Interviews

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome back to Inside the Yale Admissions Office, I'm Hannah and I'm a Yale Admissions Officer. - And I'm Mark, I'm also a Yale Admissions Officer. Today's episode is going to be all about interviews and we're delighted to be joined by our friend and colleague, Dara. Thanks for coming on, Dara. - Thank you for having me, everyone, I'm excited. We are so excited to have you, Dara. Thank you for being here. Dara directs our interviewing program, so we thought she would be the obvious perfect guest to come on and talk a little bit about interviews. - And in our office, admissions officers don't typically conduct interviews, but we do read an awful lot of reports from students and alumni volunteers who conduct the interviews and Dara oversees thousands of people who interview students in those roles. - Let's do a quick overview of that and how that works. - Right, like a lot of things, the way that we do things here at Yale's probably a little bit different than other schools, but the basic advice that we're gonna provide you, the basic sort of idea about why schools conduct interviews, I think it's gonna be pretty similar anywhere that you're applying. - The first thing just to get this out of the way, interviews are actually not required for our admissions process. Not everyone gets an interview. There are students who get accepted every year, who haven't had an interview. We just don't have the resources to offer an interview to every single one of our applicants. So we tend to take the resources that we do have and make sure we get interviews for the students for whom they're really going to help us. - Right, and the interview itself is typically a 30 to 45 minute conversation. That conversation is unstructured, meaning that the person conducting it does not go in with a prescribed set of questions that we've given them. And after that interview is over, what that person produces for us is a pretty unstructured report. They're gonna write up a few paragraphs probably about what it was like to talk with that student for those 30 to 45 minutes. - Yep, and that's usually the last thing we actually read when we read an application. We've talked about the essays. We'll do an episode soon about teacher recommendations. All these come together, as you know by now, to form the full application. And the interview is usually something that we read towards the end. And often it comes actually after we've read the rest of the application because these interviews happens after a student submits their application. - And Daria, you've probably seen more of these reports than any of us. How would you describe sort of the role of that report in the admissions file for an applicant? - Yeah, so the way that I like to think about it is that we see this application and there are a lot of things written about a student. And we see a lot of numbers that are connected to the student mainly on your transcript. But the interview itself is a spontaneous interaction with a member of our community. And it is just a really great way to see how all of these words and numbers and things that are associated with you come to life when somebody is talking to you. - I also feel like it's our only opportunity to have a real spontaneous interaction with a student because we, as admissions officers, don't get to meet every student who applies in person. So this is kind of the closest thing that we get to that. - Right, exactly. - So let's talk about who does the interviews. Daria, you get to oversee all of these people in their roles. Who are these people? If I'm a high school senior and I've applied and I'm contacted for an interview, who's gonna be on the other end of the table or the other end of the phone line or the online virtual interviewing experience? - Right, so we have two separate programs that help us interview students. In usual years, we have an on-campus program where we have college seniors who are part of our on-campus or senior interviewing program. So there are gonna be students who are obviously still in the middle of their Yale experience. Our other larger program is our alumni interviewing program and we have groups of volunteers all around the world in local communities who are there to interview our students. Those alumni range in age or class year, we can have people from early as 1950 or as recent as the 2019 or an upcoming 2020 class of alumni. So it really varies and the things that they're doing after Yale really varies, their majors while they were on campus really varies. So we don't try and necessarily match you up with that but what you're getting is somebody who is really dedicated to the Yale community even after they leave or while they're on their way out who just wanna talk to some students. - What's cool about that is you might have an interviewer who's interests a line with yours, which is great and can often make for good conversation but more often than not, you'll meet someone who has had a totally different path through college and life and the one you expect for yourself and those conversations can be super valuable as well. - Yeah, I think it's good to point out sort of why people sign up to do this. We've got thousands of alumni who volunteer for this and I wanna make clear, they're not volunteering because they like raking high school students across the coals, right? They don't see themselves as like the guardians of our college, right? These students sign up, or these alumni sign up really for two reasons to my experience and I think keeping them in mind can help you approach the interview in the right way, right? Like they sign up because number one, they like Yale. You know, I don't think they would volunteer for their alma mater if they weren't a fan of the experience. Secondly, they like talking to interesting high school students. I wanna sort of set this