Hey guys ! I have my Yale interview this weekends and I would love some advice please.
Yale is my dream school and I want to make the best impression 
Each interviewer will have their own style and questions they like to ask, but I think most experienced interviewers will try to make the interview more of a conversation than a series of Q’s and A’s. While I interview for Yale, my kids’ experience (including with Harvard) suggest the interview experience is pretty similar among the highly selective colleges that do alumni interviews. For Yale, suggested areas they want interviewers to look out for:
• Intellectual strengths and energy
• Academic interests
• Flexibility in thinking, openness
• Expressive abilities
• Nonacademic interests or talents
• Personal qualities
• Distinctive or unusual talents
and/or circumstances
We do not receive grades, test scores, resume or lists of EC’s. There may be a note relating to a particular area of interest. Personally, I do not ask about grades or test scores or ask for a resume because I don’t want to have any preconceptions about the candidate, and I want to base my report entirely on the interaction with the candidate. While I do not have a preset list of questions, the vast majority of interviews sequence out as follows:
- Introduction/small talk to put the candidate at ease.
- Ask how the school year is going – from here, I can get an idea of what the candidate is interested in academically and in terms of EC’s.
- The conversation can naturally flow from the above to a discussion about favorite subjects/classes/class projects and if that is what they want to pursue in college and as a career, or I may need to prod the candidate to talk about this. From time to time, I may ask for some details about a class or project, and at times I may challenge them about a particular viewpoint or conclusion just to see how they react. Often during the course of discussion in 3, I will ask why they are attracted to Yale given their interests.
- Similar to 3, the conversation can either naturally flow to an EC or I may ask a question to get the conversation to this topic. Here I am trying to get a sense of how deeply involved the candidate is in the activities that the candidate wants to highlight.
- If all the EC’s that the candidate chooses to talk about are school sponsored/based, I may ask a question along the lines what do you like to do outside of school, do you have a favorite hobby, what do you do to relax?
- 3, 4 and 5 will take up 80%+- of the time. Within 3, 4 and 5, the candidate may ask me questions about Yale, e.g., why did you choose Yale, what did you like or dislike about Yale. If I feel that the conversation is stagnating or the candidate is getting tired of talking, I will ask “do you have any questions about Yale?” as a break. Usually though, the questions about Yale come at the end.
- The very last question I will ask is “is there anything you would like to talk about that we have not covered?” Most of the time they will say everything has been covered, but at times they may bring up a particular interest or challenge that may be a new topic or it could be an emphasis on something we had previously just touched upon.
After the interview, I try to write my report that evening tying the specific interaction I had with the candidate to the guidelines that the AO has laid out.
Having said all of this, and as posted throughout CC by other seasoned interviewers, these interviews are not going to lift an otherwise “no” candidate into the “yes” pile or sink a candidate that the AO already loves into the “no” pile (absent something totally extreme). I think the AO uses the interviews to confirm if their read on the candidate is consistent with the interview. Also, the AO makes it very clear to interviewers that we are ambassadors representing Yale, and that we should be selling Yale as much as the candidates are trying to sell themselves. So don’t stress, be prepared (but not robotic) to have a conversation about what makes you you and to get as much information about the college as possible.
Thank you so much for the information! I really appreciate it
My pet peeves when interviewing are the following:
-
Candidates being really slack about emailing to reschedule, or responding to my emails determining specifics or confirming. Stay on your toes, and if you’re not sure about your response, email me and say you’ll let me know for sure by (date). A surprisingly large number of candidates drop the ball here - one was so dramatic that we could no longer offer her an interview by the deadline. (It sounds like the OP is sorted here.)
-
Very short answers to questions about your academic and extracurricular interests. One sentence responses are not OK because we are told to look for details and nuances regarding how you think and what you value. Please feed us interviewers with information we can put in our reports. If we have to dig and dig without getting much back, that is a sign the interview is not going well.
-
Candidates not thinking about their personal brand/message, and blatantly contradicting themselves in the interview. Before you start your college interviews, it’s important to sit down and think of why you want to go to each university, what you can bring, and how you want to develop.
-
Candidates not having any questions about Yale. This is your chance to get some inside information!
I hope this doesn’t scare anyone off! Remember that we want you to do well. Something worth mentioning is that we cannot reach out to rejected students. So if you and your interviewer really clicked, a short and polite email explaining where you will be attending could be worthwhile, because an interviewer won’t be able to initiate contact unless you are admitted.
Thank you so much for your response! That was really helpful
@BKSquared you should copy and put your response somewhere to be repeated because I think it was the best response to what seems to be the most commonly asked question. It should be its own post and sticky. Well presented.
^Not sure how to do that. Can you help here @skieurope?
@BKSquared @exyalie15
Agree to @Memmsmom’s comment, ur posts r very helpful and it would be great to save those posts and combine them into one. Thank u.
@BKSquared - I could not have answered better so you saved me the time. I have answered this question many times over the years on CC so someone can go back through that history to see my answers. But as someone who has been doing interviews since I graduated in the 80’s, I totally agree that those interviews that turn into general conversations instead of me pulling out responses, are the best. I also try to have most of my interviews at Starbucks or Panera. A good cup of coffee or hot chocolate always seem to put the applicant at ease. Most alums that do interviews do them because we love Yale, want to give you a sense of Yale not found in its literature, and yes, in some point, see if we can imagine you as a Yale student.
Good luck OP, you will be fine.
Start a new discussion. Cut and paste the post. PM me when done, and I can pin the thread. @BKSquared