugs, and it's not ok to feel nervous when you're tackling something big) seem wrong to me. If she actually had the condition, that would be one thing -- but from what you say, she doesn't.</p>
<p>Just for fun, you might run some numbers with her; this is how I encouraged geek_son to take just one more marathon standardized test after he hit the burnout point. If she spends 10 hours in prep time and two hours in the interview, and gets a $15k/year scholarship, she'll have earned $5,000/hour for her time. And if she doesn't get it, hey -- they won't charge her extra, and she won't spend any time agonizing over whether or not she could have gotten the scholarship. Not to mention, even if she doesn't get the scholarship, this is a chance to put her name and face before several people at the school who will view her as a young lady of exceptional talent and courage -- not a bad way to start her academic career.</p>
<p>One concrete suggestion in parting: If there is time, consider getting her into a local Toastmasters club and having her give her first couple of speeches. That would give her some practice speaking extemporaneously in front of a group of adults who are evaluating her -- but there would be no stakes that really matter to her. And the feedback she'd get would be very useful, not only for this interview but for class presentations, valedictorian speeches, and anything else that puts her in front of people who are waiting to hang on her words. :-)</p>
<p>Toastmasters is an awesome idea. You might also want to find out who coaches your high school debate team -- call this person up, and see if they'd be willing to work with your daughter a bit some evening on public speaking techniques.</p>
<p>Also, one of the best things I ever did in college was to have a videotaped 'mock interview' through career services. There's nothing like actually watching the footage played back to you to get a sense of any odd verbal tics you might have, hand gestures that look more like flapping motions, weird things you do with your tongue -- you get the idea. Chances are you have a video camera at home -- maybe just pull it out and spend a few days playing with it? Have her interview you guys, have some friends interview her, have her interview her friends -- might help everybody prepare for those interviews. . .</p>
<p>One other thing about Toastmasters is that you will see other people that are just as nervous and shy making the effort to gain the ability to speak in public and that you are not the only person and you're not odd in finding difficulty in doing this.</p>
<p>The idea about asking the school's debate coach is great. If time is of the essence that would be the shortest route. Toastmasters sound great too. I just Googled it and found more than 20 groups in the area by just putting down my zipcode.</p>
<p>It would be nice if you can find out how aggressive these interviews have been in the past. Specifically, you'd like to know whether it is a grilling or something pleasant. My daughter, who was very shy but is succeeding in overcoming it, found that a recent interview at an LAC was very satisfying, due partly to the wonderful interviewer.</p>
<p>I agree with emag about trying to find out in advance how aggressive the interviews have been in the past. CC is the perfect place to find out. Go to the scholarship thread or thread for the particular college that you are applying for and just ask if anyone has tried for this scholarship in the past and what the interview was like. So many people,
just like the ones who have posted here, are so helpful and willing to share advice.</p>
<p>If it is a special (named) scholarship for a school, they expect these students to be like ambassadors for the school. Our friend was invited for an interview along with the other nominees and they were treated to a wonderful dinner. He couldn't help noticing that everything was being scrutinized, including their table manners.</p>
<p>Like Geek Mom, I base my response on personal experience and as having served as a leader of a high school youth group for several years. </p>
<p>1) Avoid doping! This can lead to unexpected side effects in a stress situation and in the end undermines your childs confidence that she is sufficient to do this on her own even more!</p>
<p>2) Stress that this is an important opportunity to try out interview experiences. I recommend strongly de-emphasizing the importance of the potential monetary outcome of success. The importance is on going through the experience-even if she ultimately finds it very difficult and doesn't perform up to her own standards. After the experience, go over what she has learned from the experience</p>
<p>3) make this part of an ongoing effort and couple it with toastmasters or similar groups.</p>
<p>4) Lastly, stress for her to be herself-not what she percieves a school ambassador should be!</p>
<p>this isnt even about her.</p>
<p>doesnt she care about YOU? doesnt she want YOU to pay less money?</p>
<p>if she doesnt interview, she is totally selfish im sorry to say.</p>
<p>I haven't had time to read all the posts, but I, too, am an extremely shy person (have to talk to myself to pick up the phone) who has learned to speak before crowds of hundreds often and none of my friends now will even believe I am shy.</p>
<p>I <em>highly</em> recommend practicing. We did this with my son before all his scholarship interviews and it helped him tremendously to feel like he had a "portfolio" of answers and wasn't unprepared. We used questions from one of the books about getting into the top colleges as well as questions I made up. It <em>really</em> paid off with scholarship offers from most of the schools he applied to and a full ride from his top choice!</p>
<p>I agree that this is a absolutely necessary skill and when better to try it out then when it costs you nothing, but may gain you thousands :-)</p>
<p>I got over my shyness by deciding it just wasn't worth it - it was costing me too much. I decided I would just pretend I wasn't shy. I'm still pretending in some ways, but now I really enjoy interacting and knowing so many folks and I'd never go back -- even if I have butterflies that no one would ever believe :-)</p>
<p>I wanted to add that I would not videotape her practice and show it to her. Even though I am very highly rated speaker, it takes <em>all</em> my strength to make myself listen to my tapes. It gives me the horrors. Listening to them is never as bad as the dread, but I have noticed that if I make a mistake or don't handle something perfectly, it really worries me to death. Not worth it.</p>
<p>
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try propanolol like wjb suggested.
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</p>
<p>Or you could try placebomycin...</p>
<p>Oh, buzz off, zzzboy. Preferably to Remedial Empathy lessons. This is a sweet, smart, good kid without a mean bone in her body. She's not selfish, she's scared and stressed. </p>
<p>I know--and she knows, too--that she needs to conquer the worst of her shyness to function independently in the wider world. But calling her names isn't a constructive way to do that. </p>
<p>My sincere thanks to those who offered all the good advice. For now she's RSVP'ed "yes" to going to the scholarship interview weekend, to keep her options open. It won't be till after the holidays, so she's got some time to get used to the idea and do some practicing. After that--well, we'll see.</p>
<p>It all depends on the kid. There are many wonderful suggestions posted here, but with S1, absolutely none of them would have worked. Believe me, we tried. Similar situation as lun's. S1's MD suggested butterfly pill. After much research, after every other possible alternative was tried, we went with it. TINY pill, TINY dosage. It's for those rare situations, not an everyday thing. </p>
<p>I think half of it was psychological, half was the very light affect of the pill. Well, after the two occasions S used this, he had such positive feedback that he didn't need it anymore. It was all he needed to get over the hurdle.</p>
<p>The other suggestions might work for 99.99% of the kids, but if you're that 0.01%, with careful consideration, there are alternatives. Hopefully, lun, you won't need to go there. I just ended up with a few outlier kids (plus a few non-outliers.)</p>
<p>"I used to have six theories and no children; now I have six children and no theories." from the 1600s</p>