table for this early on that people who are doing these interviews are often the most outspoken advocates for these applicants. They really do want to be on your side as an applicant who's gonna spend 30 or 45 minutes with them. - Yeah. One other reason why, and this is often my favorite, is that some of our alumni, when they were going through the process, they had a really great alumni interview. And for many of them, it was the tipping point or maybe the reason why they chose to come to Yale. And so some of them wanna give back in that way and allow some other student to have that same experience or dispel myths the same way that happened to them years ago, and I always love that. - That's awesome. Those are all really good points. I feel like if anyone is feeling nervous going as their alumni interview, those are all really, really good things to remember. Derek, do you wanna talk a little bit about what sort of common themes these interviewers are looking for, what we train them and ask them to look for when they do these interviews? - Yeah, absolutely. There are few things that we're looking for. One of the things that we talk a lot about is a sense of intellectual curiosity. And that is not what we find on your transcript. We're not talking about letter grades. We're not talking about SATs or ACTs. In fact, it's best to just leave that out of the room in general. What they're talking about is what makes you excited? Like, do you want to talk about an experiment you just conducted and you just literally can't hold it inside? You have to share it with somebody. That's the kind of things that interviewers love to hear. We also talk a lot about what is it that you do outside of the classroom? So along the same lines, we're not necessarily asking for you to list your resume or your accomplishments. We actually wanna know the motivations behind these things. So why are you passionate about curling, let's say? (laughing) Why? We wanna know how you got involved. How does it shape your life? How is it connected to the context that you are coming from? Those are the kind of things that are often hard to get when you're just reading on paper, but they come to life when you're sitting and you're talking to somebody about it, even if you're just walking them through it and just describing what it is that you do. And I think ultimately, what we tell our interviewers is what was it like to sit with this student in a room for 30 minutes to 45 minutes? Is this a person that you would want to be a sweet mate or that you would want to have a conversation in the dining hall with? And that does not mean, hey, is this person completely like me and I think that we're gonna be best friends? It could be, well, we didn't have a ton in common, but I could totally see them here. I could see somebody on campus really digging this activity that they do or something that they are interested in studying. And they were able to talk to me about it even though I didn't understand it. And I think those are the kind of little things that we get better from having this conversation with people rather than just trying to figure it out by reading it in your application. - Totally. - Yeah, so let's paint a picture for you in terms of what this interview is actually going to look like. In advance of this, we did a little research of pop culture depictions of the college interview. And we want to say, every single one of them was completely wrong. - Right, yeah. We did not find a good example in pop culture of how college interviews work. But let's just go through a couple of examples. Starting with one that our audience might be a little young for, but we all know well, which is a risky business. - 1983, young Tom Cruise. I need to state for the record, horrible movie, two great scenes that are worth watching. One is the college interview scene. The second and more important is the Tom Cruise dance scene. - Right, iconic. - Google that, it's on YouTube, it's fantastic. Skip the rest of the movie. But what you see in the interview scene, completely totally wrong. - Right, all you need to know about this is it is not a good example of how to get into college or what you can expect from your meal in your meal. - Right. - That's not true. - The other references we've found, gossip girl, Gilmore Girls, I think both involved, like wood-paneled rooms and the Dean of Admissions, individually interviewing the student. - Right. - Also not how it goes. - I mean, in the episode of "Gossip Girl" when they come to visit Yale, that they're invited to like a special social with the Dean of Admissions who asks a secret question and whoever gets it right gets shortlisted. I mean, none of this is real. - Oh, yeah, yeah. And I've just recently been watching Gilmore Girls and it was a little similar to that where the grandfather says to Rory, "I've gotten you an appointment with the Dean of Admissions to interview." And that is not, please do not go to the Dean of Admissions financially and try and get us sit down with him for this. That is not how that works. - I'll have the Rory Gilmore special, please. - Right, right. All of these are great entertainment, but please do not take your college advice from any of these shows or movies. And to the Hollywood execs out there listening, we are available to consult. We want you to have a more accurate depiction next time. - So what you should picture actually is not the wood-paneled room. I want you to picture a Panera bread or a Starbucks. That is where most of our in-person interviews occur. Although a lot of our interviews happen virtually as well. And in the coming cycle, all of our interviews will be happening virtually. But when things happen in person, it is in a lovely coffee shop like that. I actually think that maybe Panera stock plummeted when we made the decision to go all virtual this year because we give Panera bread a lot of