Nailing Your Admission Interview

Practical advice for independent school applicants

The most frequent questions I am asked between May and October as Dean of Enrollment at The Governor’s Academy are about the interview. For most applicants, it is the part of the application process that brings the most anxiety. It comes from a sense that the student will enter an office where they have never been to be asked questions by a person they have never met. They assume the questions are designed to distinguish the intelligence and talents of the student, so they must be hard, too! There is no single right way to navigate an interview–for the student or the admission officer--but what I can do, though, is help you prepare for what to expect and give advice that will allow you to have confidence that you will do well.

I will start by assuring you that the interview will not be as I described it above. The interviewer will have questions that will encourage you to talk about the parts of your life that you enjoy most. Often, your interviewer first will ask questions that will give you the chance to talk about who you are by what you do best. You will have a chance to talk about your favorite classes and teachers and about those activities you engage in outside of the classrooms in your school. If there are hard questions here, they will be “why” questions. When you practice your answer to a question about a favorite teacher, train yourself to add “because”  to the factual answer and see where that takes your response. 

You will find that at some point in the interview the questions will move from who you are by what you do to who you are by what you value. There may be questions about the adjectives you ascribe to your friends or the moments in life when you initially failed, needed to be resilient, or showed empathy or generosity to another person. We all want to ask “what do you like about yourself,” but most interviewers will not as the question is complicated. Instead, you may recognize that question hidden in one that focuses on what a friend or teacher might say about you in a recommendation. 

The most common advice that I hear offered by a loved one or trusted adult to a prospective student is “be yourself.” The advice comes from a good place. It affirms for the student that who they are is great. The only issue is that I think it is hard sometimes for the adolescent to give an authentic answer to a question when it feels as though the admission officer may have an opinion or perspective on what is “right.” What I will offer is a bit more directive. Think about your story to date and how you will tell it. If you take this approach, you can think ahead about what is happening on your best days and help the interviewer know--and appreciate–your passions. It may be that some themes connect different parts of your story, or you may find that what makes you enjoy a class is completely different than the rationale for why you play an instrument or a sport. That is fine. What you are doing is preparing to bring an answer to a question that is likely to be asked.

Please know that all admission officers want you to do well in your interview. Yes, we will write up what we see and hear and those notes will be considered with other parts of your application submissions in February. Yet those notes simply reflect you at your best, sharing your story with someone who wants to hear it. If you would like to hear some of my favorite questions and dig a bit deeper into some of the themes I have shared here, please feel free to join me for a virtual event on October 22 at 7:00 p.m. ET for Govs Chats: What Happens In An Interview. You can register on The Governor's Academy Admission events page.

Author: Mike Kinnealey, Assistant Head of School and Dean of Enrollment