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Dec 18, 2023 · College interviews can be nerve-wracking yet pivotal experiences in the admissions process. They provide a chance to showcase your personality, achievements, and aspirations beyond what’s written on your application. However, with the right preparation and mindset, you can turn these interviews into opportunities to impress and stand out. From essential tips to common questions and […]
- Tell Me About Yourself. This is your elevator pitch, an opportunity to briefly outline your journey, passions, and what makes you stand out. Begin with a brief introduction to your upbringing or any experiences that significantly shaped your perspective and values.
- Why Are You Interested in This College? In responding to this question, start by mentioning detailed features of the college, such as unique academic programs, faculty expertise, extracurricular opportunities, or the campus culture, that align with your personal and educational goals.
- What Are Your Academic and Career Goals? It is important to articulate how your goals align with the offerings of the college. Start by clearly defining your goals, explaining the fields or areas of study you are passionate about and how they connect to your career aspirations.
- Describe a Challenge You’ve Overcome. When tackling common college interview questions about overcoming challenges, it’s important to first outline the challenge, ensuring your focus is on your response to the situation rather than the issue itself.
10. Describe yourself in 1-3 words. Summarizing your essence in a few words can be a challenging task. Choose adjectives that encapsulate your personality, values, and strengths. It’s important to support these adjectives with brief explanations or examples to bring them to life. 11.
- What’s Covered
- Find The Question Behind The Question
- The Star Interview Method
- Example of The Star Method
The first step in approaching an interview question is to find the “question behind the question,” or what the interviewer is hoping to learn from your response. For the question, “Tell me about a challenge you experienced. How did you deal with it?” admissions officers are looking to see how you deal with adversity. A strong response to this quest...
What Is STAR?
A great strategy to use when responding to the challenge interview question is the STAR method. It enables you to answer any sort of behavioral interview questions that you may encounter. Such questions are usually posed like these examples: “Tell me about a time when . . . ,” “What do you do when . . . ,” “Have you ever done . . . ,” “Give me an example of . . . ,” or “Describe a time when . . . .” With the STAR method, you can answer behavioral interview questions by breaking down your resp...
Situation
To start a STAR response, begin with the situation. In this section, you set the scene for the interviewer by explaining what the situation was when a challenge occurred. Talk about it in terms of the challenge that you experienced. Robert shared a sample “situation” from a student’s essay. The student talked about how their computer science club wasn’t drawing a diverse set of students. Each year, the club had a homogenous group of new students joining, so they wanted to expand their members...
Task
After stating the situation, the next section of the response is the task. In this phase, describe what your role was in the situation and what you were tasked with doing. Let’s take the computer science club example. Perhaps you were the club’s public relations manager, so you were responsible for developing a marketing strategy to recruit new members. Maybe you were a general member, but you identified this problem and stepped up to lead efforts to resolve it.
Now that we’ve introduced the STAR method, let’s look at an example for the challenge interview question.
- Tell me about yourself. This is one of the most common interview questions, and is one that interviewers often start with to get an initial sense of who you are.
- Why do you want to attend this college? This is another question you can be pretty certain is coming at some point since, after all, your desire to attend that particular college is the whole reason for the interview.
- What do you hope to study in college, and why? Responding well to this question is less about showing that you’re absolutely certain what you want to major in, work as, etc., and more about showing that you’re intellectually curious and motivated in general.
- What’s a project, paper, or lab that you’ve particularly enjoyed in high school? This question is a slightly more targeted way of evaluating your academic achievements.
Aug 1, 2022 · Additional tips to help with your College Interviews. At the end of the interview, you’ll have an opportunity to ask the interviewer questions about the school. The questions you ask the interviewer are as important as the questions they ask of you. Make sure to prepare 2-3 questions in advance. Remember to be polite and friendly.
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Apr 8, 2024 · Show the interviewer that you are serious, poised and mature. Also, you want them to see your confidence, so smile! Follow up the interview with a thank you note sent by mail or email. Express your appreciation for the interviewer’s time and the college’s interest in you. Show Transcript.
