A couple months ago, I had an alumni interview for a college (top 20 USNWR) at a local coffee shop. I was very excited because this school was/is my top choice, but I haven’t had a chance to visit because it’s far away. Here’s how my interview went…
I was waiting at the coffee shop looking around, and my interviewer seemed to be about 10 minutes late. As I’m waiting, I hear someone whisper “hi,” and I see that it’s my interviewer. She says “I’ve been trying to get your attention for five minutes,” I apologize, shake her hand and introduce myself, all that stuff. She sits down, and starts out interview by saying in a shaky voice, “These things are really awkward…You’re lucky this is my third interview.” I’ll add that I’m not an intimidating person either, I’m a blonde 17-year-old girl. Now at this point she is literally shaking, fidgeting with a pen in her hand, and not making eye contact. She takes out her notepad and a sheet of paper that has examples of questions for alumni interviews, and just randomly picks things from the list. She seemed to get a little less nervous by the end, but I felt like all she wanted to do was get out of there. The interview lasted about half an hour and I did most of the talking, and I really didn’t get to learn as much about the school as I would have liked.
I left the interview disappointed, but I felt like I handled it the best that I could and kind of forgot about it. Recently, I was reading a thread on college confidential about a bad interview experience that someone had, and someone recommended that they contact admissions about it. I know that this interview experience was very unusual since I’ve had about 6 interviews before. Should I contact admissions and inform them about this? Could I possibly get another interview? I know there are more interviewers in my area. Would contacting them hurt my chances of being accepted in any way?
A couple months ago? Was it for EA/ED? I think it’ll be too late to rectify the damage, if any.
It was RD, but my interview was around December 15th.
If you contact the AO now – after two complete months – seeking another interview, it may bring up some of the unnecessary questions. Why didn’t you contact the AO immediately following your interview?
Were I you, I wouldn’t contact admissions; here’s why: This appears to me to be a marginal interview, more based on the alum’s inexperience than on fundamentally inappropriate or obnoxious behavior (which seemed prevalent in the recent CC thread we both read). Since this school is your first choice, you have to evaluate if contacting the university could potentially be perceived as your being a “challenge.” I do not suggest that would be fair or accurate – not at all – but you could be the only “complainant” among the '19 applicants, and admissions could possibly feel, “we don’t need this potential trouble.” However, if the interviewer’s comportment was truly offensive or improper, that would be an entirely different situation.
yes, contact the school if you don’t want to be admitted. I don’t see anything that was wrong…that alumni took time out of her day to see you.
So tired of entitled kids.
I agree, viphan and TopTier, and I don’t plan to contact them. I didn’t think it was necessary to contact the school initially, but I read an old thread with a similar situation and thought maybe it would be a good idea to contact them.
Sorry, GA2012MOM, I of course appreciated her taking time out of her day (I sent her a nice thank you letter and I was very polite during my interview). I just wasn’t sure if the college would want to know about something like this. I don’t think it’s very kind to accuse me of being entitled, but to each their own.
@NicaBenji (re post #6): I believe you’ve made the right, smart decision. Just to illustrate that it’s wise to think ahead, let’s say: (1) you were to contact the university, which (2) then approached the alumna for an explanation, and she (3) produced your gracious and complimentary (I would guess) thank you note. I know your letter was simply a kindness, however, might it make one look foolish – as well as completely undermining the complaint – under the foregoing circumstances?
You’re right, TopTier. I didn’t even think about that. Thank you for the advice! I’ve seen your input on other threads and you’ve actually been very helpful throughout different aspects of my college application process, so I really appreciate it!
I think it is only right to contact the admins if there was something improper, something more serious, not just because it didn’t go as you liked or hoped it would. Hopefully that alum will get better or give it up. Sure it wasn’t the best representative for the college. But there are other ways to talk to alums from the college.
@NicaBenji: Thank you, you’re very kind.
I am an alumni interviewer and I would think that you should notify your adcom. The interview has two parts usually: 1) To learn more about you and 2) To “sell” the school. If they have an interviewer out there that is overwhelmed then I think it would be good to know. They are not marketing the school well.
If you do contact the adcom, do it after the decisions are released for that school, so you don’t have to worry about any influence.
On the other hand, I do have to say that the colleges will send an interviewer multiple names at a time and sometimes it is hard to schedule everything and can be a bit much. When she said “this is my third interview” I wonder if it was her third in a row and she has been drinking coffee the whole time, or her third ever which means she might be nervous herself.