1. Know your high school.
Something I’ve realized from my interviews is that the interviewers take background greatly into account. My background is a major part of who I am, and the general facts about my high school also define a part of me. If your high school is a magnet school, know the special aspects of the magnet program and how they’ve affected you. If your school has an interesting or prestigious program that can’t be found in other schools, talk about that during the interview.
2. Listen closely to the words that will inform you about the interview.
This directly comes from my experience with interviews. My Duke interviewer told me before we met, “We’ll meet and talk a little about you.” That interview was very casual, comfortable, relaxed and was spent literally talking about my entire life story with the interviewer’s experiences in his life as well. However, my Princeton interviewer said, “We’ll talk about things that couldn’t be covered in the application and any questions you might have about Princeton.” While I thought that was just the general guideline and the interview would be similar to Duke’s, it was extremely different. He basically asked me if there was anything not covered in the application or to tell about what makes me “more interesting” than other applicants. I didn’t get to talk a lot about my life or my background, but rather had to focus on my senior year, which wasn’t covered much in the application.
3. Think about what wasn’t covered in your application.
Interviews are great opportunities to talk about some aspects of your high school that couldn’t be covered on paper. They also give an opportunity to talk about your different passions that couldn’t be reflected in one single essay. In my case, I talked about my participation in my school’s marching band during senior year. A lot of new responsibilities and activities might have happened between December and February, so you can talk about anything important that happened in those months.
4. Have three to four extracurricular activities that you can elaborate on.
Passion reflects. Don’t try to impress your interviewer by listing all the clubs you’ve been in. Instead, prepare a resume and give it to the interviewer, and then pick about three or four activities that were especially important to you. Why was it important to you and how did it change you? Did you have a special position in a club, organization, sport, etc. that you worked your way up to?
5. Find connections with the interviewer.
Actually, this is true not only for interviews but for any conversation you have. Although the interview is about you, you shouldn’t be the only one talking. Conversations get more interesting when people start to have things in common. Ask where the interviewer is from, what kind of majors he/she had in college and what type of work he/she does now. Then, connect the answers to you and your goals.