@ucbalumnus Although I graduated from college 29 years ago, I truly just realized while reading your post that I was in fact a first generation to college student. We were solid middle class, not upper certainly, but my parents both had white collar jobs and worked in office environments and my dad often met with clients so there were behaviors that I was able to pick up on in the home. But your point is well taken.
My experiences were similar with disadvantaged kids. However, there were also some kids who were obviously better prepared than others. By “prepared”, I don’t mean having a firm handshake or making good eye contact. I mean researching the school, answering questions in a way that fits with what the school says they are looking for on its website, asking the interviewer well thought out questions that were obviously prepared before the interview, etc. Some also had far better natural social and conversational skills than others. I never really understood reflective listening until I noticed a kid I was interviewing was doing that to me, which I suspect was instinctive; and at the other extreme, it’s not uncommon for kids from all backgrounds to have ASDs, which can be a big disadvantage in interviews.
Re child abuse clearances for adults who do volunteer projects in the schools: That’s not a decision the school made. In all likelihood, it’s a state law. It may even be a federal law, I’m not certain. But if not a federal law, it has become nearly ubiquitous as a requirement over the past 15 years or so. If a school isn’t making certain it gets clearances for parents doing volunteer work, it means there’s a fairly serious management problem.
Yes, back in the good old days when no one ever inappropriately touched a child or told sexual ‘jokes’ to teens or even attacked a realtor or had someone attacked for answering a door at their own homes. The reason we have more safety procedures now is because bad things DID happen.
My kids went to schools where volunteering was required. If you didn’t want to work near or with kids, there were plenty of trash pick up spots on the sign up sheets. Most of us enjoyed going on field trips, helping with science projects in the classrooms, leading a unit on something we knew. I had to get a volunteer clearance to sew costumes for the drama class or carpool the lax team. Not a big deal.
It’s never the immigrants who pay my bills late either. It’s always the wealthiest clients. Always.
While I think it’s sad that interviewers can’t interview where it’s most convenient for them, I don’t think any interviewer would hold it against a kid if they requested a more public location. Especially this year.
One last comment, OP. When your daughter calls to reschedule, I hope she is as polite as she expects to be treated herself. You have no idea why the home was suggested originally. Maybe it was because he was used to doing it that way, or maybe he has difficulty driving at night or a back condition that makes sitting at Starbucks hard. Maybe he has difficulty walking after surgery, or hearing clearly with lots of ambient noise at a cafe. Maybe he stays in the home to be near a disabled spouse. There are many possible personal reasons, which don’t need to be disclosed. It seems you have several potential solutions, so if you stay flexible, I am sure you will work something out. Good luck.
Add me to the voice of disagreement about interviewing first gens vs “upper middle class”. The first gens were polite and appreciative. Most of the “upper middle class” applicants were fun and interesting, but one or two had an inflated sense of self. The spectrum kids I worked with did need help with eye contact and practice on how to understand the question and answer appropriately.
My S had 3 Ivy alumni interviews in 2007/8 and all three were in private homes: one in ours, and the other two at the interviewer’s.
His other interviews were in coffee shops, and they were shorter, in less depth, and less interesting, according to him.
First, I would google both the interviewer and his house. You will get an idea of his age, job etc. I probably would let my child go to the interview, but myself or DH would drive them. And, when the question comes up " Did you have any trouble finding the place", your daughter should mention that a PARENT drove and is waiting outside.
In this day of Google maps and GPS, I never ask if anyone has trouble finding an address. Please don’t try to intimidate the interviewer by making a big deal of the parent sitting outside. I’m not sure what exactly I would do with that information-for the 99.999 percent of good interviewers, it would be irrelevant. And for the one in ten thousand bad apples, I am not sure it would make a difference, tho I guess that is the intent. More likely, I would wonder if I am now obligated to invite the Mom in for coffee and you are angling for an invitation. Your transportation is your business.
A final observation for me.
Traditionally, one of the things – not the only thing, not even a necessary thing in every case, but a highly desirable thing – the elite colleges are looking for is a kid who, at 17, can walk confidently into space controlled by someone who is older and successful, and meet that person as an intellectual and social peer. An applicant who will not treat the interviewer as a gatekeeper to be satisfied (or bribed), not as an authority figure to be fawned over or kowtowed to, not as a parental figure to be resented, but as an interesting person who has valuable things to offer and who may appreciate the valuable things the applicant has to offer. Not braggadocio, but quiet confidence, a sense of self-worth, and of course the goods to back it up.
That’s the attitude of a winner, and that’s the attitude of someone who is going to make a positive contribution to the intellectual and social community at the college.
Of course, you can do that at a coffee shop or library meeting area, but you do it more effectively when the setting is more intimate and more clearly controlled by the interviewer. As an applicant, you are asking to be admitted to the space of the college – not just the real estate, but the intellectual space, and the social community. The interviewer already occupies that space, is at home in it. So if the locus of the interview is the interviewer’s space, that makes it a wonderful metaphor for the whole process. An applicant can take advantage of that. The most important message the applicant wants to get across is, “I belong in your space. You want me in your space.” Being in the interviewer’s space brings that message home.
