College Interview Tips

a student sitting in a college interview in front of teachers

Fall is when most high school seniors have college interviews. The interview is an important opportunity for you to show the college certain things about yourself that may not come through on paper. Not every school allows interviews and it is important that you look at college websites to find out more about their interview policies. You also want to find out how the interview will be used in the review of your file. Often a summary of the conversation you had with the interviewer will be placed in your file and it is sometimes used in the admission process as a gauge of your interest in the college.

There are several different interview formats out there as well. Some schools offer a traditional, one-on-one conversation with an admissions officer, student who works in the admissions office or with an Alumnus of the college or university. You should be professional no matter which person you interview with. Just because you interview with a student does not mean you should let your guard down and be unprofessional. You may have the opportunity to meet with an Alumnus in your area if you are unable to visit the college campus at a time when interviews are offered.

This is a great opportunity to talk to someone who attended the college and find out how being a student there has benefited them later in life. Another interview style that colleges use is with a panel (sometimes composed of a professor, school administrator, alumnus, admissions officer or student). This type of interview can be overwhelming, but it is a great opportunity for you to gain perspective about the college from several different people.

Some schools require you to participate in a group interview. During group interviews, evaluators are trying to determine your ability to work with others and what role you typically play in a group setting. While these types of interviews are somewhat harder to prepare for. It is a great opportunity to show some of your talents! No matter what type of interview you participate in. It is important to keep in mind that this is an significant piece of your college application.

Here are a few things to consider when interviewing with a college:

Time is important:

Make sure you schedule an appointment for your interview. Do not assume you will be able to get a time slot the day you happen to be on campus. Most schools will not conduct interviews on weekends either. Also, be on time. Everyone understands that things happen and you may be late for your interview. If this is the case, be sure to call the office and let them know. Finally, the interviewers schedule may be tight, so make sure you say what you feel is the most important thing for them to know about you in the beginning of the interview.

Do your research:

If you do interview with a school, make sure it is one that you are really interested in. Ask well research questions about specific programs or activities offered at the school. Remember this is also the time for you to find out if the school is a good fit for you. The interviewer will also ask you why you are interested in a school or a specific program at the school. Make sure you have thought about your answer ahead of time!

Be professional:

You don’t have to wear a suit for your interview, but make sure your appearance is appropriate. Most interviewers understand that you are touring college campuses before or after your interview. So most are not expecting high heels and three piece suits. You should however, not be wearing your sweatpants or short shorts. Also, make sure you are not wearing too much perfume or cologne. Strong smells can be really over powering and a distraction for the interviewer. Finally, make sure that you cell phone is off or leave it in the lobby with your parents. Even having your phone on vibrate can be a negative distraction.

Watch your language:

You are not having a conversation with your friends, so watch how much slang you use and no profanity! If you are a person that uses the word “like” every other word, then practice having conversations without it!

Ask yourself some questions:

The interviewer will ask you questions such as, “How would you describe yourself?” “How would your teachers describe you?” “What is your favorite subject?” “What are you interested in studying in college?” Make sure you have some good answers.

Write a thank you note:

This shows the interviewer that you appreciated him or her taking time out of his or her day to interview you. You want the note to be grammatically correct and remember- it will probably end up in your admission file and resurface at the time your file is reviewed.

