吃瓜官网

College interviews are nerve wracking. While they aren鈥檛 the most impactful part of your application, they can add to it, providing a useful data point to admissions officers who are eager to find out who you are and what you can contribute to their school. While there are some commonalities to this process, ones we鈥檝e discussed before, each school has their own unique twist on things, their own way of approaching them. 

In this article, we鈥檙e going to go over how Harvard interviews applicants. We鈥檒l cover the questions they ask, how they score your answers, and what you should and shouldn鈥檛 discuss at your Harvard interview. Our goal is to give you all the information you need to enter this interview with confidence, to put your best foot forward when you present yourself. Let鈥檚 see how this all works.

Who Will Your Harvard Interviewer Be?

All Harvard interviews are conducted by alumni of the school. These alumni are recruited and organized through local alumni associations. Some of these require interviewers to have attended Harvard college, but most allow graduate alumni to act as interviewers as well. These people are all volunteers, doing so because they enjoyed their time at Harvard, and wanting to contribute to the next generation at the school. 

There are limits on who is not allowed to be an interviewer for Harvard as well, designed to prevent conflicts of interest. These are: 

• If a sibling or child is applying to Harvard this admissions cycle
• If you are also conducting alumni interviews for another college
• If you work (for pay or as a volunteer) helping students apply to colleges, even colleges that aren鈥檛 Harvard

Interviewers are also vetted for other concerns, such as if they鈥檙e a teacher at a secondary school, have a criminal record, or if their online presence is a matter of note. Harvard鈥檚 goal is to make sure that all students are able to be comfortable in their interviews, and interview with someone who is able to evaluate them without bias.听

Getting an Interviewer

Interviews are arranged through an online system. When you sign up for an interview, this request is processed by the admissions office at Harvard, and then sent out to the regional office in your area. From here, they pick one of the alumni who have signed up to act as interviewers, and request one of them to conduct your interview. The number of interviews each interviewer holds depends on their personal schedule.

It is somewhat random who your interviewer is. The assumption is that all are equally qualified, and you will have an equivalent experience regardless of who they are. This isn鈥檛 entirely true (as we鈥檒l discuss later), but there鈥檚 no way to change who your interviewer is, and the entire system is designed to be impartial. 

The interviewer will reach out to you; they have email templates they use. You may be invited to interview in-person or via Zoom. Interviews are meant to proceed in the same fashion regardless of venue. Interviews are going to take place in a public or semi-public space if in person, but with enough privacy to be comfortable. 

What Questions Will Your Harvard Interviewer Ask?

Interviewers have their own guidelines and script. This is not mandated, but there is a structure they are expected to follow. Interviews should last at least half an hour, but not go on for more than an hour. These interviews are not recorded; your interviewer may take notes, but in general they simply speak with you and then write up a report of their impressions of you afterwards. 

The interviewer has some topics they are supposed to bring up. These are given to them in the form of questions; they may ask these exactly, or may ask variations of these which are meant to glean the same information. These questions are sorted by category, as there are different aspects of you and your experiences they wish to discuss. 

Introductory Questions

• How is your school year going?
• How do you spend your time when you’re not in class?
• Tell me about your hometown. What are your favorite things to do in your area?
• Tell me about your high school, how do you think it has prepared you for the transition to college?
• Tell me one thing you are excited about and one challenge you foresee transitioning to college.

These questions are all meant to get the conversation flowing, to put you at ease and help break the ice. Interviews are stressful for students; while Harvard does try to make these as painless as possible, they know most students will be quite antsy when the interview begins. These questions are meant to offset that, to help you relax and get into the flow of conversation.听

When answering these questions, you want to try and get into the rhythm of it; don鈥檛 just answer directly and stop dead. Conversations have a flow to them; you don鈥檛 need to go into major detail about your accomplishments yet, but you do want to start getting into a relaxed state. 

Community Contribution

• What sort of college community do you hope to be a part of?
• What qualities would you like in a roommate, which of these qualities do you possess?
• How would your family or close friends describe you?
• If you and your roommate disagreed about something, big or small, (the time the lights go out, how late friends can stay in the dorm room, politics, religion, etc.), what do you do?
• Can you describe a time when you failed or did not achieve what you were attempting to achieve? How did you handle it?

The point of these questions is to get a sense of how you鈥檒l interact with the community you鈥檒l meet at college, the kind of friend and roommate and classmate you鈥檒l become. You may not be asked these exact questions, but they very much do want to get a sense of this, since you will be joining a community of students if you are admitted.听

When answering these questions, you want to come across as earnest, rather than rehearsed, portraying who you are as a person by describing how you鈥檝e interacted with disparate groups in the past. There are no perfect answers they鈥檙e looking for, so try to portray the best version of yourself, the kind of person who makes for a good friend or roommate.

