<p>I'm actually enjoying this period between getting an interview and scheduling it. Once I can attach a date to it, then it will be scary and real.</p>
<p>Is Kristi Graunke anyone else's interviewer? I feel bad because she lives in Atlanta and I live seven hours away...in Mississippi</p>
<p>Mr. E- now that I know who you are (or at least know of your existence, lol), who my friend is, and who i am, only the fourth person afua is interviewing remains a mystery. I wonder if it's another coloradan or someone from wyoming or kansas or another of our equally cool neighbor states. in any case, i think they should accept all four of us just to get the midwest in there. geographic diversity is a beautiful thing :)</p>
<p>I agree, vegangirl. Plus, then we could all get together after our seminars without having to travel halfway across the country.</p>
<p>Ahh I just found out that I'm going to have two interviewers on Saturday. I don't know why, but it disturbs me quite a bit. I have a feeling that I'll be staring at the space in between their heads a lot. lol.</p>
<p>Good luck to everyone! I hope you guys have as good as a time as I did :).</p>
<p>I just got a call from my interviewer. His name is Theodore Alexander. He will be interviewing me on April 1st in Downtown New York. He seemed like a friendly person when he called. I'm feeling confident about my interview.</p>
<p>haha chillaxin, i had two interviewers (one a prof, one a student who i didnt know about till right before) and i started off trying to make eye contact with both (which might have made me look twitchy and spastic). it turns out only the prof asked me questions so i just ended up just talking straight to him.</p>
<p>I just found out that I have my interview on Saturday! I would have liked more time, but I suppose it's good just to get it over. Thanks to Google, I know that both my interviewers are male and that they both write for prestigious national magazines. I'm deciding whether this should intimidate me; hopefully, it'll be fun. Hopefully.</p>
<p>Where is your interview, CLeighDrie? I live in MD, and mine's in Laurel with a lady who sounds young and someone with a Doctorate this Saturday.</p>
<p>Evil<em>asian</em>dictator (in response to #1147, I think?)-- indeed I do. It's the same as this screenname.</p>
<p>Everyone else-- wow, things do seem to be progressing quickly, don't they? Good luck to everyone with an interview tomorrow! Keep us all informed. Personally, I wish I could say the nerves went away after it, but honestly, they've just lessened quite a bit but still linger. I can't wait until May (for so many reasons, mind you)...</p>
<p>eeek. it's so soon!!</p>
<p>Just had my interview!!!!!:)</p>
<p>It seems to me that the interview is designed primarily to confirm the authenticity and the faculty's interpretations of your essays. I only had one interviewer and the time(1 hour) pretty much flew by. I can also confirm that the interview centered completely around the essays and that the booklist is only referred to when the interviewer wants to share his/her opinions of a piece of literature that you both have read. Hmnm, besides that all I can say is that be yourself and answer the questions honestly. You should try to be as insightful as possible and expand on all of your views with historical/persoanl evidence whenever possible, something I wish I had done a little more of at one point or another hehe. Remember, the TASP interview revolves completely around your own areas of experise and passions so take full advantage of that.</p>
<p>Lastly, take solace in the fact that TASP interviews seem to be a lot more genuine and applicant-focused than say college or job interviews for isntance. Telluride people don't ask you stupid questions like "If you could be one animal of your choosing-which one would you be and why???" You really shouldn't ever be caught by suprise by anything your interviewer asks since it should be something you are already familar about i.e. mentioned in your essays.</p>
<p>My final advice: Reread your essays, try to think of possible arguments against them, be as knowledgeable and resourceful as possible in your interview, try to clearly highlight the passions that you wrote about to the interviewer, and then completely forget about it till early May since it's completely out of your hands now.</p>
<p>Good luck everyone and don't hesitate to PM me if you guys have any specific points of inquiry about my interview experience or about TASP in general!!!:):)</p>
<p>evil_asian, sounds like yours went well! good job:)</p>
<p>I'm honestly not sure how mine went. The interviewer didn't seem particularly energetic, but maybe that had to do with the fact that she flew in from Texas THIS MORNING (and is flying out tonight after doing four interviews!). </p>
<p>She was in her early 20s, an engineer at IBM who just graduated from Purdue. Overall, she didn't ask me too many absurdly difficult questions. Mostly she just wanted to talk about the relationship between concepts brought up in my various essays (for instance in one essay i talk about my interest in social justice movements and in another about utilitarianism as it applies to animal rights- and she asked me about application of ultility theory to social issues). </p>
