Student story: Admissions interview
About this video
A student who loves being interviewed shares how she prepared for college interviews by researching each college in detail, including surprising facts. She stresses making a personal connection with the interviewer, describing a two-hour conversation where they talked about family and spoke Arabic.
You'll be able to
- explain why researching a college helps in an interview.
- explain why making a connection with the interviewer matters.
- describe how an interview can be a two-way conversation.
Key words
- Research
- Finding out detailed information before you need it.
- Connection
- A real, friendly link between two people in a conversation.
- Interview report
- The notes an interviewer writes about you afterwards.
Transcript
- I love being interviewed, I'm a people person and I love letting people know about myself. So when I was presented with college interviews I was really excited. And the biggest factor for me for preparing for those interviews was definitely getting to know my college.
I didn't want to go in there, not knowing what it was about, and being presented with a question that was really embarrassing and me not answering. So, I definitely researched, looked into the things that maybe the interviewer wouldn't think that I would know.
Some of those tick-tacky things that would surprise him and definitely make an impact. And going off on the impact, it is really important to make a connection with the interviewer. Definitely when you make a connection with someone they remember it more and it definitely makes the report that they're going to write about you really easy.
For instance for me, when I was being interviewed by one college, I had a two hour converation with the guy, at one point we became friends. Simply because I made a connection with him. He starts talking to me about his family, I start talking to him in Arabic, it was awesome.
And that's something, I really connected with him and he connected with me. So I know for a fact that he definitely wrote a good report because by the end of it, it was great. So it's definitely important just to make a connection. I was really inspired by what he said sometimes and through that you learn a lot about the interviewer and he'll learn a lot about you, which is really important.
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