Intellectual Qualities

• What is your favorite class in high school? What do you love about it?
• What classes are you most interested in taking in college?
• Have you ever changed your mind about an issue, topic or person? Why and how?
• Have you ever taught yourself something new? Pursued outside academic courses or projects?

Harvard is an elite academic institution, and so it makes sense that they ask at least a few questions about your own academic interests. You do not need to prove you鈥檙e a genius, or share your grades or test scores. What they want is to see genuine academic passion and curiosity from you. The topics that genuinely excite your interest, and what you love to explore for the sake of learning itself.听

In this, you want to be authentic. Don鈥檛 be afraid to geek out a little bit and really share and showcase the academic fields that excite you. Your interviewer may or may not be able to follow the technical detail, so be careful of getting too jargony, but you do want your enthusiasm to be evident. 

Extracurricular Activities

• What do you feel have been your biggest contributions to your activities within your high school, family or communities?
• What extracurriculars are you interested in exploring at Harvard?
• Are you a leader of an organization or activity? How do you lead your members and promote dialogue across differences?
• What initiatives have you been involved in implementing? What would you have done differently?

These questions cover two distinct but related ideas; both what you spend your time on outside of academic pursuits, and how you have demonstrated leadership and responsibility. Even if you haven鈥檛 been directly in charge of something, they are looking for students who have taken the initiative, who have stepped up and shown responsibility. While there are limited opportunities for this in the classroom, extracurriculars are a fertile field for such endeavors.听

Which extracurriculars you have taken part in matters less than why you鈥檝e done them, and your interest in them. They don鈥檛 want cynical resume-filling; interviewers want to see what you鈥檙e passionate about, and how these passions have driven you to explore. Anecdotes are your friend when answering these questions, concrete examples of how you have stepped up, and what you have done in the past. These also make for more interesting conversations to have.

Overall

• Take a second to brag: What has been a highlight of your high school career thus far or what is the thing that makes you most proud?
• If you had a free day, what would you use that time on?
• Do you have any questions for me?
• Is there anything that we didn鈥檛 talk about that you feel is important for Harvard to know?

An interview can鈥檛 cover every possible topic, or be tailored to every conceivable student experience. These questions are meant to allow you to cover anything important to you and your experiences that the interview hasn鈥檛 wandered onto as of yet. These are a gift to you, a chance to truly show off what you have done thus far in your high school career.听

What Your Harvard Interview Won鈥檛 Ask

The interview won鈥檛 follow a set script, but the following section should have given you a good sense of what the interviewer will ask and want to talk about. In addition, however, Harvard interviewers are given a set of topics which they should avoid bringing up in an interview. Some of these are for sake of politeness, but others are things which Harvard can鈥檛 consider, or which they don鈥檛 want to color the interviewer鈥檚 perception of you. 

Race and Ethnicity

The biggest topic that interviewers cannot ask about, nor report to Harvard, is anything related to your race or ethnic identity. Harvard lost the Supreme Court case, and so they鈥檙e being remarkably cautious when it comes to any mention of or consideration of race or ethnicity in applications as a whole. 

This means that you won鈥檛 have any questions coming at you about your race or ethnic background. More importantly, it means that answers you give or anecdotes you share with your interviewer that are heavily couched in or reliant on your ethnic identity are not something they can transmit to Harvard in their evaluation of you. This is perhaps an over-correction on their part, but is an unsurprising one. 

You can speak about your race, especially if it鈥檚 core to your identity, but this can create issues for your interviewer when they try to detail your conversation. In many cases, they will have to extrapolate to vaguer terms. Some will go to this effort, others won鈥檛 (we鈥檒l go over these reports more in the next section). We advise going over your responses before interviewing. 

You can speak about your background, but you should make sure it isn鈥檛 load-bearing, and that you have responses that don鈥檛 involve it. This can and will disadvantage certain applicants; if many of your activities are connected to your identity then you may have more difficulty discussing them in a way Harvard will accept. This isn鈥檛 fair, but being aware of this ahead of time means you can formulate answers which will sidestep these issues as possible. 

Grades and Test Scores

Your Harvard interviewer is unconnected to the admissions office save through the interview process. They won鈥檛 see any of the rest of your application, and they are instructed not to ask about your grades or test scores, either in general or specific terms, during your interview. 