business with our alumni interviewing in person there. - The report has the interviewer list where the interview took place. And Panera is for sure the top of the list in terms of locations. - So when you show up at the Starbucks or this Panera or when you log on to Zoom to connect with this interviewer, what you're gonna have is a conversation. And I think if you think about this more in terms of a conversation than a sort of strict Q&A session, you're gonna be better prepared for it. - When I get asked, how should I prepare for my interview? What I tell students is if you can hold a conversation with a stranger for 40 minutes, you are all set, you are prepared. That's really all you should go in expecting. - Yeah, there are no trick questions. We'll say that off the bat. No one will ask you if you are household appliance. What would you be and why? Like, all right, how many ping pong balls would fit inside a jumbo jet? - Right. - That is not what we're asking our interviewers to ask. You know, what are some of the typical questions there that interviewers frequently ask? - Well, I would say they're really basic. And I think students are often surprised by the types of questions. They might be, how do you like to spend your time outside of the classroom? Or, who are you in your friend's group? Or, what do you think about college? We want to keep it as open as possible so that you can really steer the conversation towards the things that are important to you. - Yeah, I mean, I think any student should expect, you know, you're gonna be getting questions about yourself. Probably the best way to prep is just to think about what do I wanna share with somebody who is genuinely curious about me. There will probably some questions that start with things like, can you think of a time when you blank? - Right. - And so kind of having in your mind a kind of catalog of experiences that you think were insightful, just interesting, say something about you is probably a good idea. I also think, pretty universally, interviewers will ask towards the end of the interview, what questions do you have for me? And I would advise you to take advantage of that. Notice that they're asking questions for me, which is different than sort of questions about Yale. I know interviewers don't really like when you ask a question that could be found on the website, right? Like this is not the time to ask, do you have, does Yale have a biology major? - Right. - That's not why you're there. - We do, by the way. (laughing) - Two. - Right, so yeah, I mean, your interviewer can be a really great resource for you. If you have questions about their experience at Yale, you wanna hear a little bit more about that, go ahead and ask them, that's what they're there for. - And they would be delighted to tell you. I mean, I think that's one way to really sort of get this person on your side is to say, I am interested in your experience. Again, it might have been the last year. It might have been 60 years ago, but this person I guarantee was interviewing in part because they have fond memories of the Yale experience and a lot of them do like talking about it and appreciate a little chance to speak themselves. - Totally. And we would advise that you sort of stay within your comfort zone when it comes to sharing more personal information that might be a little bit sensitive. You know, anything you want to share, go for it, but if you don't feel comfortable really opening up to this person, that's fine too. Remember that we will review your interview along with the rest of your application, so it doesn't have to cover, you know, everything in that interview report. - Yeah, that's a good point. We sort of intentionally don't give our interviewers a lot of information in advance. This might be different at different schools, but for us, we sort of want it to be really a blank slate. So we typically tell our interviewers, where you go to high school, we tell them what you are thinking about majoring in, but we don't tell them what your activities are, we don't tell them what your transcript looked like, we don't, you know, share your essays or anything like that, because we want this conversation to sort of be as natural as possible. And we want to ensure that the person who's interviewing you is gonna write up a report about the conversation. Their job is to give some insight into what it was like to talk with you. They're not evaluating you as a person, they're not even evaluating you as an applicant, they are just giving some insights about the conversation. - Right, and for that reason, you know, please don't feel the need to bring a resume to your interview or anything like that. You don't need to show your grades and your test scores to your interviewer. Right, we just want that to be focused on that more natural conversation. Let's dive into just some general advice about anyone who's preparing to do these interviews. - We're just kind of gonna go down the list here of sort of like do's and don'ts with your interview. So here's a don't. You don't need to creep on your interviewer before your interview. And I say creep on because I have talked with a lot of interviewers who are genuinely creeped out by the fact that the student who showed up knew more about their professional experiences than they did, right? So. - I mean, it's only natural to want to get a sense of who's gonna interview you and that's fine if you want to do a quick Google of their name. Don't feel the need to show up and be able to recite this person's entire life story to them or anything like that. - Yeah, in fact, they'd probably like it if you asked them. - You were about it as well. I'm sure they'd love to talk about it. - Connected to that though, a do is certainly try to find areas of shared interest. I have read reports from interviewers who've said, I am a physician and I came to my interview in scrubs from the