So, I just checked my spam folder and saw an email titled “Alumnae Interview Opportunity.” The sender is asking me if I would like to have an “informational” meeting, and if I do, I should respond to her email to arrange a meeting. I googled the name of the sender, she appears legit. I just wanted to check to make sure this is a normal thing to happen for Penn interviews. Also, are Penn interviews evaluative? I seem to recall reading that they are, but this email suggests that it’s just for me to ask questions about “the PENN experience” (although the email title does say “interview”). Thanks in advance!
Quick follow-up question: If my interviewer gave her title (MD) in the email, I should address her accordingly, correct? So I would call her Dr.____?
This is a normal thing to happen – I don’t think anything is amiss with the invite. Colleges know the limited utility of the alumni write up so don’t worry about that aspect. However, it’s a good time to really find out some things about Penn and give your input as well. I’d encourage it. Since she did include her title in her name, calling her Dr. Jane Doe is perfectly fine.
Sounds good, I emailed her and let her know I was interested. So just to double check, the interview isn’t evaluative then? Or will the interviewer still write up a report about me?
I’m pretty sure a report will be submitted – how Penn views it or what the interviewer is asked to relay is unknown by me. Probably your overall sociability, enthusiasm & knowledge of Penn, lack of scary attributes. LOL Best of luck to you!
The interview is both informative and evaluative, but probably not evaluative in the way you might be thinking. Since interviewers don’t have (and shouldn’t be interested in) your GPA and your test scores, the interview is really about getting to know Penn and putting a personal touch on an application. Generally the interview report will support what is already in the application. I’m not sure exactly how much weight, if any, most interviews get, but interviews are great opportunity to talk about things that have changed since the application was submitted or that for whatever reason could not be included on the application in as much detail as the applicant would have liked.
Penn interviewers write up a report about the meeting. Penn expects the report to cover three basic things:
- What is the applicant like?
- What are the applicants passions and interests?
- What would the applicant be like at Penn?
Different interviewers have different ways of answering these questions. With me, it’s usually a casual conversation as opposed to a strict Q&A. I do HAVE some stock questions, and I have some questions I can use when an interview stalls, but for the most part I find that all these areas get addressed in the course of the conversation.
Have you looked at the interview page on the Penn website? I always include a link to it in my introductory e-mails: http://www.admissions.upenn.edu/apply/freshman-admission/interviews
BTW, in all my years of interviewing (and there are been many of those) I only ONCE had someone with “scary attributes”
Good luck with your interview!
How long do your interviews typically last?
I tell students to plan on an hour. My shortest interview lasted 30 minutes and my longest was 2.5 hours but those are the outliers. Generally my interviews last about an 60-90 minutes.
I applied ED so I went through the interview process. The thing that my interviewer kept stressing is that “this interview doesn’t matter much…it’s more about you learning about Penn through my experiences…” He said it over and over so many times that it made feel like he didn’t want to be there. So don’t stress about the interview. Be yourself, and if you are truly interested in Penn like I was you will be able to posit all the aspects about it that you love in a thoughtful and personal way. Saying something different than “I love Philly” or “Interdisciplinary study” is key because you want to stand out to the interviewer because they write a report on you that gets sent back to admissions. Don’t stress it too much though. Like my interviewer also said, interviews are only meant to COMPLIMENT your application, not discourage it. Good luck 
Thanks for all the advice! I appreciate it a lot 
My son received a similar email from an alum who is a doctor, but after the initial email, he has never heard back even though he responded within 24 hours with an email back and even emailed again. I’m not sure what to make of it.
That’s unusual; it’s generally the other way around. Did the alum leave a phone number as well as an email address? I always give the students both and let them know that if they’d rather contact me by phone that’s fine.
There have been times when my emails to students have been sent to a spam filter. It happens less now because I use a gmail account, but it DOES still happen. Perhaps he should try sending another email from another account. Your son is replying to an email, so I don’t think that’s what’s happening, but you never know. Have your son check his own spam filters just in case that’s happening on his end. Again, I think not, but you never know…
If it’s been a significant amount of time since the emails, you might want to consider contacting the regional director of admissions.
I’m sorry about this; it’s just an additional stress. Good luck with getting it sorted.
My son says there is a cell number in the email. Do you think it’s ok to call? I didn’t think it would be appropriate to call an interviewer, but I guess I was wrong. 
Did we blow it? It was 11 days ago. Should he call her now or will she think he really dropped the ball by not calling her before now?
