It’s interview season for seniors right now. This is one of the last items that you have control over in your application. Interviews don’t necessarily have a great deal of weight in your application; however, they can help push your application over the edge or, if it’s a truly terrible interview, can tank your application.

Earlier this year I gave you five tips to improving your interview skills. I hope you’ve been practicing with those tips. I want to share with you some additional resources to help make your interview process go smoothly. First, I want you to practice your responses to the following questions. The best responses are stories and demonstrate you did your homework. Practice, but don’t memorize. I don’t want you to sound like you’re reading from a script.

Questions to Practice

Why do you want to attend our school?

What will you contribute to our school?

What three adjectives describe you?

What is your biggest strength?

What is your biggest weakness?

What is a time you overcame something difficult?

What is your favorite book/movie?

What do you want to do after you graduate?

What activities do you find most rewarding?

Additionally, you should prepare several questions for your interviewers. Don’t ask questions that you could find the answers to online. For example, “What is the one piece of advice that you wish you had received as a freshman?” “What do you wish you had done more of during college?” Something that only they can answer for you.

Interview Resources

I highly recommend Ramit Sethi’s I Will Teach You to be Rich for really great interviewing tips. They are for job interviewing, but can be directly applied to college interviews. He has a lot of good interviewing tips and videos. One of my favorites is The Art of Storytelling. The College Board also has some great basic interview tips that are good to review.

Action Steps

1. Develop answers, specific to the school & preferably stories, to all of the questions listed.
2. Come up with unique, specific questions for your interviewer.
3. Review available resources to take your interviewing up a notch.
4. Have fun! The best interviews are where you’re both having a good time.

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