Hello,
I am a HS senior who recently completed a Yale alumni interview for undergraduate admissions. At the very end of the interview, my interviewer revealed to me that she attended a college in New York for her undergraduate years and Yale for law school. I was surprised by this fact as I had expected Yale undergraduate interviewers to have experienced Yale as undergraduates, and thus, I had to limit my questions regarding undergraduate life and activities on campus. Therefore, for those of you who have attended Yale for both undergrad and grad, I was wondering if you can describe some similarities and differences between the Yale undergrad and grad experiences. Additionally, to the greater audience, have any of you had an interview experience similar to mine? If so, how did you feel about it and how did things turn out in the end? I guess I am just worried that I was unable to fully “connect” with my interviewer due to my own preparation methods and the progression of the interview.
About 7% of the Yale interviewers are not Yale College graduates. However, I would assume these graduates of the graduate or professional schools must feel particularly passionate about their Yale experience to become volunteers. They are as likely as knowledgeable about Yale in general as undergrad graduates, and maybe more so if they are a more recent graduate than an “Old Blue” that you may get. The biggest difference I suspect is that graduate students do not have the full residential college experience or have insights on the social life of undergrads. That being said, I am not sure how accurately a person who graduated 10 or more years ago can answer some of these questions. If you have some unanswered questions, I am sure your interviewer would be happy to redirect you to another alum in her local committee who was a Yale College graduate.
That’s what happened with my Brown interview. I felt kind of confused because if I’m supposed to get to know more about Brown, shouldn’t I get someone that actually had the undergrad experience there? Nonetheless, she did know a lot about it in general and it didn’t make a huge difference.
Same with my Penn Wharton interview - my interviewer received her EMBA from Wharton SF and spent only one semester in Philadelphia. She even admitted that she didn’t know a lot about Wharton undergrad lol. We ended up talking more about careers and programs for both undergrad and grad students, which was still helpful.
I am sure you had a wonderful interview and interviewer. As an alum, current parent and interviewer, I can tell you there is little interaction between undergrads and graduate students at Yale, both academically or socially. The vast majority of undergrads stay on campus all four years and are associated with a residential college from freshman year. This is not the case for grad students and there is very little graduate housing on campus so most live off campus. There may be some graduate students in courses, and of course they are the TA’s for your classes. But as far as socialization, there is almost none. Yale is a very undergraduate focused college, which is one of its best selling points. If you have a specific question, PM me.
Honestly, as a grad 20+ years out, there are plenty of things I say with certainty about undergrad life that I’m not 100% sure are still true. Even if I’d graduated last year, one person’s experience can be very different than another’s.
You’re welcome to PM me if you have specific questions, too.
Regarding connecting with the interviewer, I had one interview this year that I felt that way about. My interview report was mostly me apologizing for not having managed to do better by my interviewee. I really see finding that connection that lets me present the applicant as a unique person as my responsibility, not the student’s.