ER and this applicant talked about how she was passionate about medicine but never asked about my work and that was a missed opportunity there. - So by all means, find the obvious points of connection there with your interviewer. - Yeah, another piece of advice. You do not need to dress up. How you dress doesn't really matter. You should feel comfortable. You don't need to wear a suit and tie or anything like that. You're coming straight from football practice maybe hop in the shower first but other than that, don't feel the need to get dressed up for these interviews. - Okay, another do here. Do stay engaged. If you are in person, you know, make sure that your cell phone is off that you're not getting text that are coming in. If this is a virtual interview, maybe close your email and other things that might be buzzing so that the person who's talking to you really does feel like you have their undivided attention. - Yeah, close your door so your little sister doesn't wander in and interrupt the interview, stuff like that. Here's a don't. Don't feel the need to brag. Your job, again, we've mentioned this before, is not to impress this person with your accomplishments. Your interviewer isn't really there to judge that about you. We'll get all that information when we read your application. Again, this is just meant to be a conversation where you get to reflect a little bit on yourself. - But do talk about things that have been a big deal for you. Things that have been major commitments, special programs that you've been involved with important leadership positions. The interviewer should hear about those things but they don't just wanna hear about the line item on the resume. They wanna hear about your ownership of that activity. This is a great place to share with someone why you care about these things. And that might have been something that you really didn't have space to share in the application. This is now the time to explain, hey, I know the admissions office is gonna see I was on the cross country team for four years and I'm the captain. I'd love to tell you a little bit about what the team means to me and why I love going out and running with them. This person would love to hear that level of insight about your commitment. - I think the same advice that we've given in previous episodes about essays really applies here just be reflective. That's really what we're looking for when we're reading about you, when we're hearing about you, when we're having a conversation with you. - And one final do. It is a lovely thing to do to send a nice thank you email to your interviewer afterwards. Again, this person is probably a volunteer if they're an alumnus or alumna. And so just saying, hey, thanks for taking the time. I really appreciate it. That goes a long way for these people who are very busy and appreciate that. - All right, so should we talk a little bit about how we use these interview reports when they come to us in the admissions office? - Yes, I think let's sort of divide this between how we do use them and how we don't use them. Again, this is a place where I think people have some preconceived notions. So I think the best analogy that I've come up with and admittedly it's a bad analogy, comes from my high school physics class. - Okay. - And I had used this on students who are actually in physics classes and it checks out. So even though it's been a long time, here's my physics analogy. There is a concept in wave physics, something called constructive interference. And the idea with constructive interference is you can have multiple waves in the same field. And if they have the same period, what happens to those waves is something called constructive interference. So instead of two or three waves, all sort of mixing together, you get one big wave. Like these are reinforcing each other. - Okay. - I don't know, sorry, long winded here. Say with me. - I'm getting it. - So I like to think of the different parts of the application as sort of different waves. And what you want is resonance. You want constructive interference. The best interview reports are the ones that really resonate with other parts of the file. So that the person that I've met in your essays is the same kind of person I've met in your letters or recommendation. And that's the same person who showed up with this disinterested third party in the form of our interviewer who didn't know any of the other stuff. They are describing the exact same person. So I might learn something new, but what I'm really getting is sort of a reinforcement of the other parts of the application. So I say, you know, I had a sense that this was this kind of person and then this interview reports that are really magnifies all that together. So physicists out there, I apologize for what I've just done. But that's how I always think about this. - You know, I was skeptical when you started, but it paid off, that totally messed up. - I actually understood that more than I understood any physics. (laughing) - There you go. - Physics for admissions officers, we're gonna start a new online class. - There you go. Another thing that the interview really helps us with is to help answer the, you know, the questions that we're always thinking about when we're discussing students in committee, which is, you know, what are they going to get out of Yale and what are they going to bring to Yale? What are they going to contribute? And we get the answers to those questions in all different parts of your application, but the interview can sometimes really help with those. One of the other things that I like to hear from an interviewer is some local insights, some local pieces of context that maybe I, as an admissions officer, didn't know about the area. And I know that this is one of the reasons why interviewers like to conduct interviews in their home area, Dara, you know, what are some of the things