Weird Admissions Interviews

Weird Admissions Interviews July 3 The college interview in Risky Business was quite weird. But that was a movie. Theres a piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education by Eric Hoover that we figured wed share. The piece is entitled When Admissions Interviews Get Weird and its quite an entertaining read. It starts off with a tale about a Republican presidential candidate, Senator Ted Cruz. He showed up hung over to his Brown University interview and asked the alumni interviewer to please lower her voice. Oy vey! Needless to say, Ted Cruz ended up at Princeton University, not Brown. Can you imagine? In a similar story shared in the piece, a student asked an interviewer to please dim the lights. And, yes, the Princeton interview in Risky Business comes to mind for us, too. In another anecdote, a young womans skirt flew up in the interview. It turns out that she wasnt wearing any underwear and, upon realizing this, she darted out of the room. When she told her school counselor the story, the school counselor called the admissions officer who conducted the interview. The admissions officer, as it turns out, was human and felt terribly for the young woman. The young woman ended up gaining admission to this school. We feel for this student. She forgot to wear underwear. It happens. There was the student who got angry at nearby squirrels during his interview. And then theres this tale: Ms. [Margaret C.] Lysy shared a happier exchange with a quirky kid in New Hampshire. He adopted fake accents, described his fondness for eating glue, and, when asked why he played football, said, for the suffering. Eventually, Ms. Lysy realized the applicant thought she was an alumna — not an admissions officer. When she clarified that she worked for the university, his jaw dropped. Good Lord, he said. We suspect that Ms. Lysy, an admissions officer at Georgetown, didnt end up going to bat for this student. Have a weird admissions interview story to share? Were eager to hear these tales so share your story by posting a Comment below. We look forward to hearing from you.