Zooming Your Way Through the Zoom College Interview
What's with the new college interview format?
“How can my kids nail the online college interview?”
“What is Zoom etiquette?”
“How does the Zoom interview impact my admissions chances?”
Emily Schell, a former Brown University Admissions Officer and Stanford University lecturer, has your answers.
Last week, you had time to celebrate perhaps the only welcome disruption of COVID-19: the foreseeable end of standardized testing! (And maybe you were still celebrating this week 🍾)
In this post, we’ll talk Zoom college interviews. But before we start our deep dive, let’s run through this week’s admissions news.
News updates for parents and educators 🗞️
Within the last week, all 8 Ivy League schools—as well as Stanford and Caltech—have declared themselves testing-optional for all standardized tests (e.g., the SAT, ACT, SAT subject tests, and AP exams).
Princeton University is getting rid of its Early Action deadline (everyone is just going to be considered in the January 2021 pool).
So, what’s coming next?
For incoming seniors and their parents, many of you will be spending the summer avoiding college essays and getting pestered about diligently working on your college essays. Even so, that likely will not fill up all your time. Time to hit up the pool parties, right? 😎
.
.
Not so fast!
First, pool parties + pandemic isn’t the best combo. Second, you can (and should) leverage this extra time to ensure you’re as prepared as you can be for the admissions process ahead. Why?
As I explained in my last blog post, admissions will certainly look different this year. 👀
Interviews are going to take more of a front-seat than usual this year. Your activities list will also become even more important. While most students (including yourself or your child) have likely faced disruptions in their extracurriculars due to COVID-19, you have an opportunity to make yourself stand out as one of the resourceful few who were creative and resilient enough to continue engaging in the activities they love. Now, if you don’t feel like you fit the description yet of that resilient innovator piloting a new frontier in digital ultimate frisbee, fear not. We will talk about resilience and activities lists in a future post.
For now, I’m going to focus today’s post on zooming your way through the Zoom interview.
Let’s start with some helpful context.
First off, who normally conducts these interviews?
Most Ivy Plus institutions use alumni from the applicant’s region to conduct these 30-minute to hour-long interviews. After the interview, the alum will create a report for each interviewee describing their impression of the applicant and indicating whether they strongly recommend, recommend, or do not recommend this applicant for acceptance. That report is what the admissions committee sees.
What’s the real purpose of the applicant interview? 🤔
In the past, the interviews were a useful “check” on the other application materials to help admission officers get a sense of not only the type of student they’d be admitting but also the type of person. You might be the sole world expert on an Australian species of blue-green algae, but are you able to engage in a fruitful conversation about other topics?
Put bluntly, the interview helps admissions officers answer the question: is this not just someone I’d want as a classmate but also as a roommate or friend?
On one hand, this might make you relieved: all you need to bring to the interview is… yourself. However, you do want it to be a slightly more “rehearsed” version of yourself, so you don’t end up giving the interviewer the impression that you did not take the interviewer’s time seriously or that you didn’t end up showcasing the better parts of yourself.
In my experience as an alumni interviewer, the students who had one-sentence answers or lacked answers altogether did not generally get my recommendation.
Does every prospective applicant to top U.S. schools get an interview? What if you don’t get one?
Not necessarily. In some cases, if the region you are applying from is more remote (e.g., North Dakota or a rural part of another country), there may not be enough alumni who have volunteered to give every applicant an interview. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you aren’t getting in; it could just be a “supply-demand” issue. However, in that case, the admissions office might ask that you submit a brief (~5 minutes) video that tells them more about you (potentially with some prompts or questions that they will have you answer). This video, although it is shorter, serves a similar purpose as the interview.
How might these interviews look different in a remote, rather than virtual, setting?
Although some alumni interviewers already were participating in remote or Zoom interviews, particularly in regions where applicants and interviewers may be more dispersed geographically, most alumni interviewers prefer to interview in person (especially those from the older classes who may not be as comfortable with video-conferencing technology). Accordingly, we might see a decrease in the number of alumni interviewers (and, consequently, an increase in the number of video submissions requested). That said, it’s hard to say conclusively how those alumni interviewing numbers might change. The biggest change that I can already tell you will happen is that, as you probably have already noticed, relationship building on Zoom is much more difficult. However, that awkwardness is nothing that a bit of good preparation can’t help you overcome!
Do these interviews even matter? 🤷🏻
As I mentioned in my last post: yes, and even more so for this application cycle.
I’ve seen a “non-recommendation” (or even an “okay” recommendation) from alumni interviewers sink an otherwise promising candidate. It’s not so much that a fantastic rating can make the difference between you and another candidate. However, anything less than fantastic certainly can. But the good thing is - alumni interviewers aren’t “out to get you.” As a former alumni interviewer, I can promise that I always wanted to see the best in an applicant and write a stellar recommendation.
However, you’ve got to meet those interviewers halfway and give them something memorable and interesting to write about!
Now that you have some more context for these interviews, onto the good stuff. How do you make sure you, or your child, nails this Zoom interview?
We’ve all heard the adage: it’s not what you say, but how you say it, right?
▶️ In the following video, I’ll provide some tips and tricks on what you should do and what you should avoid in Zoom interviews.
(Spoiler: for those of you who love watching reality TV, I included my best rendition of “The Worst Zoom Interview Ever” here as well. And note: these tips and tricks are also applicable to an “About Me” video, should you be asked to submit a video instead of participating in an interview.)
Please share this video with your kids / any applicants getting ready for this upcoming admissions cycle - it’s critical to stay on top of these changes!
And there’s more for us to cover.
In next week’s post for our subscribers, I’ll share my 3 Biggest Behavioral Tips for Nailing the Zoom Interview and my 10 Favorite Questions I Asked as an Ivy League Admissions Officer.
See you next week,
💌 Emily
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What do you want to hear about next? What questions do you have about Zoom college interviews? Tell us in a comment (we do read them 👩💻 )