<p>Harvard allows interviews at the alum’s home but says not to ask about other schools applied to.</p>
<p>Penn is the opposite - says they should not be at the alum’s home but doesn’t say to avoid asking about competing schools."</p>
<p>Yes, there are different standards, and the interview also may be informational only or may be an admissions factor. It all depends on the school, and even the top schools vary greatly in how they use and conduct interviews.</p>
<p>I’m also an alum interviewer. I have done this several times. I do this for several reasons. One: I don’t want to give a student a chance to say that the alum who interviewed him/her didn’t even give him a fair shake; Two: I prefer to leave a favorable impression of the interview in case, as sometimes happens, my alma mater decides to admit a student I was NOT impressed by; three: I want to develop a lot of details for my report which will justify my rec that the student not be admitted. </p>
<p>Finally, almost all of the kids I’ve interviewed --not all, but almost all–have been nice kids. They will be upset enough when the decisions come. I don’t want them upset because they think they “blew” the interview–even if they have.</p>
<p>The interview is the least important part of the process. It rarely matters at all at my alma mater;I don’t purport to know whether it does at other colleges. It is quite possible to interview poorly and still be admitted. Therefore, it really would be unfair if I were to leave a student with the impression that the fact that the conversation didn’t go well meant that the student was doomed to a thin envelope.</p>
<p>Re ‘no training for alum interviewers,’ a point made by Deja above. The Harvard Admissions Officer responsible for the region visits every autumn and holds a group meeting. In addition, the officer has conducted training workshops in alternate years. I’m not in the US though - perhaps the process is different for us international interviewers.</p>
<p>"
Finally, almost all of the kids I’ve interviewed --not all, but almost all–have been nice kids. They will be upset enough when the decisions come. I don’t want them upset because they think they “blew” the interview–even if they have."</p>
<p>I agree with this. I try to be kind and fair to all students. I’ve had students who blew the inteview who – to my knowledge – never knew that they blew the inteview because I always try to find something kind to say to the student. I never talk about their chances, but do look for something that they’ve done or accomplished that I can compliment them about.</p>
<p>One student who blew their interview (student was nice, but incredibly shy and passive, and clearly wasn’t ready for Harvard’s environment) was rejected from Harvard and ended up at a top 50 school. The student – who became much less shy and passive in college – went on to graduate school at a top 10 school. To my surprise since our paths never had crossed before the interview, a couple of years after the student was rejected from Harvard, I became friends with the student and their family. </p>
<p>It was very rare that I wasn’t impressed by a student whom I interviewed even if I didn’t think that the student should go to Harvard. The only students whom I wasn’t impressed by were 2 students whom I caught in lies during their interview (The students didn’t realize that I had caught them in lies), and the one student who came to my house a half hour early for his interview and then allowed snot to drip down his face throughout his interview.</p>
<p>When the op complains more than once that the interviewer wore socks, does she mean he only wore socks? Or that he had socks but didn’t wear shoes? Or that he wore socks and shoes?</p>
<p>Northstarmom and jonri, it was nice to hear how you treat the kids you interview. Our son is not applying to Harvard or any similar schools, but even so, the process is filled with plenty of pressure. You deserve thanks for trying to make it less so for all the kids who come your way.</p>
<p>Harvard asks interviewers to be kind to students. In the interviewing handbook that Harvard sends its alumni interviewers, it states that interviewers should realize that most of the students they interview will not get into Harvard, but Harvard still wants the interviewers to leave the students with the feeling that they were treated courteously by Harvard.</p>
<p>I think it’s important to recognize that most alumni interviewers for any school do that volunteer work because they like their school and also like interacting with teens. Most alum interviewers aren’t out to make applicants feel bad.</p>
<p>I think he wore socks but no shoes. I know many people who do not wear shoes inside their house. Growing up in a community with many families originally from Japan and Hawaii I was used to taking off shoes when you enter the house. I would not find it strange that the man did not have on shoes.</p>
I am completely opposed to college interviews precisely because I find it appalling that any applicant can be considered to have “blown” their interview. (I don’t mean this personally to Northstarmom, who sounds genuinely concerned about her interviewees and finding a good fit for the school.) But some of the shyest, most passive people I know are also the most brilliant. There is such an inbuilt bias here towards outgoing, prematurely poised students; afterall, shy alumni are unlikely to volunteer to conduct interviews in the first place. Who is to say the student won’t mature or change while at school (as apparently this student did.) And why are the charming, out-going students favored in this process? They have already likely benefited from stellar recommendations for the very same reasons the interviewer finds them appealing.</p>
<p>I have a shy, passive relative who is an extremely successful Hollywood film editor; he would have “blown” a college interview like this, but those interview skills are, luckily, irrelevant to his career. My point is simply that these schools are missing out on admitting lots of great kids who simply lack the ability to impress an interviewer at age 18.</p>
<p>The history of the college interview is a particularly disgusting one – an arbitrary hoop to jump through, invented as a way to make sure that “too many” Jews were not mistakenly admitted to Ivy League schools. I should add that many years ago I was interviewed in alumni’s homes and hated the practice then as much as I hate it now. This is not sour grapes – I was admitted to all the schools to which I applied and even attended one of those Ivies that required the interview. I just don’t buy the “fit” argument. There were all sorts of kids at my school and no particular “fit” was necessary.</p>