<p>There ended up being a lot of follow up questions about things unrelated to my essays, based on the answers I gave to her initial questions. One thing she asked me to do that caught me completely off guard was tell her how i would rebuild society if i had a chance to, from the ground up. That's a little difficult to answer on the spot!</p>
<p>She also had a few questions about how I see my role in groups, group living, etc. </p>
<p>We didn't touch the booklist, and the only thing she asked me about my lit analysis was what issues i think are raised by translation (since i did a translated piece). The other three essays all got considerable weight, though, and were the main focus of the interview. </p>
<p>I think I did as well I as I could have, given the fact that I don't think you can be expected to have totally coherent answers to every question they ask on the spot. I did ramble some, but such is my personality. I also used a lot of historical examples when I talked, which is just the way I make points a lot of the time, so I think that showed a good deal about the way I think. I didn't think I did a fantastic job in this interview or anything, but it was okay. It'll just be an issue now of how I compare to the other kids who are finalists, and that's totally out of my hands.</p>
<p>As for advice to anyone who hasn't had their interview yet, don't stress! As people have said, just be prepared to talk about your essays, how they relate to each other, and clarify your points or the way you worded things. My interviewer was very nice, and I'd guess most of them are. They know how stressful this is, and they want to put you at ease.</p>
<p>Good luck to all! Now comes the waiting...</p>
<p>P.S.- Mr. E, how did your interview go? I'd be interested to hear what you thought of our interviewer and what she asked you!</p>
<p>Good job Ryan!!!!!!!! Maybe we can see each other at TASP(if I get in lol).</p>
<p>Ditto to everything she said.</p>
<p>Just had my interview.</p>
<p>My interviewers were pretty cool--one took notes and asked few questions, while the other fired off questions faster than I could think up answers! Mine tended to stray from the essays--in one essay, I talked about whether CS Lewis was racist, sexist, etc., and he asked about the definition of racism and things like that. They never mentioned my essay about Jane Austen. I mentioned in my bio that I was homeschooled and we talked about that a bit... the questions were hard; I think he was trying to get me to contradict myself, so I tried to keep my answers very qualified. I agree that it was fun, but very draining. I slept the whole car ride home, which is out of character for me.</p>
<p>I was also asked questions about missing my family, getting along with mean people, living with others. </p>
<p>Leezy--mine was in the Watergate building, in an Atlantic Monthly conference office. It was pretty cool.</p>
<p>Best of luck to everyone!</p>
<p>I just got back from my interview too. The interviewers were nice -- one was a female graduate student and the other in his early 30s. The guy actually did what I did -- teach English in China -- and we had a lot of the same opinions, but I felt like he was trying to get me to contradict myself a lot. The questions were almost all essay-based; we didn't go near the book list or the lit analysis, and they only mentioned the preferences to make sure I still wanted to go to the same programs. The ones that weren't essay-based were about my extra-curriculars, but only those that tied in with my essays.</p>
<p>I think my interview went okay -- not spectacularly, but not poorly. I used a lot of current events and historical allusions in my answers, though apparently they weren't too familiar with some of the current events so I explained them. I think I might've come off as a little too anti-Bush though, but all my answers were completely honest. They asked me some questions like "What was the extent of your leadership in this..? How would you solve this conflict...? change the media (the topic of one of my essays)...?"</p>
<p>The time definitely flew by (50 minutes) though my legs were shaking in the beginning (hidden by the table thank goodness). I think I may have talked too fast though, as I ordinarily talk rather fast and given the fact that I was nervous...</p>
<p>My advice is to not be worried if you get stumped on a question. I paused for a few seconds, but I found that it helped if I just spoke and thought on the spot as opposed to pausing. However, that meant that I used a lot of "you know"s and "like"s which wasn't too great.</p>
<p>Good luck to everyone! :]</p>
<p>Me too, chillaxin (about the 'you know's and 'like's)-- hopefully they won't care too much.</p>
<p>"you know" is definitely my filler phrase of choice. sometimes i'd say something and then when I paused think, how many entirely unnecessary words were in that sentence?!? lol.</p>
<p>by the way, my interviewer said we'd hear around the middle of may. does that sound really late to anyone else? i thought it was beginning of may-ish</p>