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Campus Visits & Interviews

INTERVIEWS Campus Visits & Interviews Overview Planning your interviews Preparing for your interviews Interview manners and etiquette Interview Do's Interview Don'ts The most common interview mistakes Strategy for admissions interviews Opening questions - Admission interviews Opening-ended questions - Admissions interviews Final questions and impressions - Admissions interviews Additional possible questions - Admissions interviews Strategy and questions for Professor interviews Final impressions - Professor interviews

Open-ended Questions - Admissions Interviews

This is usually the SECOND part of the interview.  After the opening questions, the interviewer will try to access your values and beliefs by asking open-ended questions. Admission officers want to know what’s important to you – friends, family, helping others, striving for success, etc.

Admission officers want to understand your character as well – your curiosity, maturity, leadership, humility, ability to overcome difficult situations, etc.

Don’t focus on events or your successes, focus on why things are important to you.  For example, if you were a volunteer on a community project, say you wanted to be involved for the personal satisfaction of helping others.  Or, if you were a high school class officer, say you wanted to help with making decisions that would better your school and provide what the student body wanted as a whole.  Or, if you were captain of the swim team, say it was important to you to be captain so you could guide the team and help to inspire the other swimmers.   It’s the WHY admissions officers are interested in, not the WHAT.

Some typical open-ended questions include:

• What are your strengths and weaknesses?
• What extracurricular activities are the most important to you and why?
• Who is someone you admire and why?
• How do you plan to contribute to this college?
• What classes have you taken in high school that you really enjoyed and why?
• What elective courses might you take in college outside of you major and why?
• What are some of your favorite and least favorite classes you’ve taken in high school?
• What has been your greatest accomplishment?
• What have you done during your summers and why?

Other common open-ended questions are:

• What are the college factors or characteristics you are looking for in choosing a school?
• How would you describe your high school?
• If you could change one thing about your high school, what would it be?
• Tell me about a typical day at your high school.
• Have you worked up to your greatest potential in high school?
• What’s been your most significant accomplishment?
• What is the most challenging thing you’ve done?
• What are your plans after you graduate from college?
• Have you ever thought on not going to college?
• What would you like to talk about?