<p>Do you believe a alumni interviewer should ask you if you applied early to any school. If you are on the interview and you did apply early somewhere else, you were either rejected or deferred. This puts the applicant in a extremely uncomfortable position. If you tell them yes, I applied ED to another school, you are telling them that this school was not your first choice. Very tough spot to be in. Do you have to answer this question? isn't this an inappropriate question? The purpose of the interview is to find out more about you and for you to find out more about the school. This question in my opinion is not fair game. This interviewer should be ashamed. In this very tough academic environment you have to prepare yourself to have a list of top choice schools. At these levels of school, sometimes being admitted is like rolling the dice. You should be prepared to fall in love with more than one school.</p>
<p>Its not supposed to hurt you in any way. I think they just ask that becuase of curiosity. I highly doubt that they are putting it on the write up or anything and they probably know that since you were defered or rejected, that you probably want to enroll in other colleges as well</p>
<p>It’d depend if they said “early” or “early decision.” If the former, perhaps they were interested to see if you got in anywhere yet, be it rolling decision at a state school or early action at a school like UChicago. If the latter, I think that is unfair of him/her–to ask applicants to “rank” their choices when every college wants to be the top choice.</p>
<p>well HafsaRox, were you rejected or deferred to yale? If you were deferred, don’t you believe that the penn interviewer may believe if you got into yale there is a good chance you may go to yale instead of penn and then why should they waste a spot on you?</p>
<p>My friend was telling me that his interviewer asked him, “if you like Penn so much, why didn’t you do ED?”</p>
<p>I think that’s more of an unfair question. I was also asked where I applied, and while I do think there’s tact involved in answering that question, I don’t think it’s necessarily unfair.</p>
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I think the answer to this, and similar questions should be something like: “In deciding where to apply early, I tried to think strategically. It wasn’t just about what school I like best, but also about whether I thought applying early might help me in admissions, whether I was willing to limit my choices that early in the process, and so on. I like Penn a lot, but if I had applied ED, and been accepted, I wouldn’t have been able to consider other options. In particular, some of the other schools I’ve applied to might offer me merit aid, which could make a difference.” In general, I would try to turn any such question around so the interviewer ends up defending his school.</p>
<p>I’m not sure why anyone would think this question is unfair to ask if you applied early somewhere else or why you didn’t apply ED.</p>
<p>I was admitted ED and during my interview, the interviewer told me that he doesn’t ask as many questions to people who applied ED because he already knew Penn was their number one. </p>
<p>Penn has a reputation for being one of the upper echelon schools with happier students, do you think that just happens by coincidence? It doesn’t, Penn has that reputation because the people who go there all wanted to go there.</p>
<p>OP is only upset because the question didn’t favorably reflect his chances for admissions. Penn is a private school and can admit their students based on any criteria they choose. It just so happens that a student’s passion for Penn is a very important criteria for admissions to Penn. Saying it is unfair for Penn to use the interview to gauge a students interest in Penn is like saying it is unfair for Penn to use sat scores and gpa to try to predict a student’s intelligence level.</p>
<p>“The purpose of the interview is to find out more about you”
Yes, and your level of interest in Penn is an aspect of your personality. By indirectly asking you if there was a place you’d rather be than Penn, they’re able to find information about you that is relevant to their admissions decision, when you went into the interview were you expecting questions like “whats your favorite color?”</p>
<p>OP, that question isn’t even that tough. A few of my friends all applied to Brown, and had different interviewers, and they were all asked for SAT/ACT scores. That’s not the bad part----the bad part was that one of my friends had a 2130 and was asked “Oh, don’t you think that should be higher?”, “Why didn’t you take steps to raise that score?”, and “Don’t you think that your low score hurts your chances of admission?”. Penn truly wants students who put itself at the top—not the middle or bottom. Many other top schools (Harvard, Yale, etc.) also ask what schools you are applying to, just to see what else you are considering.</p>
<p>HafsaRox: I’m curious to here your reasons as to why Penn is an awful environment?</p>
<p>’'Penn is an awful environment."</p>
<p>Your opinion is negligible when it is compared to the countless contrary opinions I’ve heard.</p>
<p>Every school is pure hell. According to somebody.</p>
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<p>Very well put.</p>
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<p>Nothing like a bit of hyperbole to enhance your credibility. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>My daughter was asked such question by an interviewer from Harvard. Her reply was, “Yes, Rutgers, and I got in.” There was a pause, then they moved on.</p>
<p>Interviewers are just regular people, not everyone is a good interviewer, and those alumni are not trained interviewers. It is not surprising that some of their questions maybe inappropriate, and that’s why interviews do not count that much.</p>