Wait-I just saw the email, and the interviewer says please email me. She doesn’t say to call her.
So now what?
And he did email the regional Penn email address and has heard nothing back. That was maybe middle of last week.
He says he gets occasional college stuff in spam, but hasn’t mentioned anything about personal emails going into spam.
If the alum included a cell phone I would call even though it is clear email is preferred. Your son could explain that he’d sent two emails and not heard back so he was concerned that his emails were not getting through. He should be very polite about that “I’m so sorry to bother you. I know you said you’d prefer email. I have responded…” I don’t think that you’ve dropped the ball but if the interviewer THINKS that, the call might change her mind. Maybe the interviewer had a family emergency or fell ill.
I’m disappointed you did not hear back from the regional rep. Check the address, and if you get to the end of this week and have not heard anything, I would email the general admissions email. If you want, you could ask your son’s GC to reach out - but I suspect it will be just fine if he does it. I don’t think anyone will peg him as a troublesome candidate.
This is, by the way, just MY take on how to handle this. Other people might have other ideas. I have no official word on how to handle this. You’ll have to decide how far you want to push it. If he is not interviewed it won’t really be held against him. The worst thing that could happen is the interviewer will submit a report that says there was no interview because the candidate didn’t respond (which isn’t the case, but it’s one of the only ‘negative’ responses available to interviewers). Personally I think it looks bad to have that on a file - that there was no interview because the student never replied or worse - blew off the scheduled meeting. Once though, I did have a student get admitted who never bothered to return any of my emails or phone calls.
Thanks, @plmdin . My son is actually homeschooled/dual-enrolled, so I am his GC.
For now, he’s going to email again (she had two emails listed, and maybe he didn’t send it to both, so he’s doing that) and double check on the regional email, and probably email general admissions. If that doesn’t work, he’ll call her.
It would be disappointing if he gets rejected because of something like this. We’d rather know he would get accepted or rejected on his own merits or lack thereof.
Thanks for your help.
@sbjdorlo, This won’t be the reason he’s accepted - or rejected. The interviews don’t carry that much weight. An interview is nice to have - it’s great opportunity to demonstrate interest and to update an application, but something like what’s happened to your son will NOT have much of an impact on the decision. Please try to not worry about that. It sounds to me as though you have a plan. I do hope it works out. Good luck to you and your son.
@plmdin “I’m disappointed you did not hear back from the regional rep. Check the address, and if you get to the end of this week and have not heard anything, I would email the general admissions email. If you want, you could ask your son’s GC to reach out - but I suspect it will be just fine if he does it. I don’t think anyone will peg him as a troublesome candidate.”
@sbjdorlo I totally agree with this recommendation. The purpose is to to be sure they don’t think that the candidate was not interested enough to bother with the interview. Each school handles the interviews differently, but for some (MIT for example), the important thing is that the student is willing and interested to have the interview. Declining the interview is bad, but if it does not happen for another reason, that is no big deal. Following up assertively will make it clear that the student demonstrated interested.
@plmdin Is also right that it will not be a reason to worry. SO does alumni interviews for another Ivy. The primary purpose for them is to identify any additional information that may not come through clearly on the application. In some cases, especially if the student is not getting a lot of guidance, by talking to a student you will realize that there are potentially important factors or achievements that did not get captured or explained in the application. The interviewer’s writeup tends to focus on those types of factors.
@muchtolearn writes “The primary purpose for them is to identify any additional information that may not come through clearly on the application. In some cases, especially if the student is not getting a lot of guidance, by talking to a student you will realize that there are potentially important factors or achievements that did not get captured or explained in the application.”
This is something I address in my interviews. Penn even explains on the website that the interview is a great opportunity to address exactly this point.
Just wanted to report back that my son emailed her again using both email addresses, and he heard back from her today. Yay! She must only check one email address. This time, she told him to text her back with the day and time that works within her given parameters, so he did that this evening. Hopefully, it will work out. Now he gets to prepare for the interview. This will be his fourth one; we’ll see how it goes!
Hey guys! I too received an email for interview. I’m really scared. A CEO will be my interviewer (GOD SAVE ME!). I read that Penn people like to hear about…PENN (website, here I come!). My SAT scores weren’t so good (I’d say just a bit above 1800), (Math+Read=1280), but do I still have a chance if I rock the interview? It’s on 14th Feb
(there goes Valentine’s Day). Any help will be appreciated!
P.S. I also took TOEFL and 2 Subject Tests. TOEFL 104, and Math Level 2 750, Physics 760.