Katherine Price
Former Interviewer

Meeting with Admission Counselors in Your Hometown

The travel season for admission counselors is well underway.  These brave admission professionals travel for weeks on end in the fall, all to visit prospective students and their families.  Some will visit up to 5 or 6 schools a day and do a college fair or conduct interviews at night.  The time they spend with students on these trips is very important.  So, if you intend to meet with an admission representative who has ventured to your area, here are some tips to help make the meeting worthwhile:
Tip #1:  Find out if someone is coming to your school
Get out the list of colleges you plan on applying to and call the admission offices to find out if there will be a representative coming to your school.  You may also be able to find out from your guidance or college counseling office.
Tip #2:  Take advantage of other opportunities
If they are not coming to your school, but will be in the area, find out when and where.  Ask if there is an opportunity to meet with the admission counselor for an interview.  See if they plan on conducting an information session at their hotel.  Ask if the counselor will be at a local college fair.  There are plenty of opportunities to see an admission counselor even if they are not planning on visiting your school.
Tip #3:  Plan ahead
If the admission counselor is visiting your school, make sure you plan ahead.  Find out if you will be able to get out of class in order to meet with them.  Talk to the teacher of the class ahead of time and make sure to ask what material you will be missing.  If you can not get out of class, contact the admission counselor directly and see if there are any other opportunities for you to meet while they are in town (see Tip #2).
Tip #4:  Making the most of the high school visit
When you meet with an admission counselor, it is important to be prepared.  Follow the advice we have previously posted in “Dance with an Admission Officer” and “The Art of College Fairs”.  Be prepared to have a conversation, ask detailed and specific questions and just be yourself!  They are looking forward to getting to know as much as you are looking forward to learning more about the school!

Katherine Price
Former Admission Road Warrior
Technorati Tags: admission counselor visits, admission representatives at high schools, college visits

Transfer Process: Life Changing or a Big Hassle?

Students sitting back to back in a forest

I recently reconnected with one of my former transfer students via a social networking site. I assisted the student with the transfer admission process at the institution I used to work at and he sent me one of those rare emails where a student reminds me why I wanted to become an educator. He raved about his transfer experience and how the decision to change colleges transformed his life. Fortunately this student had a positive transfer experience, but the transfer process can be tricky. Here are few things to consider:
Start Early: The sooner you contact the institution you are thinking of transferring to the better.

  • Ask what courses you should currently be enrolled in. Some schools want you to have completed as many general education courses as possible.
  • What are the transfer admission policies? Do they admit January transfer students? Can you transfer in your first-year or do you have to wait until you are a sophomore?
  • What are the statistics for admitted transfer applicants? Make sure you meet the average college GPA and standardized test requirements. What do you need to do to improve your profile? What is the transfer acceptance rate? The transfer admission process at some schools can be more competitive than the first-year application process.
  • Completing a transfer application can be just as extensive as completing a first-year application. Find out if the college or university you are interested in uses transfer Common Application or do they have a separate application process. What credentials do you need to submit for the transfer application process?

Show Me The Money:

  • Ask about the availability of financial aid for transfer students. Some schools do have special scholarships available.
  • Transferring academic credits can have a huge financial impact on your decision to transfer. If all of your current credits are not accepted, you may have to delay your graduation timeline. Find out if your current institution has any articulation agreements with schools you are interested in. If not, contact the school you are interested in and see if they have any courses from your current institution that have been previously accepted for credit. This may save you in the long run!
  • FInd out if there is on-campus housing available for transfer students.  If not, what is the cost difference for living off campus?

Deciding to transfer is big decision, but it does not mean that it is the end of your college career. US News & World Report wrote a great article last January on President Obama’s transfer experience. The article talks about how transferring may not be for everyone, but it may also take you places you never imagined!
Katherine Price
Transfer Advocate
Technorati Tags: transfer student, transfer student admission process, transfer student advice, transfer student application process,

Visiting College Campuses: A Tour Guide Shares Tips

Sometimes campus tour guides go above and beyond.  While on the University of Alabama campus recently, I was treated to a private tour by a polite, knowledgeable, and good humored young gentleman.  He gave me the grand tour, and fielded my penetrating questions very well.  So I asked him whether he thought it would be sufficient for a student to get a complete picture of life at Alabama by taking his tour.  “Absolutely not!” he insisted.  So I asked him to elaborate.

In this short video, Andrew explains his strategies for visiting a college campus.




Mark Montgomery
College Consultant



Technorati Tags: campus visit, college visit, tour, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa Del.icio.us Tags: campus visit, college visit, tour, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa

Carnival-Palooza

A couple of great carnivals are up that you might want to check out. Check out the Carnival of Homeschooling at Apollo’s Academy where my post about how the credit crunch may affect college admissions this cycle.


The same post was featured in the Carnival of Linked-In Users at Janet Barclay’s blog.  This is an eclectic carnival that features a huge variety of interesting articles from around the blogosphere.


