College Admissions Interviews: What to Expect & How to Ace Them

Relax.

College interviews are not like they were decades ago. Back in the day, after vetting the most qualified candidates, admissions officers themselves would interview the remaining applicants. During these interviews, they would ask difficult questions and really test their character. They might ask you to solve technical problems in the area you applied to study in, or press really hard on you to reveal your biggest weaknesses and shortcomings and hang them over your head throughout the entire interview to psyche you out.

These were the interviews that made applicants of the past sweat and prep extensively for. Those days are long gone. Way too many students apply for this type of interviewing to work, and also, it would be a PR disaster for colleges. This old-school interview style is still used for scholarship interviews though.

Today's college admissions interviews are, for the most part, softball interviews. They are conducted by alumni, not admissions officers. Only Georgetown University, an overall oddball in the world of college admissions, still has admissions officers themselves conduct interviews. That's most likely because they don't use the Common App and make applying to them such a pain in the butt that the number of applicants they receive is small enough to allow their admissions officers the time to interview them. Even there, though, the questions are softball questions.

What are softball questions?

Stuff like "Tell me about yourself," "Why are you applying here?", and "What is your favorite subject?"

The most difficult question you are likely to encounter is "What is your greatest weakness?" and "If you were president of the United States, what would be the three biggest issues you would tackle?"

For the greatest weakness question, try to think of some quality you possess which in moderation is a positive thing, but in excess can be a mild detriment, and ensure that in the same answer, you explain how you are currently working on remedying that weakness. For the presidential question, any answer that shows that you are paying attention to current events and possess defined values, would be strong

The purpose of these questions isn't necessarily to gauge how smart or clever you are. Rather, they exist to give you the space to showcase to the interviewer how badly you want to attend a particular college and whether or not you are indeed the person who submitted that particular application. Make sure you study your application, especially your essays, and know them inside and out so that your answers are aligned with what you have written.

During the interview, you should showcase how happy you are for this opportunity. You are face to face with someone you hope to be one day, an alumnus from one of your top-choice colleges, and have this amazing opportunity to talk to them about your favorite interests and receive some sage wisdom from them.

Modern college interviews are very conversational. You can go online and find a bunch of past questions asked, something we do encourage you to do, and practice for them. However, most likely the interviewer will ask you to tell them about yourself and start asking questions based off of what you told them. Eventually they will land on your academic interests. Ideally, the bulk of the interview should be you nerding out about your academic interests and making the interviewer understand the overall importance of wha you intend to study.

Demonstrating enthusiasm to attend a particular college and for your chosen major are the most important things to get across during an interview.

Another important part of the interview is to have a really good reason why you are choosing a particular school to attend. Saying you are choosing a school for its location, because you already know people there, or for reasons involving comfort are a no-no. You want to explain how the school you want to attend will challenge you and cite professors and academic institutes that will allow you to push yourself as far as you can given your academic interests. After discussing the ways you'll be academically challenged at that particular college, then focus on explaining why you like a campus tradition or two.

Avoid saying anything negative about fellow students or teachers, talking about other colleges, saying anything overly harsh or critical about yourself, and, if asked what you would have done differently in high school, saying that you would have changed nothing.

If you want to know which political topics to avoid, look into your interviewer's LinkedIn or X posts. If they don't have any posts on those platforms, either try to avoid politics altogether, or ensure that your politics don't extend past either center-left or center-right positions. If you do some research into your interviewer and find out that they have done similar or the same activities as you have, it is okay to tell them about your findings and commonalities you have with them at the start of the interview.

If you want to truly stand out in the college admissions interview, you want to be the one leading the conversation by taking the initiative to discuss with them the things you can talk the most about and to lean in on any common experiences you've had with them. Again, the purpose of the interview is to gauge your interest in the school and your chosen academic area of study. The cherry on top of that would be showcasing your personality.

The interview questions you see online exist for the interviewer to ask you during any pauses in the conversation, which is fine and natural. Ideally, each question they ask you should be the beginning of a new open-ended conversation between you and the interviewer.

For the interview, dress professionally. It is always better to overdress for someone who doesn't care about how you dress than it is to underdress before someone who is judging whether you wear a suit or a t-shirt. Prior to the interview, unless they request that you don't, it is wise to send them your resume. Of course, after the interview, write them a thank-you letter immediately. Once you agree upon a date, don't change it, irrespective of your extracurricular commitments.

One of the most important parts of the interview will be questions that you ask the interviewer. Good questions to ask are: What other colleges were you considering and why did you choose X college? What was the most important thing you learned at X college? How has X college changed since you applied? What is the relationship like between students and faculty at X college? Favorite class outside of your major at X college? Given what you know about me and my goals, is there any advice you can give me?

Your interviewer will be taking notes throughout the interview and will provide them to the admissions office. The admissions office will use those notes as part of their evaluation. The best notes are those which align with what you wrote about in your essays and include additional positive information about you that was not present in your application. This can be your eyes beaming when talking about your favorite academic subject, the emotion you show when talking about a very formative experience of yours, or your commitment to solving a real-world problem.

If you need help with prepping for an interview or any other aspect of the college admissions process, click on the button below to schedule a complimentary consultation with an admissions expert today.