Conquering the College Admissions Interview
Every year students and parents alike stress about impending interviews.
- “Will I make a good impression?”
- “Will the interview help or hurt my admissions chances?”
- “Will I have all the answers?”
- “Will I ask the right questions?”
Here are our tips to not only interview well but to have fun doing it.
1. Approach the interview as a conversation not a confrontation. The college interview is a chance for the interviewer (be it an alum, an admissions representative, or a student) to get to know you better and answer any questions you might have about the institution they represent. They are not crafting questions to try to stump you but rather to better understand you, your interests, strengths, and even weaknesses…all of this is GOOD.
2. Know whether the interview is evaluative or informational. Different schools use the interview in different ways. For some schools, it is merely a means to answer questions of the applicants, for others it is an integral part of their holistic review. Knowing how a school uses their interview can be really helpful.
3. Don’t expect to know all of the questions or have all of the answers. Every interview is different and they should be. Rather than trying to guess potential questions work to organize your thoughts around certain topics that will surely come up. Here at Coastal we look at four such topics and help our students organize their brains around them.
Academics:
Think through such things as your favorite (and maybe even least favorite) class or subject, the type of learner you are and the best learning environment for you, the best assignment you’ve ever had, and your biggest academic struggle. You also might consider how your teachers might describe you and whether or not your transcript is an accurate description of you as a student (if not, why not).
Extracurricular Activities:
Zero in on the activities or experiences that have been most significant to you (these should also be near the top of your resume and activities sections of different applications). What have you spent the majority of time doing outside of class: these can be formal and informal activities, they might also be work or volunteer related. If you’ve not been overly involved, what has prevented you from doing so and how do you plan to change in college?
Family, Morals, Values:
Interviewers will want to know where you come from, how you were raised and what is important to you. Think about whom in your family you’re most like or who has influenced you the most. How do you define success, what adjectives best describe you, what current event are you most closely following?
Why Us:
Spend some time really working through why the school you’re interviewing with is the right school for you. How will you contribute to the school community (what will you get involved in), what has stood out in your research and/or on your visit, how will we help you reach your goals? You might also consider questions like, do you have an idea of what you might want to major in or what most influenced you to apply to our school?
Having worked through these topics and questions you should be able to answer the question that many of us dread during an interview, “Tell me about yourself.”
4. Make it personal, questions to ask. We talk to often about an interviewees opportunity within the interview to make it personal and thus memorable. Sure, there are stock questions to ask during an interview but it is much better to personalize your questions. Here are some examples:
- What did you major in, how did you decided on this major?
- What was the best class you ever took?
- Who was your favorite professor?
- What is your favorite tradition or memory from your time here?
- What sorts of things were you involved in?
- Why did you decide to attend (or come to work) at this school?
5. Most importantly: Be yourself and enjoy yourself!
8 Things to Consider when Creating Your Initial List of Schools
Let’s address the creation of the initial list of schools. There are many different ways to go about creating this list and more than anything when doing so always keep in mind that this is a starting point. I’ve worked with many students whose final list looked nothing like their initial list because throughout the process their understanding of their needs and wants changed as they more clearly understood themselves. It is this process that will undoubtedly lend some clarity to those things each individual is really searching for during their four years of college and beyond.
Here are the primary wants and needs (early on you may not know which of these fall on your list of needs and which are part of your list of wants…and that’s okay but think hard about which of these will help you find happiness and success…that may help you better understand the ideas of wants and needs) to consider for the student include (during this process they may be very gray or might have very little direction at all. Clarity will come after visiting schools, conducting more research, and further thinking about your future):
Location: Is this a Regional, National, or even International search and how might that impact other aspects of the search process (for instance the idea of cost of attendance or cultural differences).
Size: What size of a community are you looking for, we typically think about sizes from those that are XS to those that are XL. Colleges can range from a couple of hundred students to more than 60,000 and everywhere in between. How will the size of student body and the campus itself impact you as a student.
Setting: Easily broken don into the basic ideas of urban, suburban, and rural but within those heading there are vastly different institutions. Some urban schools have defined campuses while others blend right into their city surroundings, other schools are located in the suburbs of major cities while others have access to smaller towns. Finally, how might you be impacted by attending a rural school where there isn’t a whole lot around other than your campus.
Major: Rather than a focus on major especially in the early stages of the creation of a list we talk a lot about strengths and interests for two reasons; there are more than 1500 different academic programs at the college level and nearly 80% of college students change (or adjust) their major at least once so think more closely about what you like, where your strengths lie, and what different possibilities are open to you within these areas.
Culture (Social and Academic): What type of campus community are you in search of? From the social side are you in search of the Liberal or Conservative, Greek or Non-Greek, and how is this culture dictated by location and type of school. Academically would you prefer a Core Curriculum, Flex Curriculum or Open Curriculum are you looking for a competitive or collaborative environment, how do students and faculty interact? All of these are questions of school culture.