<p>As far as the OP’s post – I wouldn’t dream of contacting anybody about this. Frankly, I didn’t find it all that weird and everyone I know wears only socks at home. My interpretation would have been that he was trying to make her daughter feel welcome by conducting a relaxed, informal interview.</p>
<p>I am also very glad that I don’t live in OP’s town!</p>
<p>“I am completely opposed to college interviews precisely because I find it appalling that any applicant can be considered to have “blown” their interview. (I don’t mean this personally to Northstarmom, who sounds genuinely concerned about her interviewees and finding a good fit for the school.) But some of the shyest, most passive people I know are also the most brilliant.”</p>
<p>The Harvard interviews aren’t designed to assess students’ brilliance. Most students who apply to Harvard are probably brilliant as measured by things like board scores.</p>
<p>Personality – fit, however is important. Harvard isn’t a school for the passive and painfully shy. Perhaps the best asset of Harvard is its active, involved, smart student body. It would be a miserable place for a passive, shy student to be. </p>
<p>There are, however, many colleges that would be very welcoming good fits for passive, shy, brilliant students. </p>
<p>When it comes to schools that factor interviews into admissions, part of what’s being considered is a student’s fit with the campus and what the administrators want the campus to be like.</p>
<p>Thank you, anneroku, I completely agree. I was incredibly shy with strangers as a 16-year old high school senior (17 by the time I graduated), partly because I have a basically introverted personality and partly, I think, because of my then-hidden gender identity issues. I was well aware of the bias in interviews towards more outgoing students, and thought it was grotesquely unfair – and that it was completely impossible to form any kind of realistic impression of any high school student in a brief interview. I still feel that way (even though, by the time he was a senior, my son had overcome a lot of his own shyness issues and was much more outgoing at a first meeting than I’d been at his age). Somehow, despite being remarkably unimpressive at interviews (a problem that continued all the way through law school, making getting my first job very difficult), I did manage to get into Yale – even though my interviewer, a woman, played what I thought was a mean trick on me by suddenly asking, in the middle of the interview, “would you like a kiss?” Of course, she turned out to be referring to a chocolate kiss, but until she pulled out the bag a few seconds later, I was frozen stiff in shock and horrified confusion. That made a bad impression, I’m sure!</p>
<p>Yet, despite my personality as it came across in a 30 minute interview, I “fit in” at Yale quite nicely, and not only graduated Phi Beta Kappa, etc., and got into Harvard Law School, but made quite a few friends – I certainly wasn’t the only shy student there, and I doubt I would have been at Harvard, either. Please don’t assume that having trouble at age 16 or 17 making a good impression at first meeting necessarily means that you’re going to end up sitting in your room for 4 years, or can’t make friends with a little effort, or be perfectly “charming” with people once you know them. I simply don’t buy the concept that people who are shy at first meeting make less valuable members of a college community, or should be discriminated against in the admissions process.</p>
<p>And you’re correct that interviews became popular at Ivy League schools specifically to weed out Jews who might not have Jewish-sounding names or live in so-called Jewish neighborhoods. That happens to be the same reason that there started being an emphasis on extra-curricular activities and the so-called “well-rounded” student: the belief was that this would also prevent there being “too many Jews,” because the stereotype was that Jews were all puny, unathletic, socially awkward grinds.</p>
<p>For those reasons, I strongly disliked – and still object to – the whole concept of interviewing as part of college admissions. It just isn’t fair.</p>
<p>Here (in my area and the surrounding towns) the madness starts in kindergarden. Kids are actually tracked FROM KINDERGARDEN. Only intensifies until senior year, April 1st, and even then, continues for some wait-listed kids. It’s really stressful for the kids. I’ve heard that the closer in to the City, the worse it is - but I simply can’t imagine that this could be true.</p>
<p>“I have a shy, passive relative who is an extremely successful Hollywood film editor; he would have “blown” a college interview like this, but those interview skills are, luckily, irrelevant to his career. My point is simply that these schools are missing out on admitting lots of great kids who simply lack the ability to impress an interviewer at age 18.”</p>
<p>The dean of admission at Harvard has estimated that 85-90% of applicants there have the ability to be successful at Harvard. Consequently, because of its size, Harvard is missing out on lots of great young people, and it’s not something anyone needs to worry about. The people who are rejected will likely go on to other good schools and do wonderfully in their careers.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Harvard has the right to create a campus filled with Type A people if that’s what it wants to do. The passive, shy, brilliant/talented people meanwhile have the right to be in campus environments where they’ll be appreciated, flourish, and fit in for being the type of people that they are.</p>
<p>Harvard is not at all a place where many smart people would be happy. It’s a place where most students operate very independently. It’s more swim with the sharks than huggy-feely. By this I don’t mean that students are competitive and back biting. They aren’t. They’re just fiercely independent and many people would not enjoy being in that kind of environment.</p>