Blog Carnivals are a great way to share your best blog posts.  If you’re interested in contributing to the Carnival of College Admission, make sure to submit the URL of a recent blog post to the handy-dandy Blog Carnival submission form.  The next edition of the Carnival of College Admission will go up on November 12th.


Mark Montgomery

College Counselor

How Competitive is College Admissions? Enough to Tempt Parents to Behave Badly

The Chicago Tribune ran a story on Monday about the lengths to which some parents will go to get their darlings into college.  The whole process of selecting and applying to college is certainly stresseful.  And there is no doubt that the competition is fierce.


It’s also true that in some school communities, the competition is even more fierce.  At toney private schools in the East, for example, there may be 30 members of the 100 students in the graduating class who are all applying to Harvard or Tufts or both.  Clearly, no college will want to admit every student from that school who applies, even if every last one of them has perfect grades and a perfect test scores.  Colleges are social engineers, and to accept so many from one place would throw the community out of balance.


So, as this article describes, some parents are not holding back in their attempts to sandbag others’ kids in order to promote their own. Here are some examples of sandbagging from the article:


  • Anonymous notes to the admissions office recommending that they look at a rival’s Facebook page.
  • Phone calls suggesting that a student is lying about particular accomplishments or extracurricular involvements.
  • Newspaper clippings attesting to a student’s involvement in a crime or other bad behavior.


While this article does shed some light on how desperate a small number of parents (and their students) are to get into the most competitive colleges, the article does suggest that to focus on this sort of aberrant behavior only fans the fires of the fall admissions frenzy.


The article suggests that most admissions officers ignore these instances of parental interference, unless the letter is signed or unless it presents some sort of hard evidence–like the newspaper clipping.  The fact is that the practice of sandbagging other students is both rare and ineffective.  And if you read this article carefully, amid the sensationalist hype are some strong indications that the article’s headline bends reality in order to attract readers.


Here are some passages from the article that cool the hype.


College admissions officials said they do not track how many of these letters, calls or e-mails they receive and said they are unsure whether they’re getting more of them.


So is sandbagging becoming more common?  No data.  Admissions officials are “unsure” if the practice is increasing as competition increases.  Fact is, this practice has been going on for a long time.


“We see everything. Nothing shocks us anymore.”


So says the dean of admissions of Northwestern University.  Thus the article’s implication that sandbagging is a new phenomenon is misleading. Desperate and silly parents have been around for a long time.


…anonymous allegations typically get thrown in the trash. If the letters include specific allegations or a newspaper article detailing criminal activity, officials might follow up with a call to the applicants or their high schools.


Thus, sandbagging does not work.  Admissions officers are not stupid.  And they are also prudent.  So if they receive random messages written in crayon in unmarked envelopes, admissions people have a good laugh at the sandbagger’s expense and move on with their job.  Or they are careful to investigate specific allegations (which often turn up in teacher recommendations, anyway…either as the discreet but clear note at the bottom saying, “Call Me!”, or as a very weak letter of support).


The article also drops a little hint toward the end of the article that helps identify one of the sources of the problem, in general.  High schools generally do not put disciplinary information onto a transcript, nor do they report disciplinary actions to colleges in other ways.  This information is somehow deemed “private,” while the academic information is readily shared with college admissions officers.


In my mind, this is a huge problem.  It is also one of the reasons so many private consultants deal with families who arrive on our doorsteps with stories like this: “My daughter is really a great kid.  Of course, there was that one time she was busted for cocaine possession in Daytona Beach, and that time she was suspended for a week for selling marijuana–it was only a tiny amount.  We know you can help us tell her story in a way that will help cover for those minor infractions so she can get into the school of her dreams.”


I tell clients right up front that I will not be an accessory to a lie.  I will help the student explain the mistake, and if appropriate, help the contrite and apologetic young person explain past transgressions in terms of lessons learned and prospects for a better future.


While sandbagging is sleazy, I find it more sleazy–and much more common–that parents are totally comfortable with lying on behalf of their own child than they are willing to tear down someone else.  This finding is no consolation, to be sure.  But at least I keep my own conscience clear and my reputation intact.


