A Tale of Two Interviews

This, as the title suggests, is a tale of two interviews: one disastrous, one quite good.  It's a bit unfair of me to say disastrous; after doing the requisite pre-interview research, I knew for a fact that I was not going to Reed College.  Their Physics and Religion departments leave a bit to be desired.  But even setting that aside, the interview was pretty bad.  But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Preparing for the Interview!
A vital part of any college admissions interview is preparation.  At the very least, you need to know the goal of the interview.  So far I've only done admissions interviews, so they've all been evaluative; the people I've talked to are trying to figure out if I'm the right fit for their respective colleges.  Interviews come in one other flavor: informative.  These are more for the student to figure out if they're the right fit for a given school on their own.  These interviews, from what I can tell, are usually administered by alumni.
But there's so much more to prep.  Firstly, know thyself.  Seriously.  I went through my life story and reminded myself how awesome I am.  Ostensibly, this is to prepare you to answer questions like "what are your academic/extracurricular passions?" and "how do you see them extending through your college experience?" but this step is also a nice ego boost, which - if you're an anxious wreck like I am - is really nice to have.
Secondly, know thy school.  Mostly, go back through the books and read up on the numbers.  You don't want to be asking about class size or about how many books are in the library.  That shows you're not engaged in the school and, quite frankly, makes you look a little silly.  Prepare some decent questions about the school.  Mine are:

• What is your study abroad culture like?
• Did you attend [insert college/university here]?  If so, what did you like most/least about your experience?
• If not, from an administrative perspective, what do you like most/least?
• What was the most controversial issue on campus this year?
• If school is urban: What is your relationship to the city you are located in/near?

They show preparation and interest while being useful.  Personally, I like to know the answer to the first and last questions already so I can pay attention to how the interviewer answers the question.  For example: with regard to the urban question, I know I want a school where the campus life is focused on campus.  If the interviewer stresses the proximity of the city too much, it's a warning sign for me.  But I'm a little crazy, so there's that...

The Interview!  Reed College
Reed was my warm up interview.  The representative of the college: Crocket Marr (I got his name wrong on my last post).  I managed to avoid calling him by name for the entire interview, so I think that was a note of success.  All in all, it was kind of a weird interview.  Of the 45 minutes I got to spend with him, 20 were spent talking about neutral hydrogen transfer and radio astronomy (both very interesting topics but not particularly relevant to the focus of the interview), another 15 were spent reading his senior honors thesis on Plato and Egyptology, and 10 were spent talking about Reed College.  I know I did not come away from the experience any more informed, and I'm pretty sure he didn't either.  Note to self made: try not to mention anything too interesting that I've done until later in the interview.  I'll call it a mitigated disaster and move along.

The Other Interview!  Swarthmore College
This one went a lot better.  Of the hour, Ruby and I did not get heinously off topic.  This was a plus.  We had a lovely conversation about religion, astronomy, stage tech, grammar, historical context for literature, fencing, and sororities.  All in all, very useful.  Swarthmore stays very true to it's Quaker roots, which is one of the things I love about the campus.  I always leave wanting to create world peace.  30 minutes on the New Jersey Turnpike usually cures me of that desire, but it's the thought that counts.  In any event, Swarthmore is incredibly inclusive.  This manifests itself in a particularly interesting way in their attitude toward their club fencing team and toward sororities.  Swarthmore's Fencing team is ridiculously good.  But they're not varsity. They're a club team, and they plan on staying that way (as far as I can tell from the interview).  The team benefits from very serious fencers, but novices can pick up a blade for the first time and join the team if they are so inclined because it's a club team.  Becoming a proper varsity team would require a degree of choosiness with regard to skill level, and that's just not the Quaker way.  Similarly, in the 1930s, Swarthmore abolished it's one sorority because that particular organization had a policy against admitting Jewish students.  The administration realized that didn't jive with the college's values, and sororities haven't had a presence on campus since then.  However, they're revisiting the issue now because there's a certain degree of curiosity in the student body.  There are two fraternities on campus and about 6% of guys participate; and the girls realized that, if they were inclined to join a greek organization, they had no outlet.  Because of this discussion on campus, the administration has decided to allow one sorority on campus starting next spring.  Clearly, the interview was informative.  All of that was completely new information for me (check here for my previous impressions of Swarthmore).  So total success.

I have interviews with Washington and Lee and The University of Chicago scheduled for September, so look forward to those posts.  I'm leaving for various foreign countries tomorrow and I will be without internet; so look forward to a whole mess of blogging the day I get back.

Actual Final Visit

Remember how I said I had finished the college visit circuit? I lied.

Yesterday my dad and I drove into the City (which is to say New York City) for an info session and tour of Columbia University.  Now I know Columbia is a good school.  That's just a fact.  But it's also not for me which is kind of unfortunate since I know some really cool people who go to Columbia or who are starting there this year.  Que será, será I suppose.

I am relatively confident I have not met "the one" quite yet, which is to say that I have no idea if and where I might apply Early Decision.  Early Decision is kind of scary because it's legally binding.  My college counselor told me that, as the weeks progress here in September and the beginning of October, some schools are going to re-rank themselves as I figure out what I really want out of a school.  After my Columbia visit, I know there's one major thing that would make me simply say no to a school: academic rigidity.  I know that, at the very least, I want to study Religion and Astronomy.  I can't go to a school that's going to lock me out of certain classes.  The way Columbia's core curriculum works, Columbia prescribes about 6 classes that you will take at certain times.  I am not willing to sign up for that.  On a semester system in which an average student takes 4-6 classes, I am not willing to blindly give up one of my classes to the core.  Don't get me wrong, I like distribution requirements.  I also probably wouldn't function well at a school like Brown where there are no Distribution requirements whatsoever.  But I know I don't want to be told what classes to take when; that reminds me too much of my high school experience.
There is, however, one requirement at Columbia that I think is pretty cool: swimming.  Back in Alexander Hamilton's time (he's an alum of Kings College, which became Columbia), there was a minor concern floating around that the British might invade.  Completely unfounded, right?  Anyway, the college decided to add a swimming requirement to their core curriculum that would mimic the distance across the Hudson River to New Jersey.  If the British did in fact invade, Columbia students would have to be able to swim to safety.  More recently, the students of the Engineering college pointed out that they wouldn't have to swim because they would build a boat or a bridge or a catapult or something in real time so the engineering students don't actually have to pass the swimming requirement.  Personally, I think they should have to pass a time trial for catapult design to prove that they wouldn't need to swim, but that's neither here nor there.

Today I'm gearing up to take the next step in a college courtship: interviewing. I'll be heading into the City later on to meet with Crockett Marrow, the assistant dean of admissions at Reed College.  This is the one school I haven't actually visited in person, simply because of distance, so I have a lot of questions prepared for Crockett (I don't actually plan to call him by his first name; I just think it's hilarious that he's named Crockett).  We'll see how it goes...