<p>My DD just graduated, but 4 years ago, DD had interviews for H and Y. The H interview went well, she thought, but the Yale interviewer was your sterotypical engineer (totally a science person who had no concept about any of the liberal arts that D wanted to study) who was so old (already retired a few years) that when he attended, it was all male, and he had no concept what “shopping week” was about - he thought it was to buy clothing! Not surprising she came back knowing it was a disaster. All in all, someone who should NOT be interviewing young females.</p>
<p>I was quite independent in college. I think that’s an attribute largely separate from shyness vs. being outgoing. I also don’t believe that it’s possible to make an accurate judgment in a 30-minute interview as to anything other than whether someone is shy in the first 30 minutes of meeting a stranger in an intensely stressful interview situation. A situation that doesn’t remotely resemble 99% of the college experience. And I know enough people who went to Harvard undergraduate (many of them my classmates at Harvard Law School, and quite a few others from my high school class) to know that Harvard isn’t as different from other schools in that respect as you may think; I’ve observed no discernible personality difference of the kind you mention between Harvard graduates and those of other, similar schools.</p>
<p>There’s a wide range from outgoing to passive and shy. There are some people who are just quieter and more thoughtful – doesn’t make them passive or shy – but who don’t have the “pleasedtameetcha” quotient that interviews seem to reward. Frankly the whole college admissions process rewards extroverts and not introverts.</p>
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<p>Great observation. Of course, Harvard has the right to assemble any class they want on whatever qualifications they want. But I submit the concept of diversity is lacking if EVERYONE has to be the “pleasedtameetcha” outgoing type.</p>
<p>DonnaL makes some sense to me in her post 92 but there are a couple things I disagree with, in this passage: “I simply don’t buy the concept that people who are shy at first meeting make less valuable members of a college community, or should be discriminated against in the admissions process.” I’m not quite comfortable with that sentence as it is.
I don’t think anyone said shy = less valuable. It may be outgoing generally makes a person appear more personable. I know that isn’t a measure of intelligence, but not all students are selected solely on intelligence. It may be an interviewer may feel that the more outgoing individual may get adjusted to the new environs of the college quicker and easier. It may be the interviewer feels the student is more likely to participate in club or group activities than the shy one, and is it unreasonable to think those who choose to participate in more have greater opportunities for a larger, more well-rounded education? Not all education occurs in the classroom. Shy may be different than outgoing, and maybe a school prefers outgoing; but that isn’t = less valuable.</p>
<p>My second "bone-to-pick is her using the phrase “discrimination against”. Discriminate can mean “to make a clear distinction, or perceptive” and those are good things; but now it is more commonly used in a negative way as we think of illegally limiting protected classes such as in hiring and housing. I see things that are merely choices and selections but are not discrimination. The word has a powerful and emotional effect, but I cannot agree with Donna’s use of it here. Shy people are not a protected class.
In my old workplace, as a dj, (80’s and 90’s) most of my income was providing entertaimment in bars. Club owners would desire music tailored toward the clientele they wanted to attract. Most bars want very dance oriented music, but not all the same sound all night. If a group came in that was more interested in country, I was NOT to play a great big bunch of county to please them. Boss felt too much of a style different than our typical might bring more country guys back, and that might disappoint his target audience and he might lose them. If anybody wants to know, he had sound business reasons for style and type of people he wanted to draw, pm me for details. But to wind up, he wanted to draw a certain type of behavior in his crowd, not based on race, religion, that he felt was more profitable. I think of his target audience as selective but certainly not discrimination in the legal sense.</p>
<p>"There are some people who are just quieter and more thoughtful but who don’t have the “pleasedtameetcha” quotient that interviews seem to reward. "</p>
<p>When I say “passive” and “shy” I mean interviewees who can’t hold a conversation or answer basic get to know you questions.</p>
<p>I also mean students who break into tears during interviews that aren’t designed to be stress interviews. One student did that when I asked her how she decided to apply to Harvard. I wasn’t asking it as a trick question. Few people even were applying to college from her high school, so I was interested in finding out how she decided to apply to Harvard. She burst into tears, and never answered.</p>
<p>No, she didn’t get into Harvard, and wasn’t ready for that kind of environment, though later she became ready to handle virtually anything including being on a panel with Al Gore after he was VP. However, years ensued between her Harvard interview and her growing into a person who literally can handle anything. (As you can tell, we stayed in touch and I actually mentored her for several years). She eventually graduated from a second tier public university and got accepted to a top 20 university for a masters.</p>
<p>By “shy” and “passive,” I also was referring to students who hesitantly answered leading questions with one word answers and then just sat and stared. They would have been miserable at a college where there’s a lot of repartee and verbal one upmanship.</p>
<p>“Frankly the whole college admissions process rewards extroverts and not introverts.”</p>
<p>That’s true of most of American society. There are other countries and cultures, though, where introverts are the ones that are most admired. This includes countries where grades or the scores on one test are what determines who gets into college and who doesn’t. How you interview or what ECs one pursues are totally unimportant.</p>
<p>One advantage that the U.S. has over most countries, however, is that if one wants to go to college — even if one has low grades, low scores, or lacks personality, one can probably find some college that will accept you. That’s something that the U.S. offers that most of us take for granted.</p>