that interviewers like to talk about in the applicant's context that they might know about because they live close by? - Sure. So there are a few things that I can think of. One of the things is just what certain extracurriculars mean in that local community, right? So I read for California, so I am fully up on the key club. (laughs) Right? But local interviewers can actually tell us how big of a time commitment this is in that particular area and often give us more information about, you know, which schools do X for key club versus other schools. So they tend to have a little bit more of a personal knowledge of that, especially when they have their own students, their own children going through the school system then, or if they were growing up there. And sometimes just what's happening in the community? I remember five or six years ago there was a big gas leak in one of my communities in an area that I read. And it came through a little bit on the applications. I saw a couple students mention it and a couple counselors, but it was really the interviewers who brought this up and really broke down in the interviewers how this actually affected the community. So it's nice having that almost insider information. They give us a little bit more of what it's like to actually live in this community. - Another thing is that, you know, sometimes or often, I guess a student will submit their application by January 1st, they've been working on it for a couple months, but they might not interview until mid-February. So stuff has happened in that month and a half since they submitted their applications. Should we talk a little bit about how we don't use these interview reports in our process? - Yes. - Okay, you start. - So we do not use interview reports to see how polished or charming you are, right? This is not like the cocktail party test, you know? I think some people imagine this is where I'm gonna show off my soft skills and that I would ace that job interview, you know, for a big investment banking firm later on. And no, that is not what this is. - It's also not the case for Yale that it's a second round or a second stage or anything like that. It's not that, you know, if you're getting an interview, it's because you're, you know, you've moved on to the next round and everything is gonna then hinge on the interview report. We don't really use them like that. We use them as, you know, getting extra information and sort of reinforcing the other parts of your application. So, so don't expect that your interview is, you know, your big opportunity to sort of get in and it's gonna make or break your application. It's not really the case. - Yeah, I know that this can feel frustrating because we're gonna muddy the waters again for you here, but there are plenty of weak applicants who get really stellar interview reports. And those stellar interview reports don't really bump them in, right? You know, we're still looking at the whole picture and we're saying that's great. They had an awesome conversation, but that's not suddenly the thing that makes them come in. Similarly, there are a lot of really strong and compelling applicants who have very ordinary interview reports. And that doesn't hold us back. Like the other pieces we've talked about, it's one piece of the puzzle. It's wonderful when it adds, frequently though, it doesn't move the needle very much for an applicant. As I was saying in my bad physics example, which I'll remind you all of again, the best ones reinforce other parts of the application. It's not about them standing on their own as the make or break piece of the application. - Exactly. So when it comes time to do your real interview, we hope that you get excited. We hope that we understand that it might be a nerve-wracking experience, but it doesn't have to be. Think of it as an opportunity to break away from sort of the writing and rewriting and polishing that you did of your application and just have a natural, fun, interesting conversation with someone. And I want to remind you that our interviewers are not scary people. Dara, you work with more of these folks than any of us. How would you describe these people? - I, talking to all of these interviewers over the last few years, they are some of the loveliest people who genuinely want to talk to students and to hear about the things you're doing. And frankly, for a lot of them, everything that you're doing is amazing. So, no one is going into this saying, I'm really just gonna put it to this kid. And they just really want to talk to you and they really want to talk to you about Yale, which is a place that they love so much. And I remember hearing an interviewer on campus a few years ago who told me that the thing that he loved most about Yale was that they're not only passionate about the things they do, they're passionate about the things the people around them do. And I've always just loved that line and I found it so true about our interviewers. They just wanna hear about the things that you're doing and they wanna give you advice about the college process and hope that you go off into the world and do great things. So, keep that in mind as you are talking to them. They were once in this place just like you, just trying to make a good impression. - I think that's pretty good now to end on. - Absolutely. So go out there, crush your interview. You're gonna do great. Thanks as always to our friend and colleague, Jill, who is both our sound engineer and a great admissions officer. Thanks to former admissions officer, Andrew Brick Johnson, who composes our music, check him out at andrewbrickjohnson.com. - If you have questions for us or suggestions for a future episode, you can reach out to us at [email protected]. And finally, remember that the views expressed in this podcast are ours and don't necessarily represent those of Yale University. Thanks for listening. (gentle music)