bsat blog

So you visit a college. You meet the admissions people. You’re led on a tour by some backward-walking, fact-spitting tour guide who started her morning by draining 4 cups of coffee with Adderall and non-dairy creamer. You’re really itching to meet up with your overnight host—some super-senior named “Nugz” McKinley—so you can show off your skills as a high school beer pong champion. But first you’ve got to do the most hated aspect of the college visit: The College Interview.

Interviews will probably cause a lot of stress simply because you have no idea what’s coming. Will your interviewer expect you to have memorized trivial information about the intricate workings of the course catalog? Is she going to test your processing skills by asking you something like, “How many golf pencils are in the state of New Jersey?” Will he give you something deep and philosophical like “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” (Trust me, your response will be much more interesting when Nugz asks you later.)

Of course the inside joke about college interviews is that no matter how much time you spend preparing the answers to difficult, soul-probing, though-provoking questions what you’re going to end up being asked to do is ask them questions. “Uhhhh, so I see you’re, umm, an accredited school. What’s that like?” And yet, despite the fact that this was the case at every single one of my college interviews it threw me off every time. So practice asking questions so you don’t end up like this guy.