Mark Montgomery

College Counselor






Technorati Tags: Chicago Tribune, admission, competitive, selective, college, university, Ivy League, application Del.icio.us Tags: Chicago Tribune, admission, competitive, selective, college, university, Ivy League, application



Carnival of College Admission | Third Thrilling Edition

The Third Edition of the Carnival of College Admission is our best yet.  We continue to receive more and better submissions with each edition, and I’m happy that we are building a community of bloggers that want to share their content related to the transition between high school and college.  If you missed the first two editions, you can view Number One here and Number Two here.


And now, on with the fun!


Admissions

Andy Burns is the director of admission at Fort Lewis College, a publicly-funded liberal arts college in the funky, hip mountain town of Durango, Colorado.  If you love to ski and hike and raft and kayak and bike–this is someplace you ought to consider.  Andy travels a good bit to meet high school students from all over the country, and in this post he shares some tips on  Writing your personal essay posted at Transitioning to College.  If you’re still trying to figure out how to begin that essay, start with Andy’s advice.


The CollegeBound Network presents some hints on how to use all those college guidebooks clogging the shelves at your local bookstore.  This post, entitled College Guidebook Facts: What They Really Tell You , helps to cut through the good and bad information presented in those hefty tomes.  Some of that information contained in the books is better ignored.  Check out the CollegeBound Network blog at College – U. Got It?.


Elizabeth Kudner, co-founder of myUsearch, an unbiased online service that matches students to colleges, presents College Search Sites: Web Surfers Beware posted on the myUsearch Blog. This post explains how to avoid deceiving college search sites that prey on the curiosity of college-seekers.


Sometimes, Mother Knows Best.  O. Daille Nation-Ashley, a mom who knows, presents Get Cracking With College Applications posted at CEOmum – Parenting is a Full Time Job.  She includes some links to helpful resources.


What’s your stereotype of an admissions officer? Some stodgy, old guy in a tweed jacket and bow tie pouring over your application with a frown on his face?  Adam Epstein destroys this image in his post  All work and no play… , which he describes a prank he and his colleagues played on another staffer in Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s office of admissions.  Check out Adam’s other posts at Adamissions.


Blake Spiers presents a few key words of wisdom regarding the college search and admissions proces in a post entitled “College Comes Quickly!”  You can read the rest of Blake’s posts at My Messy Dorm Room.


Sometimes you just have to talk to students if you want to learn about the admissions process.  In this post, Jeff presents Interview with a Recent College Grad posted at Campus Bound.  In case you’re wondering, the grad in question graduated from Simmons College in Boston.


Todd Johnson is like most college counselors: he doesn’t like to use rankings because they provide too narrow a set of criteria to be able to tell if this or that college is right for you.  However, everyone seems to be getting into the ratings game.  Todd points us to a set of  World wide college rankings posted at College Admissions Counseling.  Everything you wanted to learn about colleges around the world…and more!


Ian at Step Into College has just published a new magazine on college admissions that goes out to high schools, so that students and families can have access to great information.  (Shameless plug–I wrote an article for the magazine.)


And yours truly, Mark Montgomery, respectfully submits advice on When to Visit a College Campus.  My one word of wisdom:  a college is a community, not a set of buildings.  Just as you choose a doctor or lawyer based on their competence and records of success, you want to take the time to get to know the people that make up the community…the community you may call “home” for the next four years.  If you want to read more of my posts, well, you’re already visiting my blog…so go ahead!  Make my day!


Boarding School

Peter Baron, the major domo of boarding schools over at AdmissionsQuest, offers up a post by Tom O’Dell, has been fretting–as we all have–about what the financial downturn will mean for the education sector.  Tom tells us that we shouldn’t count chickens before they come home to roost.  Or rather, don’t hesitate to apply to the school of your dreams, because you just might get a good financial aid package.


Test Prep

Dave Van de Walle reveals the SAT scores of President George W. Bush in his post,  Fresh New Going to College Content – for the test-takers posted at U Sphere Blog.  Dave also reminds us that there are hundreds of schools for which test scores are considered optional in the admissions process.


