<p>After digging around, I cannot find where I came up with the tidbit about psychologists. Could've sworn I saw some BS with shrinks all in the admissions department. I stand corrected and apologize for the oversight.</p>
<p>I'm sure you saw what you think you saw. I'm just wondering where. No reason to start on a regimen of Gingko Balboa or Saw Palmetto or whatever it is that staves off early onset Alzheimer's just yet!</p>
<p>I think in the particular school members of the faculty do the admissions interviews (I could be wrong) - would that make an interview potentially less stressful, or more, in your opinion?</p>
<p>Thanks D'yer Maker. I feel like Papillon in detention when he can't remember who gave him the coconuts.</p>
<p>Alpha1 Faculty as interviewers? Sounds really interesting to me - leads to completely different kinds of questions, say, about specifics of academics, course loads, availability of extra help etc. (less stressful!)</p>
<p>D'yer Maker & Burb Parent; thanks for notes about parental anxieties and mis-steps -</p>
<p>We had a Saturday interview at Episcopal HS and apparently they give some AdCom people the weekend off, so we had a teacher as the interviewer. We were in someone else's office. But these interviewers are apparently trained -- or at least regularly used -- as they have business cards for the faculty interviewers in case you want to call them later. I think the idea is to ease the interview load. My assumption is that the notes are just as professional. I'm not sure if they sit in on decisions or are called in to discuss the applicants they interviewed. My guess is "no" -- at least not unless there's a question of some significance. </p>
<p>I kind of liked it because it provided an admissions contact I could deal with directly without having the subtextual conversation of "Will they think I'm asking this to just to make an impression?" or "I'm not sure I can ask that question without raising a flag or having them think I'm a psycho."</p>
<p>As for parental mis-steps: Oh brother! "My" Exeter interview was just so weird. And I did something, quite by accident, at another school that was close to that scene with Steve Martin in "Father of the Bride" where he gets caught peeking at the in-laws' check register </p>
<p>In my case I gave up my chair in a crowded waiting room to a disabled person and stood in a hallway admiring a portrait, but apparently there was some major conference going on on the other side of the door behind me and when the door flew open it seemed obvious by the "Can I help you?" comment that they thought I was eavesdropping and I just said "Ummmm..." when what I should have said was, "No, I'm just admiring this portrait of C. Pennington Brownnose, VI because that cripple in there needed a seat because the waiting room's overflowing because you guys were sitting in a room telling jokes."</p>
<p>And, as if that wasn't bad enough, there's the story I won't tell anyone for maybe a year when I can bring myself to laugh at it!</p>
<p>D'yer- so what d'ya think of EHS? Schools often have faculty members on the admissions committee. Their vote counts as much as the admissions officers. Those were probably committee members filling in that weekend!</p>
<p>I know--- d'yer, we are talking about prepping the kids for the interviews, but we really could use a parent prep session!</p>
<p>@ sabooks: The faculty interviewers at EHS don't seem to be part of the Ad Com. They're not pictured on the web page with the Ad Com. They're not identified anywhere as being part of the Admissions Office. I know of schools where there are Ad Com members who also teach. But these were teachers who also pitched in -- apparently strictly for interviewing -- with the Ad Com, just as they might fill in as backups as library proctors or relief in the dorms, etc.</p>
<p>I could be wrong (heck, I should just tack that on to every sentence I post here!) but it seemed like EHS' faculty interviewer was more disconnected than any of the others that I read about at other schools he applied to (though that was the only time when my S had a person who also taught interview him).</p>
<p>EHS is 100% boarders, like SPS, which I think is important when you're minutes from Washington, DC. I used to live about 10 minutes from the campus and I can't say that I knew it existed until I moved away and worked with a guy who went there. I was more familiar with the St. Albans and Georgetown Prep circle...and I don't think that EHS runs in that crowd...partly because of the 100% boarder community. I regard it as one of those (relatively) undiscovered places that can be an excellent fit for so many who need to look beyond the TSAO circuit. Apart from the new science building, the academic facilities seemed sort of rickety and worn. Sports are excellent. (It's also across the street from the "Remember the Titans" high school.) And, overall, EC opportunities are just phenomenal. For my S who likes performing music on stage, it's a great location. (The music/performing arts facilities are not quite what they are at Lawrenceville or Hotchkiss though they might be a draw with Exeter which has a vastly superior practice facility but -- amazingly enough -- is lacking a real performing arts venue for music.) Wednesdays are half days and many students have internships in DC...just a short Metro ride away. They really play up the "John McCain went to EHS" angle -- going so far as to work it into one of their essays! There's a limited amount of merit money available, too. My best friends live in Northern Virginia and work in or near DC...and they've got kids my son's age and they all get along together, so that was another big plus for EHS and made us consider it when, in all honesty, we might have just bypassed it due to TSAO Tunnel Vision.</p>
