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.

@georgeandbob

That's the Washington and Lee (hereafter to be referred to as W&L) admission office's twitter account.  Follow it.  It's pretty hilarious.

Setting aside awesome tweeting, I want to go to W&L.  That is a statement I make with one distinct reservation, but I'll get to that in a second.  First off, the campus is steeped in history.  From the little things like the fact that George Washington's original donation of $20,000 in stock of the James River Company still pays for $1.87 of every student's tuition and the plaques around campus commemorating Traveler (Lee's horse) set up and maintained by the Virginia Daughters of the Confederacy to big things like the Speaking Tradition and the Honor Code, W&L maintains it's history in a really cool, modern way.  The academics are also top notch, but that almost goes without saying.  I got the opportunity to skim the classes offered in the Religion Department (a department I am particularly interested in) and I pretty much wanted to take all of them.  They also have a strong technical theater program.  My stage tech teacher is actually a W&L alumnus, and he's awesome at tech and as a person, which is what actually steered me toward the university in the first place.  W&L is a university, but their only graduate program is their law school which only has 400 people in it; so the focus really is on the undergrads.  Everyone I've heard from has spoken to the fact that the professors and the students are really close, which is really nice.  The professors are also pretty legit themselves.  I was skimming some of the literature I picked up on the Physics department (another one of my interests) and I learned that the author of my school's AP Physics C textbook is a professor there.  That's pretty damn cool.  I also really love the campus ambiance.  The Honor Code and the Speaking Tradition are huge parts of that.  The Honor Code has its roots in Lee's declaration that the only rule of the school was that the students should "conduct themselves like gentlemen".  Nowadays, that is interpreted to mean "I will not lie, cheat, or steal" or violate the trust of the campus in any way.  Conviction of an Honor Code violation is grounds for immediate expulsion.  Clearly this is taken very seriously.  But it's not like there are expulsions every year.  The student body takes the Code very seriously and really doesn't violate it.  Which, in the grand scheme of things, means that they are decent human beings, but that's no small feat in today's world.  There's also the Speaking Tradition, which also dates back to Lee's tenure as president of the university.  It boils down to the fact that you say hi to people you see.  No matter what. Again, this probably should be considered basic human decency, but it really is exceptional that the students do this.

I could go on and on about the things I love about the campus and all the little stories about the history of the university, but I want to address one glaring "question mark" area: Greek Life.  I am not what one would consider a stereotypical sister; some people call me a hipster, but I reject labels.  Participation in Greek Life at W&L hovers around 85%.  On a campus of approximately 2,000 people total.  It's kind of a big deal.  I am assured that you're not screwed out of the social scene if you are not involved and I am assured that the sororities and fraternities are not stuck up about who's who, but still.... 85%.  That's a lot.

All in all, I loved Washington and Lee.  It's the first school about which I have actively said "I want to go here".  I embrace the trident that is the university's symbol; it's just that there is one significant pointy bit.