So, I had my interview yesterday...

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Pennsylvania
1

I’m honestly not sure what to think about it. The interviewer seemed friendly enough (and he opened with the usual statement about the interview not counting for much and being primarily a laid-back conversation), but I feel that he didn’t really ask enough questions to get a real picture of me. I felt that I ended up asking more questions (to avoid awkward lulls) in a forty minute interview than he asked, and most of my questions about Wharton/Penn’s specific offerings he was unable to answer.

I feel like I left a decent impression, but I still feel that there was a lot left on the table that I could have talked about, if asked.

So, to anyone who has already had their interview:

Is this that unusual? Will it likely have any effect on my application?

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Interviews have little or no affect on the application unless you bombed it.

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Admission officer has said interviews are evaluative - not informational - for uPenn.

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my interview was about the ending to titanic and drinkng wine so i think ur good bro

5

Alumni interviewers do not have grades, transcripts, or board scores so it depends on how one wishes to define “evaluative”. I consider the interview to be both evaluative and informational. An interviewer is tasked with writing a report that basically details what kind of person the applicant is, what their interests and passions are, and what sort of fit they are at Penn. An interview is informative as well in that it is an exchange of information - and it is an opportunity to answer questions as well ‘sell’ the school and all that it has to offer.

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@plmdim roughly what percentage of your interviewees do you recommend?

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Also interested in the answer to that question @Lkjh0987‌

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It depends year to year - I only interview about 2 dozen students a year which is a pretty small percentage of students who apply from my area.

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My interviewer was weird. I talked to her for about an hour, but the conversation was 90% about herself, her kids and her job, etc. It was definitely the strangest interview I’ve had.

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@sjsprint,

Funny, that’s pretty much how my interview went, as well.

My interviewer asked what other schools I was applying to. I found it odd…

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@Tiberium‌ my friend has his upenn interview tomorrow i think, i told him to do it while hes high so that its more interesting lol thats the secret to these interviews doing them either high or drunk

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@Lkjh0987‌ I’m not sure about Penn’s write up guidelines but for Yale, we aren’t asked to “recommend” anyone. We’re asked to rate them based upon what we know the competitive applicant pool to be. I firmly believe that I’d “recommend” probably 80% of kids I meet – i.e. able to function/contribute to campus life.

But if the question is: How does this student compare to the entire, highly qualified pool… well you see, that’s a much higher bar. I’d say the vast number of ppl I meet are “average” – according to that high standard. As well they should be right? One should believe in bell curves. The bulk of applicants randomly will fall within a std deviation of the mean.