<p>As an ex-Marketing person, I can tell you that TSAO is a marketing organization formed by peer schools more than 40 years ago. I think of it as the first growth classification of chateaux created in 1855. Actually Bordeaux chateaux were given a rating from 1 to 5, and with only 2 exceptions, these ratings still exist today. If the TSAO were formed today, I think some of the schools on the list would not be invited and others would be asked.</p>
<p>TSAO has very effective marketing efforts, including admissions fairs all over the country. Perhaps they go abroad too. No sure. At any rate, other schools ought to band together in a similar manner. I'm sure there are cost savings from forming a group to do joint marketing efforts, but initial branding costs would be higher. I just wish that more people would see that it is as an effective marketing organization, and not anything more than that.</p>
<p>I wonder if interviews have changed since my kids went through this (one is now in college and the other a junior in hs). We didn't prep the boys for the interview - my only advice was to be sure to shake hands and look the interviewer in the eye. Their interviews at private day schools were very relaxed and not something to be nervous about. The admissions counselors spent a lot of time talking to young teenagers and instantly put my kids at ease. My older son back then could be quiet and shy with strangers, but he had chatty sessions each time - enthusiastically talking about a book he had just read in one interview, about baseball in another. I remember my younger son spending a lot of time talking about playing the saxophone with one interviewer, and about a recent science project in school with another. Each interview was just a casual conversation - the boys were not expected to toot their own horn, just talk about things that interested them. The interviewers seemed to pull questions from information provided on the application. At each school, the parent was interviewed separately, but these were very short conversations. Maybe the whole process has changed and become more competitive?</p>
<p>You've just outlined my experience this year, jrpar. I think it's the same...except that we're all gazing at our navels and doing more introspection and reliving those moments here...partly because the process was so competitive and partly because this forum makes it easy to do.</p>
<p>@ Burb Parent: Agree, agree, agree!</p>
<p>Also, in retrospect, I found it to be a mistake to set up interviews at the TSAO event that we went to. The thinking at the time was that it would save time/cost of travel to all the schools. What happened, however, was that when we later visited the schools we got a tour and were then left pretty much to our own devices. Not surprisingly, the schools we interviewed with on campus in conjunction with a tour made a much better impression on us.</p>
<p>The TSAO event also spent most of its time/energy on making the case for boarding schools in general. Once you understand that much, it's impossible to really get any meaningful impression of a specific BS from the Ad Com rep at a table in a hotel meeting room. It's certainly not going to be as meaningful as the impression you'd get from the firsthand visit you need to make eventually. And it's not even going to be good enough to help you cross schools off your list...based on information you couldn't gather from a quick trip to the school's web site.</p>
<p>When my S interviewed with 3 schools at the TSAO event the interviews were conducted in high back chairs that lined hallways and alcoves in the hotel. People were walking by, people were setting up and needed to get their booths set up, and the interviewers were sort of ragged from being in 4 cities in 4 days...focused more on pitching BS than being in "interview" mode.</p>
<p>As a rule, I would dissuade people from interviewing at TSAO events. In fact, unless someone here can come up with a reason that escapes me, I'm not sure if there's any value in attending a TSAO event if you've decided that BS is for you (or your child). Three exceptions I can think of would be if you live within 10 minutes of the hotel and your child doesn't have much homework that night; you already have one child at a particular school and this is a convenient time to get the interview requirement checked off; your child is already at the school and you want to take the school's interviewer out to dinner. For us, with a 100 mile drive...I wouldn't do it again in retrospect.</p>
<p>Some schools also host receptions for just that school. I found those events to be highly valuable. They demonstrate that the applicant has a sincere interest in the school, they offer an opportunity to meet with families of current students and recent alums, and a good possibility for a little "bonding" with the school's Ad Com. Most importantly, the information about the school that was delivered was top quality information. If you get a postcard inviting you to one of these events, clear your calendar even if it's a couple hours away.</p>