Short Interview

My Lville interview was less than 30 mins, and being nervous, I froze and was not as complete and engaging with my responses. So, clearly, bombed it. I feel terrible, and want to hear your stories of short interviews. Misery likes company.

Was asked basically the same question over and over for my Deerfield interview and I didn’t want to talk down about myself (gotta sell myself to the school amiright) so I ended up freezing so much cause it was the “how would person describe you” question and I didn’t want to sound like a narcissist. Bombed some other interviews too (Lville, namely) so you’re not alone lol.

Two of my interviews, at Choate and Hotchkiss, were really short. The interviewer part only lasted about 15 minutes or so, while I asked questions for 10 minutes so that was 25 minutes in total. They only asked questions such as “why our school” or “what other schools are you considering”, and didn’t even bother to ask about my extracurriculars. I’m assuming it’s because they’ve already seen my profile and did not need to know more.

Something to keep in mind : Both are professional admissions officers (instead of faculty/coaches/alumni), and I heard that they have a reputation of giving short interviews…

I don’t think a short interview necessary means the interviewer didn’t like you. Different interviewers have different styles and it’s entirely possible that they often end interviews around the 30 min mark. My L’ville interview was cut pretty short as well (around 25-30 min), but overall I still think it went okay. Ultimately, you have no way of knowing what the interviewer was thinking, so you probably didn’t bomb anything!
As for my personal interview screw ups, my entire first interview (Exeter) was horribly awkward! I froze up on multiple questions, and in the middle of it my sister accidentally turned off my bedroom lights, and because I was wearing pajama pants I had to embarrassingly turn off my camera (while mistakingly keeping my audio on) and shuffle around my room to turn the lights back on, while the guy was still talking! I’ve honestly tried to block the content of most of my interviews from my memory, but I remember scrutinizing over every answer I gave after the Exeter interview ended for a good two hours and wanting to curl up and die from embarrassment. Eek. At least they got significantly better after that first one. At the end of my Hotchkiss interview, which at the time I honestly thought was going great, the AO basically told me that the odds of being accepted as a sophomore unless I was an excellent athlete (which I’m not) where remarkably low, because they overenrolled last year. Talk about bringing down the mood.
Don’t worry about your L’ville interview, what’s done is done, and I’m sure that it went much better than you think! Length isn’t an indicator of how it went. Generally, we’re all way more critical on ourselves than others are.

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My Choate interview was relatively short, couldn’t have been more than 15 minutes or so. But I ended up getting in, so don’t feel discouraged.

All my interviews sucked, esp. Andover, so don’t worry

Andover: My WORST interview out of all of them. So the beginning went like this:
Interviewer: “Hello! I’m so excited to get to know you!”
Me: “Me too! smile”
awkward silence
Another very not epic moment was when she asked me to brag about myself. I literally interrupted myself three times to say “I don’t want to brag, but…” and the interviewer had to keep reminding me to brag about myself. Not only that, but sometimes I didn’t answer the right questions so she had to keep repeating them sometimes. I also rambled a lot, and I kept getting off the topic of the question…
Interviewer: “So do you think your classes are boring because they’re not challenging enough?”
Me: “Oh yep! Also because there isn’t enough participation. It’s sorta boring when you have to listen to the teacher when you have nothing to do.”
Interviewer: “Of course. Of course.” scribbles furiously
Oh and the worst one:
Interviewer: “What schools are you applying to besides Andover?”
Me: “Uhh, Exeter, Choate, and St. Paul’s School, but they’re mainly backup schools.” :woman_facepalming:t2::woman_facepalming:t2::woman_facepalming:t2::woman_facepalming:t2::woman_facepalming:t2::woman_facepalming:t2::woman_facepalming:t2::woman_facepalming:t2::woman_facepalming:t2:
The interview was the shortest one out of all of them (like 25 minutes). The interviewer came a bit late though, so maybe less.

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