Athletics: For the student-athlete this can oftentimes drive the search process. Most important, especially in the early going, is being open to the different possibilities and honestly assessing yourself throughout the recruiting process.
Academic Support Options: This is especially important for those students who have received support while in high school or understand what kind of learners they are and thus what kind of learning environments best support them. For student-athletes the idea of support can also be important especially during the season.
Cost of Attendance: There might also be a need to consider the COA (Cost of Attendance) in the early going, we oftentimes tell families to be conscious of the COA but in this early stage don’t let it dictate the search.
The creation of the initial list should lead to research, visits, and the goal of a better sense of where you will find happiness and success!
NCAA ELIGIBILITY RULES CHANGES COMING FOR THE CLASS OF 2016
One of the first things that all potential student-athletes (and their parents) should do as they prepare for the college application and athletic recruiting journey is understand the NCAA Eligibility Center rules as they pertain to every student athlete. Beginning with the Class of 2016, the NCAA Eligibility Center has instituted a new set on rules for potential Division I student-athletes and they will do the same in 2018 for potential Division II student-athletes. Below, we have outlined the key rules and terms to know and understand as you embark on this process:
Division I
Student-athletes must complete 16-core course in grades 9-12 (and must do so in 8 semesters)
Ten of these core courses must be completed before the beginning of senior year
Seven of these ten courses must be in English, Math or Science
Core GPA must be at least a 2.3
SAT/ACT score must fall in line with the core GPA on the sliding scale
Potential Outcomes Athletic Scholarship Ability to Practice Ability to Play
Full Qualifier Yes Yes Yes
Academic Redshirt Yes Yes No
Partial Qualifier No No No
Division II
Currently require 16-core courses and that will remain the same post-2018
After 2018 Division II will move to a sliding scale rather than the current SAT/ACT marks of 820/68
Will continue distinction between a full qualifier, partial qualifier and non-qualifier
Division III
Division III universities and colleges set their own standards and thus DIII student-athletes need not be certified by the NCAA Eligibility Center
Let’s also take a quick look at the recruiting calendar most specifically for potential college soccer players:
Sophomore Year:
Can receive brochures for Camps, Questionnaires, Student-athlete can call coaches but coaches cannot call prospective student-athletes, no off-campus contact, yes to unofficial visits, no to official visits
Junior Year:
Can start to receive recruiting information and phone calls beginning on September 1st, Off-campus contact allowed starting July 1st of junior year, yes to unofficial visits, no to official visits
Senior Year:
Off-campus contacts allowed, official visits allowed (up to 5 for DI, no limit for DII)
The most important thing to keep in mind as you move through the process is that this is your responsibility to know and understand the rules that will affect you as a potential student-athlete. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and seek answers. A great place to start is at www.eligibilitycenter.org.
Non-Cognitive Skill Development for Students and Athletes
I am a huge fan of non-cognitive skill development. Non-cognitive skills include memory, thinking, planning, attention, and language skills. They are the skills not born out of the acquisition of knowledge and/or understanding but rather they are the patterns created out of thought, feelings, and behaviors. They are often not objectively measureable but many argue that they are the true predictors of success in school and professionally. I’ll suggest they can translate to success on the pitch as well.
We’ll focus on three of the primary skills; adaptability, perseverance and, communication. While there are many more, these should serve as a starting point for our understanding. Adaptability is the ability to adjust to new conditions. Adaptable skills with regard to education might include the ability to thrive in different subjects, teaching styles, or on varying types of assessments. This is transferable on the soccer field where a s a player you must be able to adapt to different types of defensive pressure, varying styles of play, or having the ability to play different positions.
To persevere is to continue on even when facing difficulty. As a student this includes everything from the unrelenting pursuit of understanding the structure of sonnet to the binomial theorem. In practice it also means continuing to work at this understanding even when it’s late after a long practice but your assignment is due the following day. Perseverance is also important on the field; this is true for a lefty tying to learn to bend the ball with their right foot or a defender working to understand his responsibility in a zonal back four.
Finally; and perhaps most importantly is the development of effective communication. We will focus on just two skills included within this heading, listening and non-verbal communication. Listening is one of the most important skills one can develop and it entails not just hearing the words being spoken but understanding the message. In class teachers often focus on those subjects where they are most passionate and a strong listener understands the importance of the material. This can also be found during halftime of a game when coaches focus on the key areas the team must work on in the second half. A strong listener will not only hear the message but will be able to put it into practice when back on the pitch. Non-verbal communication includes just about everything not spoken; how you sit in class, react to an assignment, or your eye contact when speaking to a teacher. This can also guide you on the field with how you react to not receiving a pass when you feel like your wide open in front of the goal to how you position yourself when not in the game.
Understanding what non-cognitive skills are and how they relate to you as a student and athlete will add tremendously to your success both in the classroom and on the field. The beauty of these skills is they can be learned so be ready to adapt, persevere, and communicate!