While first semester seniors are desperately completing college applications and fretting about their grades, SAT scores, and personal essays, second semester brings them much needed relief from the burden of applications—or so it is commonly assumed.
There is one more step that seniors can take, even after applications are submitted, to demonstrate that they are not just another number in the application pool: attend a college interview.
Most students erroneously believe that all college interviews are the same, consisting of a one-on-one process that decides whether or not you get into that college. In reality, the kind of interview and the questions asked depend wholly on the college itself, and most of them are actually not intended to intimidate prospective students.
For instance, Cornell University calls their interview an “informational meeting” and gives the applicant the opportunity to ask the interviewer his or her own questions about the college.
Harvard holds interview nights for applicants living around the same area. At senior Samantha C. Wong’s interview night, all of the interviewees waited together in one room before being called into separate rooms. “It was pretty scary for me at first because I didn’t know what to expect,” says Wong. “Some people were sitting with their friends and having a good time, but I didn’t really know anybody there, so it was just kind of awkward.”
When it comes to college interviews, anything “awkward” never seems to be a good sign. However, in Wong’s case, once the interview actually started, her nervousness went away. “It went like a normal conversation,” she explains. “I remember he asked me this one question which he thought was so clever because he made it up himself. He asked, ‘If you were an Apple app, regardless of if it has been created or not, which one would you be?’”
Senior Bruce Zhang’s father, a Columbia alumnus and volunteer interviewer himself, says, “There is no real fixed format; it’s mostly just to get to know the student. There is some kind of fixed guidance, but it depends on the interviewer… [who] does not even have access to the application.”
“The interviewers are people, just alumni for that college. Their job isn’t the same as an admissions officer,” senior Jessica Ding says.
“In a lot of my interviews, they were like, ‘This isn’t a high stress kind of thing, just for you to learn more about our school.’”
Some colleges state that these interviews are “optional,” smaller, private colleges say that they are “strongly recommended,” and others actually reach out to students for an interview, including many Ivy League universities. However, schools with significantly larger applicant pools such as the UCs and CSUs often do not have an interview process for most undergraduate admissions due to the resources required.
From an interviewer’s standpoint, Zhang knows that a bad review does affect the chance of admission. “From a score of one to five, a five doesn’t guarantee, but it can be enough to put you over the edge,” he says.
For senior Skylar Assaf, her “interviews” for Chapman and Westmont were incredibly important in the admissions process, as she auditioned live in front of the schools’ professors. “Performing well at the auditions is essential for receiving scholarships, as well as getting accepted into the music program of the school in order to pursue the music major,” she explains.
Despite her nerves before the audition, where she sang a total of four songs, Assaf believes she would have been more nervous had it been just an interview itself. “I’m not very good at being eloquent, or just with words in general. So singing a pre-written song instead of conversing with a daunting college interviewer feels much safer,” she says.
Others also believe that college interviews are just as important, if not more important, than the other steps in the application process. Wong comments, “Essays have word limits and you can’t always get what you want to say in such limited space.”
No senior applying for college wants to be examined as just a set of test scores, grades, and typed words. Wong adds, “Interviews allow the admissions officers to find out who you are as a person, and give them a glimpse into your
personality.”