You can bring these up if you want, but we don鈥檛 recommend it. Your answers should focus on what you care about, what your passions are, and how you have expended your effort. Your grades and resume will show up in other aspects of your application; they aren鈥檛 what鈥檚 being looked for here. 

Background and Demographic Information

Your interviewer isn鈥檛 going to ask about your political opinions, what your parents do, whether your parents went to college, whether Harvard is your first choice, where else you鈥檙e applying, or your religious affiliation. You may volunteer this information, especially if it鈥檚 relevant to an answer you鈥檙e giving. 

The purpose of these rules for interviewers is to prevent the interviewer from drawing premature conclusions about who you are. If you think this information is pertinent to who you are and what you鈥檝e done, then of course you can bring it up. The point of the interview is for you to express what you have done, and what matters to you. 

How Harvard Interviewers Grade You

Once your interview is complete, your interviewer composes a report which they send to admissions officers. This report is attached to your application, and is one of the many things read and considered by admissions officers when they evaluate you. Admissions officers don鈥檛 talk to interviewers directly, and interviewers have no impact on admissions decisions beyond the report they submit. 

This report is fairly straightforward; Harvard asks the interviewer specific questions about you, and then provides a space for them to respond. How much each interviewer writes is up to them. Some are more diligent about this than others. While you can鈥檛 affect this, you can ensure your answers to their questions give them plenty of material to work with. 

Interviewers evaluate you in the following categories (which you will notice parallel the questions it is suggested they ask you): 

Community Contribution

Harvard wants to know how you will contribute to the community if you end up on campus. They want to know what benefits you may have brought to communities in the past, and how the interviewer sees you benefiting them in the future. This includes challenges overcome, your future plans, and your actions and impacts both within and outside the classroom.

Extracurricular Involvements

The questions Harvard asks here are less concerned with what activities you did, but your relationship with those activities. They specifically ask: Does the person appear to have a genuine commitment to activities or does the participation appear to be perfunctory or 鈥渇or the resume?鈥�

They care about why you have done what you鈥檝e done, whether your activities bring you joy, and the impacts you have made through your involvement with these activities. They are also curious which activities you are interested in continuing once you arrive at Harvard. Here you want to formulate your responses to showcase your genuine enthusiasm for the activities you are engaged with. What activities you are engaged with don鈥檛 matter much (for the interview at least). How you feel about them, and your authenticity, does.

Intellectual Qualities

They specifically aren鈥檛 interested in your grades or test scores here (as they note, they already have those), but rather those intellectual qualities which are difficult to capture on paper. They are looking for evidence of your genuine intellectual curiosity and excitement, and your fit for a liberal arts education. They also ask whether economic factors may have contributed to your academic pursuits.

In your interview, you want to showcase your genuine excitement for and interest in academic topics. Both broad curiosity and narrow focus are good, but showcasing how you are fit for the liberal arts model, the broad base of knowledge and curiosity, is ideal. They are looking for a love for learning itself. 

Local Context

Interviews are done regionally, so this is a chance for the interviewer to give any context they have about the local area (if applicable). They are asked about your high school, neighborhood, access to resources, or other local factors. Interviewers are specifically told not to discuss your race or ethnicity in any way in their response. 

This context isn鈥檛 something you need to consider when giving your interview answers, save for the ban on any mentions of race or ethnic background. While you can mention these, you should do so sparingly, so that your interviewer has an easy way to describe what you have done. 

Overall Rating

This is a chance for the interviewer to share their overall impression of you, and other traits they think may be relevant. This is where they share their genuine impression of you. While they won鈥檛 be insulting in this, they may not recommend you for admission. They are not precisely judging you on your personability, but that will factor into their overall impression of you, that鈥檚 inevitable. Across all your answers, you want to give a good impression of yourself, and showcase genuine passion and interest, regardless of what you鈥檙e discussing.

Final Thoughts

A Harvard interview generally won鈥檛 make or break your application, but it can move the needle, especially if your application is on the edge. The best interviews confirm what admissions officers already know or assume from reading your application and essays, another data point in a larger story. An interview isn鈥檛 something to panic over, but we do advise students do them if possible, because it can give you that extra little push, and with Harvard鈥檚 acceptance rate as low as it is, you want every advantage possible. 

Not every college offers interviews, but many of them do. If you want help preparing for a Harvard interview specifically, or for any other college on your list, then 吃瓜官网 can help. Our mentors understand how admissions officers think, and many have acted as alumni interviewers before coming to work with us. If you want help preparing for your interview, or any other aspect of your Harvard application, then schedule a free consultation today to learn how we can help you. We always love talking with students about their applications.