<p>Okay, my helicopter thingies are spinning wildly out of control. My d is scheduled for an interview in a few days, and she is quite relaxed. In fact she is quite relaxed about this whole college thing, and I am LIVING on College Confidential. I hope I am maintaining my cool as far as she can see ( I do do that for a living), and I am not wanting to make her anxious about the interview, but isn't she supposed to know why she wants to go to various schools by now? I mean aside from the availability of horseback riding? Arghhh! I have come to the conclusion that her school and friends are SO not the College Confidential type, and that could be a good thing, but I'm finding it hard to ignore the opportunities people are offering her. I will tell her to come up with a few questions to ask, and otherwise leave it alone. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>Your daughter's attitude is common! It was mine, and I made it into and through Scripps just fine :) Furthermore, count your blessings...it'll probably make your home a much happier place throughout this year! There is a big difference between laid-back and indifferent, though. The first can be a great quality, while the second could spoil an interview.</p>
<p>Before the interview, your daughter should think a little about what it is she likes about Scripps. She doesn't have to be able to recite the history of the school...specifics are good (Core, emphasis on interdisciplinality, a particular facility or professor, part of Ellen Browning Scripps' mission), but generalities are okay, too (size, location, all women, part of the consortium, strong humanities). I also recommend going on a tour before the interview, as it might give your daughter some "ammo" ("I was really struck by..." sort of stuff). But remember that some students just tour the school because they're in LA and they do an interview just in case they decide to apply and can't get back to the area. Obviously that's not the ideal case, but it's one that makes sense, so not knowing the school inside-and-out is really alright. That said, it's one thing to say "I only learned about Scripps just recently, so I'm still doing my research, but already I love...." and another thing to imply "Meh...don't know, don't care...I'll get to it." </p>
<p>Another important thing to do is some interview brainstorming...think about FAQ's and come up with some thoughts. Your daughter doesn't have to (and probably shouldn't) rehearse complete responses, but she also won't want to be caught repeatedly off guard, going "Huh...that's a tough question...hmmmm..." throughout her interview. If your friends could pick one word to describe you, what would it be? If you could pick one word to describe yourself, what would it be? What's important to you in a college? What's your best/worst quality? How did you learn about this school? What are you most passionate about? Just stuff like that. Your daughter can give thought to this on the plane, in the car, wherever.</p>
<p>I think you're right to encourage your daughter to give a little bit of thought to the interview, but you shouldn't worry too much about her low-key attitude. The process really doesn't have to be intimidating or stress-causing. I've seen kids walk into interviews in business clothes, copies of transcripts, essays, and recommendations in hand. I've seen other kids head in in jeans, saying "Wow! We wound up here kind of accidentally after touring the school next door...it's beautiful!" As long as the interviewee is decently articulate and personable, I don't think that either attitude is cause for concern.</p>
<p>(Clearly, the appropriate disclaimer here is that I'm not an adcom).</p>
<p>Good luck to your daughter this week :)</p>
<p>Thanks so much! She learned about Scripps because they invited her to a weekend for a diversity thing. That's how she found out about Scripps...She's gotten a few of these invites and it really IS the reason she's checking it out. How okay is that to say? She's following through because she likes it, but at the core is , THEY invited HER.</p>
<p>[Again, these are only my anecdotes and assumptions...nooo professional backing! But at the very least, they're the assumptions of someone who's done well in a fair number of interviews.]</p>
<p>I think it's completely fine for your daughter to be truthful about the fact that Scripps invited HER (I'd recommend it). It's a tiny school...LAC's can rarely rely on students discovering them independently! But presumably, even if that invite is what caught your daughter's interest, there's something else that's keeping it...after all, she didn't toss the invite into the trash! </p>
<p>I think that "it's not what you say, it's how you say it" is at least partially true in a case like this. For example, I learned about Scripps entirely by accident. My family was down in LA and we toured CMC and Pomona (along with other non-Claremonts). After leaving CMC, we got lost on our way back to the car and wound up walking through part of Scripps campus...in the pouring rain, no less! Well, a member of the admissions staff saw us, brought us into the office, gave us all coffee and hot chocolate, took down my information, asked me all about myself and told me about Scripps, gave us a campus map and directions back to our car, and sent me home with every brochure that the office had. Even more impressively, the woman remembered me when I came back to Claremont to tour and interview at Scripps! In my interview and my "Why Scripps?" essay, I was candid about my initial disinterest in Scripps (I went to a girls high school, so single-sex colleges had been indiscriminately shoved off of my radar), but I also shared this story (as well as others) and used it to talk about how impressed I was at the generosity, personal attention, and passion shown to me by every student and staff member that I ran into, starting with the admissions secretary. The passion that Scripps students, staff, and faculty showed for their school, as well as their dedication to prospective students, were both completely unrivaled by any other school that I visited, and that was what originally motivated me to learn more. </p>
<p>So, again, I'll note the difference between being laid-back (as in your previous post) or honest (as in this one) and being disinterested. I took my semi-weird introduction to Scripps and twisted it into a compliment and a lead-in, taking the focus away from the root of the story, which was "I didn't care about this school in the first place." If I had gone into my interview with an attitude that said "Okay, you brought me here, now sell yourself," I'm sure I would've been in trouble! So saying "Eh, they sent me an invite, so I don't know, I came...it seems nice" is very different than your daughter admitting that the invite piqued her interest, but then going into how she appreciates the school's commitment to diversity, or just talking about what else she learned about the school that convinced her to visit. It's just an issue of attitude and of framing. And not that there aren't plenty of honest-to-goodness wonderful things to be said for Scripps and for Claremont, never underestimate a teenager's ability to BS under pressure ;)</p>
<p>In many ways, I think that having a solid reason like your daughter's or like mine, however unflattering the reason might seem, puts an applicant in a better position than many (if not most), who have to turn things like "I don't know...my mom/counselor/neighbor suggested it," "I live nearby and my SAT's are in-range," or "I saw that it was really high on the good dorms and good food lists" into interesting and flattering responses (and I speak as someone who had to do that at a few other schools)!</p>
<p>Great input, as usual! Thanks</p>
<p>Copy and paste from gracieloos thread...</p>
<p>We are just back from my d's alumnae interview. She hasn't shared much, but was told to "bone up" on the conjoint science program if she was going to do a "admissions interview" ( with someone from admission, I assume on campus?). I imagine she shared she might want to major in biology. My d was very "laid back" about the whole thing. ( not indifferent if you are reading this student615...smile..). She is SO not the "college confidential" type. I was in the KFC nearby trying to MYOB, and couldn't clarify as we were driving away..</p>