Transcription
Hi, my name is Gaby. I’m a senior at Thomas Jefferson, and I will be a freshman at William and Mary this fall. This video is about college interviews and kind of just dispelling some myths and kind of giving you some hints from you know, a doctored veteran. So, the way I’m going to start off is with the myths.
A lot of people think that your interviews are kind of do or die when it comes to your performance, which simply isn’t true. Colleges a lot of the time use your interview as a supplement. It’s definitely not going to be your whole application; it isn’t going to be based solely on those fifteen minutes or an hour of your time that you spent with a stranger for the first time. A lot of colleges range from their interviews from being optional or being required. Required obviously means that your interview is going to play a bigger chunk in your application review process than it would be if it were optional.
When you to go to interview at a college where an interview is required, you should expect a lot more questions about yourself and your story, and what you need to do in those situations is definitely add a third dimension to the person who is on paper. You need to tell them stories about yourself that demonstrate your character. You need to not talk about your GPA or your test scores or grades, because that’s obviously all on your transcript, it’s all on your paper application, and the interviewer doesn’t need to see that. They need to know you as a person.
When it comes to optional interviews, it’s mostly going to be you asking the interviewer questions about the school and information. You know the interviewer could maybe say, “Oh this person was very nice, they seem passionate about the school,” but other than that it’s not going to play a role on your application.
When it comes to actually showing up for the interviews, don’t overdress. Heels is always a little much. Don’t have your mom waiting outside wherever you are, tapping her heel or waiting in the living room of your interviewer’s house, or something like that. It’s best if your parents come drop you off, or if you drive yourself, they go away and pick you up later. That definitely shows the interviewer that you’re an adult, that you’re individual, that you don’t need your parents to babysit you or you know kind of watch over you all the time, which isn’t what a college student will be anyway.
I think another important thing is like I said before, make sure you add dimension to who you are on paper. The point of the interview is to kind of show that you’re a multi-faceted person, that you’re not just a straight-a student or a straight-b student who does all these activities after school. This is when you get to show off your passions for the school, for your certain activities you do outside of school, kind of tell the interviewer something about you that makes you stand out because that’s what’s going to make them remember you when they’re writing up their interview kind of logs.
Other than that, I think just be yourself. Don’t be intimidated or afraid. Realize that an interview is just a little snippet of who you are out of your entire life for one day, for an hour, for thirty minutes, and that you aren’t going to be judged solely on that. So keeping that in mind, don’t really pressure yourself, kind of come with it confidently, and if you feel good about yourself then your interviewer will see that and hopefully that will reflect well on your interviewer write up. So, that’s it.
