WRONG Answer
Lately I have been interviewing a lot of local high school students that have applied to go to Duke for undergrad. Instead of making them all prospective students travel to Durham, Duke has local alumni interview students (very informally) for them. For a number of reasons, I have been assigned a relatively large number of interviews this year. I was assigned seven students to interview (one left tomorrow night). The most recent interview was on Friday.There were a number of scheduling-type issues in setting up the interview, so I had to specifically remind myself not to be annoyed by the girl that I interviewed on Friday before I met her. Or not to judge the fact that she was not wearing a coat when it was below freezing. I was being quite open-minded when I started, given some of the peculiar circumstances surrounding the set up.
Generally when I interview these students, I start out by giving them a little talk about how it's going to be very informal and how it is as much an opportunity for them to ask questions and get information about Duke as it is for Duke to get info on them blah, blah, blah. I then ask them why they are interested in Duke. I guess that my subtext for asking the question is "There are 60 colleges in the greater Boston area and who knows how many in New England. Why are you interested in going so far away, and what specifically draws you to Duke." I realize that it is sort of a mean question to start out with: as a high school senior I didn't necessarily have great reasons for being interested in the schools that I applied to. I'm pretty lenient with answers, though. I'm looking for a student to be able to a) make a coherent sentence and b) say something about Duke. It doesn't have to be "I really want to study X with Professor Y", it can be something really simple. I'll even take the shallow stuff. My biggest reason to start with this question is that the answer gives me a direction to take with future questions. The Duke Admissions Office doesn't give me that much information about these students, and usually their answer to "What attracts you to Duke" gives me some insight into their interests so that I know what else to ask. Really, I'm not expecting rocket science here.
Back to the conversation on Friday...I asked the student that I was interviewing "Why Duke?" Translated out of high-schooler speak, she gave me the samer answer that another of the students that I interviewed this year did: "Because my boyfriend goes there." Friday's student actually recovered from that admission and gave me a really good answer that sparked another whole trail of conversation as her second thought, but nonetheless, she said it.
The whole thing is a little frustrating. Wouldn't you expect that someone might ask that question at an interview? Wouldn't you at least have some sort of token answer prepared? How do you even begin to think that "Because my boyfriend goes there" is an acceptable answer, or at least an answer that you should ACTUALLY give? There are about a million reasons why it is wrong, yet 2 out of the 6 students that I spoke to used it. Ugh.
posted by Immunegirl @ 11:12 PM
6 Comments:
You can't fault her for being coatless when it's below freezing. It's a native thing. It's also unlikely that a girl raised in harsh New England winters will be harmed by the vicious season in NC.
I'm often coatless at or below freezing. Am I not Duke material? Well, I do have a general disinterest in Basketball but that's not related to my use of coats.
Also, high school girls don't have great judgment. The "because my boyfriend goes there" is probably high school girlspeak that should be tuned out. She respects her bf, the bf says Duke is good and attends, suggesting that the school is actually good for a number of intangible reasons. The college experience will teach her that blindly following boyfriends is stupid. The end result will be fine, but the decision making was flawed. She’ll learn.
She may even figure it out when the BF decides not to come north for spring break, and instead heads to an orgy in Panama City.
I'm actually going to give her a relatively good recommendation-she wasn't the best student that I've interviewed (by far) but she was pretty good. As I mentioned in the post, her second thought on "Why Duke" was actually really good. I certainly won't really fault her for being coatless (I have not yet decided what to do about the not showing up to our original interview, begging for another chance and then causing some more scheduling grief about the second email. It's really the no-show part that bothers me.)
These girls just come off as being so vacuous when they give the BF answer. I would respect it much more if there was any indication that she had given it thought of her own instead of blindly following. I guess that I have to remember what a friend who also does interviews for his undergrad school said about the process: "The acceptance rate is in the teens, which means that only about 1 in every 10 kids that you interview will get in. Students that really impress you will be rare, and it will be frustrating because so many of them will seem unextrordinary."
That is sort of what I have seen too, I guess. In all of the students that I have interviewed (around 10, I guess), I have only been really impressed with one. Many of them seemed perfectly nice and like they could do perfectly well in college as an average student and that they would fit in perfectly well, but they didn't necessarily seem extrordinary. That of course is slightly counterintuitive, because if that's the case, where do all of the average students come from? How did I get in?
I suppose that the difference is just in whether they are extrordinary enough to sell themselves well at an interview. It just seems to me that the girls that have given me the BF answer have lacked something as far as knowing how to sell themselves or what an appropriate answer is. The one girl that I was super impressed with may have a BF at Duke too as far as I know, but she was at least able to think for herself. In the end, my opinion of them doesn't really matter that much anyway....
It's better than "My husband goes there."
I guess.
Hmmm. I don't know why I'm being so argumentative about this today (okay, so I don't know why I am being so argumentative about this today other than the fact that the website I need to look at before doing my experiment is down), but here goes (with the full realization that I am just digging myself deeper...):
I thought about the post-college thing as I was writing this. I certainly know couples who moved together while one or both were in graduate school or for a job, and in cases where one person chose a place and the other sort of followed. The thing that seems different to me is that in those cases it isn't a clear case of 100% following: you generally don't choose a place that is perfect for one person and has zero opportunities for the other...there have to (or should, I guess) be at least some opportunities and attractions for both people. It is a little different in that case too, because there may not necessarily be only one possible job or whatever for the second person to take when they move, so there is still some selection of "Why THIS job" that goes on, while there may not be a lot of options as far as colleges near where your BF goes. In the end, it's okay to go somewhere largely because your husband or bf or whomever went there first, but it seems like you ought to be able to articulate at least something that is a selling point for you personally, and the girl that I interviewed on Friday WAS able to do that in the end. I just don't understand why you wouldn't give the reason why the place was a selling point to YOU and why you might go there independant of the other person as your first answer. Hmmm. Maybe I'm just ascribing too much motivation for why someone might be interested in a college. Or maybe we're just figuring out that I'm a sell-out when people interview me. :) :) :)
There's nothing wrong with being argumentative....
I think pre-college and post college relationships should be regarded differently.
17 or 18 year old kids will change their minds about a lot of things before they turn 22. Their idea of a good relationship will change.
Most of the people I know who went to college with a significant other from or in high school broke up with that person by the end of their freshmen year.
Adults don’t, or at least shouldn’t, divorce because one spouse has to relocate.
I was thinking mainly of 18 year olds being married, thougfh I suppose I was making fun of myself a bit too.
To clarify I totally agree that "Because my boyfriend goes there" is the stupidest reason ever to say in an interview.
Well except for "My parole officer won't let me leave the State"
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