That’s why, if it were my kids, I would be telling them not to turn this opportunity down. And if they felt uncomfortable and wanted to ask for a change to a public venue, I would tell them to blame it on me, and not ever to give the impression that they had meeting the interviewer in his own space.
Keep in mind the alumni interviews these days are more informational and less evaluative. In large part these days, they carry very little weight other than an opportunity for the applicant to learn more about the college or university.
JHS- are you an interviewer? I do not interview now but did for two decades.
There is very little in your post that is based on reality- at least for my alma mater. We were not looking for “winners”. Our job was to ascertain if there was a personal quality to the applicant which would not resonate on paper but might in an interview. Introverts? Fine. Kids with deep intellectual instincts with a weak handshake? Fine. My absolutely favorite student of all time- first Gen, took three Greyhound buses to meet with me, grew up in what sounds like a shack, no social graces whatsoever but an absolutely compelling case. I picked up the phone after my interview with him and basically hounded the admissions office until finally his application was read (he was admitted- full aid- and Brown was only “need aware” at the time, not need blind. He would have flunked your interview six ways to Sunday. But this was a kid who aspired to a community college to become an LPN or MRI technician who is now a physician and the pride of his entire hometown.
College is not the Miss America pageant, and the interviewers are not there to suss out “winners”.
I also used to interview but don’t anymore. I highly doubt we were looking for different things. I am not someone who judges people on their manners, their hair, and their handshakes. I do like kids who think about things, though, and are willing to share their ideas. It doesn’t have to be things I care about or find interesting, as long as they care about them and find them interesting.
For many first generation kids, it’s a huge hurdle to have to deal constantly with situations in which they feel uncomfortable and have no real source of guidance, especially since they have had to expend more effort than anyone else even to get to that point. An interview can be a demonstration of a kid handling that dynamic successfully.
Given kids’ reliance on texting and social media today, I’d kind of welcome more kids having to sit in someone’s living room, handle a coffee cup with a saucer, and chat with an adult. It might be good for them.
agreed, intparent. Frankly, as a group, the less advantaged kids are often better at interviews-perhaps more practice with employment interviews, maybe had to be more independent/driven, or less reliant on their parents handling things for them. More invested in a positive outcome. I am glad for them.
@Consolation, the Ivys no longer do in-home interviews, for all the reasons stated by many in this post. The setting should have absolutely no influence on the length or depth of the discussion, so that speaks directly to the interviewer. I’ve interviewed for an Ivy for decades and have limited the number of interviews I’ll do because they always take an hour-plus (yes, in a coffee shop or cafe.) If I have two back-to-back, I’ll schedule the second one for 90 minutes later because I’ve had ones go that long.
@blossom, I had the exact same reaction to @JHS’s post #150. The insistence on the importance of the interviewer’s “own space” and the applicant needing to pass some kind of trial to show s/he is comfortable seems inappropriate and not in keeping with the purpose of alumni interviews.
My job as an interviewer was not to assess socio-economic background, how many times the kid had read Emily Post, or whether or not the kid could adjust to my lifestyle (as if the upholstery on the couch is some sign of my moral superiority).
My job was to ask good, open ended questions, to be an active listener, and to ascertain if there was something missing in the application which I could provide to the committee.
Kids from prep schools, wealthy suburbs, etc. all “aced” the interview in a manner of speaking. Most of them presented pretty much as they did on paper-- groomed and polished to a fare-thee-well. But that’s not the point of the interview. And the first Gen kid who I remember all these years later came alive when talking about books he’d read (in a town with no public library), volunteer work he’d done, and how his teachers had to convince him to apply to a four year college “back East” which nobody he knew had ever heard of. A kid with parents who hadn’t graduated from high school, with a regional accent you could cut with a knife, and the vocabulary of an Oxford don.
I can’t imagine that meeting this kid in a diner would in any way undercut what an unusual and distinctive young man he was.
But again, all irrelevant. Most colleges do not want their alums meeting students in their homes which is the beginning and end of the matter. Do some alums disregard this? I’m sure. But the policies are there for a reason; the interview is not a tea party or a debutante ball.
“but you do it more effectively when the setting is more intimate and more clearly controlled by the interviewer” Say what?
Much is made on CC about how much pull an interview report actually has. I think it would raise eyes if the report had more than a line about social graces. This isn’t for cotillion. A good handshake, looking the alum in the eye, as appropriate (not a stare-down,) and speaking clearly/audibly are the starters.
And I think many of us are now talking highly or most selective here. You want kids to feel comfortable, not purposely put on edge. A good report doesn’t test a kid but lets him or her open up. Then you look for elements of substance.
And can we quit the assumptions lower SES kids are lacking awareness and graces or only happen across certain skills because they’re needier? It dismisses the real efforts and successes. Good families, good influences aren’t exclusive to higher SES.
Just curious, if your D were interviewing on campus and was summoned by a male interviewer who took her to his office, designed to be comfortable (sofa, armchairs, etc.) and closed the door, what would you do?
I am not asking to be provocative but because this was how interviews (for both college and BS) were handled. Not sure if any of these places had glass in the door – bUT I recall several that did not or were down a rabbit Warren of hallways.