College Interview Preparation - Basics

Now that you filled your college application form and sent it, you have another thing on your mind – the college interview – another barrier to pass in order to get to the place you want to be in for perusing your career

I will now explain what I think is the best system to prepare to the college interview, and provide a lot of example questions for you to practice on.

First, sit down and make a list of all the people you think can help you in this, try not to ask your parents, unless you are sure they will be completely unbiased. Other relatives are good, especially ones that went to college or have been in a position that required them to interview people. You friends and colleagues, try and choose only people you know are mature enough to treat this with the needed respect and seriousness, maybe other friends that are going to a college interview will appreciate the trust and will want you to help them prepare for their college interview too.

Second, make a list of all the things you can say about yourself, start by the best, most positive things that come into your mind, and try to find examples of how these were tested in the past. Think about a long conversation with someone that doesn’t know you at all and has about 10 minutes to get to know the best in you. When you finish writing, think about 2 or 3 disappointing moments in your life and think of positive things you learned from them, and finally add one or two weaknesses you think you have, find examples for them and do not stop until you find your solution and your way of dealing with those weaknesses.

Third thing to do is to prepare a list of subjects and talks you are going to have, you will choose the right people for the right subjects, some you will talk to for about 5 minutes and with some you will have a 10 minutes mock college interview and then you will discuss all your answers and suggest different ones – that make take even an hour. Not all the people you practice with need to go through the whole thing, some can ask only personal questions, some other questions, the main point is that you get enough practice in answering college interview questions. When you sit down with a person that is going to help you, you will need to have a note with you asking this person to be as difficult and present hard questions as possible, you will need to bring a printed paper with a lot of question this person can choose from, a bunch of papers for him to use to write things he thinks about your answers, and a pen. Never stop a “college interview” in the middle, always go through the whole thing and start discussing it only when you finish.

Last thing – after you practice enough, pick the people you think were the best interviewers, and go through a whole 15 minutes interview with them, try and have at least 5 of these full interviews before you go for the real thing.