<p>Hafsarox, please do not try to pretend like you are speaking for all of the students here because you aren’t. I for one have really enjoyed my college experience, I have had great professors and mentors, I love my major, I’m doing research in a field that I want to go into, and I have great friends. Frankly, the people I have met here here who absolutely hate it are for the most part pretty miserable people and bring a lot of their unhappiness on themselves. Maybe if you tried being a more positive and proactive person, you would have a better experience here, because honestly, good things don’t happen without some effort.</p>
<p>^I’m curious now. I want to go to Wharton, but I didn’t really like the campus, and I find it hard to believe that people can actually enjoy Philadelphia. I love Wharton though, but would you say the other factors really detract from that? Not only is it the best B school, but I like the programs, the building, the philosophy, etc.</p>
<p>Still, Penn doesn’t give me the intellectual vibe that other schools gave (despite being Ivy league, it seems more party heavy, which is not my thing). I’m still waiting since I have yet to find out where I got into, but it’s in my interests to try and figure out what really makes the biggest difference in my 4 years.</p>
<p>“Poeme, if you like it here, good for you. This was probably the only top-10 school you got into. But, anyways, I’m happy for you. At least someone’s happy here!”</p>
<p>Please get off YOUR high horse. Poeme didn’t say anything to deserve that comment.</p>
<p>Well one thing I think people don’t go into on this forum is that Wharton isn’t for everyone. Yes it is a fantastic business school, but it doesn’t have what everyone wants. I know people who love Wharton and I know other people (a minority I think) who in retrospect probably shouldn’t have chose Wharton.
Another interesting point that one person told me is that you could in fact, “totally nerd out at Wharton”, but you have to seek that experience out.
In regards to the intellectual vibe, it is definitely there. I have found at Penn that having pre-professional aspirations does not necessarily mean that someone can’t be an intellectual. Some of the most interesting conversations about politics, literature, and even science have been with Wharton students who are interested in those topics as well. That being said, I have read articles about Yale and Dartmouth complaining about the obsession with going into finance and how this has detracted from the intellectual environment. I think this is a dilemma all top schools face, but with Wharton it may be a bit more obvious here. An interesting fact, most of my close friends from class are interested in getting phDs (in the sciences). But that’s also just who I choose to hang out with.</p>
<p>And if you are wondering Hafsarox, yes I have had bad experiences at Penn that were very hard to deal with at the time. Stuff that could have made me hate the school. But I didn’t let those experiences take away from the positives, like the great mentors I have found, my friends, and research experience that I am passionate about.</p>
<p>HafsaRox, if Penn is such a horrible place with an overwhelming number of miserable students, then why does it continue to have among the highest (1) admissions yields, (2) freshmen retention rates, (3) 4-year graduation rates, and (4) 6-year graduation rates among all top schools? Why aren’t more students transferring out? More students transfer out of other schools–why not Penn? Numbers don’t lie.</p>
<p>Could it be that your overly negative feelings about Penn are not typical for Penn undergrads, but are in fact ATYPICAL?</p>
<p>And if we are to believe that Penn is as horrible as you make it out, then why don’t YOU transfer out? The claim that it’s because you’ve made such good friends there (after only one semester, no less), when juxtaposed against how incredibly horrible you claim Penn is, just doesn’t pass the smell test.</p>
<p>If you find Penn to be as bad as you claim it is, then TRANSFER OUT (which ANY rational–and I emphasize RATIONAL–student with your purported opinions of the school would do).</p>
<p>Otherwise, stop spewing your irrationally over-the-top invective against Penn (which says a lot more about YOU than it does Penn, by the way) all over this forum, forcing others to step in and point out how warped and irrationally negative your perspective really is, as occurred with the ridiculous anti-Penn and anti-Philly threads you started last year before you even set foot in Philly, and continued to start during the first days of New Student Orientation before most Penn undergrads had even shown up on campus and before classes had even started.</p>
<p>And no, I do not work and never have worked for the Admissions Office–or any part of Penn for that matter–which you like to claim when you’re called out on your ridiculous and pathological negativity and trollishness. Like many of the current students and alums who have challenged your negative, irrational, and apocalyptic tirades against Penn, I’m just an alum who–while recognizing that Penn has its faults like any college or university does–will not sit by idly and tolerate your unbalanced one-woman flame-throwing crusade against Penn.</p>
<p>And if your plan is to come back in March and unleash your irrationally venomous fury against Penn again, you should be aware: the moderators and rules of the College Confidential forum do not look kindly upon that kind of behavior, and posters are banned for it.</p>
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And exactly how is it that you know this?</p>
<p>Sorry, but someone who utterly flames a school and its administration–not to mention the entire city of Philadelphia–the way you did after only a day or two as a mere freshman at New Student Orientation, before 3/4 of the undergrads had even shown up on campus and classes had even begun, has no credibility.</p>