Happy Schools presents 10 Steps to Improve Your GRE Score posted at Happy Schools Blog. Good GRE Score is required to get into college of your dream. Good study plan and practice will improve GRE Score over time. 10 Steps listed helped me to improve my GRE Score by 40% from the first practice test I took to Actual GRE test Score. There are many GRE Exam strategies available, but from what I have seen with my friends and from my experience, steps listed here will definitely improve your GRE Scores.


College Life

Moving off to college can be stressful. What do I need?  What do I not need? Brett J Callahan helps us out, by warning us not to be whipped into a frenzy about buying sheets to fit those longer dorm beds.  Brent has plenty of other shopping advice at 2East: The College Living Blog


Ali Hale is the Alpha Student.  She gives college student advice on  Organising your lecture notes .  If you have heaps of indistinguishable bits of paper all over your desk (or worse, under your bed) then you need to learn how to organize your lecture notes with a minimum of effort.


AndrewB presents Forget Success – Try to Fail Instead | Personal Hack posted at Personal Hack. Say what? This is a great piece of advice AndrewBI heard originally from Steve Pavlina the Personal Development expert. He was asked how being an authority on personal development impacts his own personal growth? If he ever feels intimidated, as if he can’t fail and always has to be successful to be a good role model.


I used to be heavily into the textbook industry, and constantly lamented the high cost of worthless textbooks.  But, for better or worse, textbooks are here to stay.  College Degrees notes that the cost of books is a big-ticket item in a student’s budget (anywhere from $300-$500 per semester).  However, there are ways to cut the cost, and College Degrees tells you  How to Find Free Textbooks For College posted at the Degree Talk Blog.  If you’re ready to stop shelling out for this exorbitant cost each year, read on!


Tom Tessin advises students that there are 5 Things Every College Student Must Have when they head off to college. Can you guess what they are?  Check out Tom’s blog at FCC Student Blog.



Choosing a Major or Degree Program

College Degrees presents Distance Learning: Does it Make the Grade? posted at Degree Talk Blog. Have you wondered how distance degrees really stack up in real life? Does anyone actually take distance learning seriously? Can anyone really earn a college degree at home and find a worthwhile job?


Dawn Papandrea presents Beat the Economic Crisis: 5 “Safe” Careers posted at CollegeSurfing Insider. The economic crisis is giving college students (and career changers) something new to consider when choosing a field of study: which college majors and their corresponding careers have staying power? Find out about 5 “safe” ones.


Heather Johnson presents 100 Free Self-Assessment Tools to Choose Your College, Major, and Career posted at eLearning Gurus.



Financial Aid

Marwan reminds us that there can be a lot of hidden costs in preparing to go to college for the first time, in this post, entitled Tuition Tales: The Expensive First Month of College gives the parent’s perspective on all these extra purchases.  Check out more stories at Tuition Tales.


Graduate School

Khan, who writes for the Higher Education and Career Blog, presents a very comprehensive view of The Law School Admissions Game .  As with undergraduate admission, there is a fair amount of strategy involved in how you fill out the application. You won’t want to miss this one.


Other Cool Stuff

John presents Einstein’s 5 Maxims for Creative Excellence posted at Ace Online Schools.


Need a brain break?  Alvaro Fernandez presents Brainy Haikus for brain training posted at SharpBrains.


Spanish Learner presents Using Connecting Words In Spanish posted at Learn Spanish Blog.  This is quite relevant for me, as my family is spending the year learning Spanish in Baja California.  They blog here.  I go down occasionally, but I hold down the fort, work, and put together Blog Carnivals!


Joseph presents Learn English Articles » Blog Archive » Some Tips for Navigating Nouns in English posted at Learning English.



And that’s a wrap, folks!  Which posts did you like best?  Leave a comment and let us know!


Thanks to all our participants, as well as our readers.  If you’d like to include a post in our next edition, scheduled for November 12th, just fill out our handy-dandy submission form.  If you want to check out all the past editions of the Carnival, you can visit the Index Page.