I am struck time after time by the difference in tone between this forum and College Confidential. Populated as it is by highly striving kids (and their parents), College Confidential manages to be informative, supportive, and generally entertaining.

People share their interview experiences (which seem to be split about 50/50 between those asked to provide scores and GPAs and those not) and even some interviewers provide their perspective. Here, people are tearing into someone who asked a perfectly reasonable question.

All of which leaves me wondering - as I often do - why do people come here for college information?

Of course she had to ID the school -- it's a policy that isn't typical of similar schools (in fact, one that would be in direct violation of instructions given to interviewers at some of those schools) and her question was, in essence, is this a Harvard policy or Is the interviewer out of line.

Actually PP has a point. I don't know why people post such specifics here. OP, you did not have to ID the school. Duh!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you know I didn't change some information in the interest of anonymity?

Your son is probably your daughter and the interviewer is male instead of female. Still pretty obvious.

I have to agree. I'm the harvard law grad who said to flow with it and not stir the pot. I'm surprised the undergrad system works that way (there are no interviews for the law school) but if that's the system and you want your kid to get in, I sure would be advising him to do what the interviewer asks and not be posting here. It takes only a cut and paste for someone like me to send your post to the Harvard Admissions office and make a "What the hell!" stink which would immediately get back to the D.C. interviewerer.

Are you even reading my posts or do you just love being outraged?

In case you didn't get it before, I'll bold it for you: my son did what you are saying he should do. He sent in his resume without complaint.

Go ahead and send this to Harvard admissions. I'm sure they'll be proud of your sleuthing job. Man, will they be upset to see an anonymous post asking if it's normal for Harvard to ask for resumes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you know I didn't change some information in the interest of anonymity?

Your son is probably your daughter and the interviewer is male instead of female. Still pretty obvious.

I have to agree. I'm the harvard law grad who said to flow with it and not stir the pot. I'm surprised the undergrad system works that way (there are no interviews for the law school) but if that's the system and you want your kid to get in, I sure would be advising him to do what the interviewer asks and not be posting here. It takes only a cut and paste for someone like me to send your post to the Harvard Admissions office and make a "What the hell!" stink which would immediately get back to the D.C. interviewer.

Sigh...I'm not getting too involved. My son came to me with pretty much the exact question I posted here. I told him that I thought that was unusual (as per my experience) but didn't know what he should do so I posted here for some second opinions. He went out, asked his friends, and told me that all of his friends were asked to do it too, so it is normal procedure. Then he sent off his resume. He didn't tell me this until hours afterwords.

I didn't tell him any of my worries or opinions. I didn't even talk to him about it beyond telling him that I thought it was weird.

The posted you quoted was my opinion. If it was me getting interviewed, and it turned out that the interviewers aren't supposed to be asking for resumes, that would be what I would do.

The second part of that paragraph is true though - good luck figuring out which polite reply with the resume attached out of hundreds is my son's.

This forum, geez. And if you're going to accuse me of getting too emotionally attached to my post, I'm sorry for getting exasperated at personal attacks and accusations that I'm jeopardizing my son's chances for Harvard.

Anonymous wrote:How do you know I didn't change some information in the interest of anonymity?

Your son is probably your daughter and the interviewer is male instead of female. Still pretty obvious.

Anonymous wrote:I am an alumni interviewer for a school that is just as selective as Harvard. My son had gotten interviews from other schools just as selective. My school explicitly says they want interviews to be SEPARATE from academics, and every other school didn't ask for a resume.

I made a post because I didn't know it was normal procedures for Harvard. For all I knew, Harvard was like my school (and the schools that other alumni interviewers posted in this thread), and they didn't give out that information because they didn't want the interviewers to know that information.

Frankly, I'd rather piss off one alumni than have an interview that goes against how the school expects it to be. I also don't really care if the alumni interviewer sees it here (though I find it hard to believe that a young 20something recent Harvard grad living in a hip neighborhood in DC is reading DCUM).

My son has probably already compromised his change of getting into Harvard with some minor wording in his essays. That's just how it works! He's not stressing about getting in.

The odd thing is how much this is about your feelings. I would have been curious and annoyed as well if this happened to my DS, but this post about your feelings makes me think you need to pull back. Its not about your feelings, its about your DS' feelings. You sound too involved.

How do you know I didn't change some information in the interest of anonymity?

Well, many Harvard interviewers are in DCUM, and they meet, and you've just established that your son is one of the kids who has been given the worksheet but has not yet filled it in, and that his interviewer is in her 20s living in a hipster part of DC. And you asked in your opening post whether your son should lie saying he couldn't be interviewed to avoid submitting the form. You easily could just have come on DCUM, named Harvard, and asked if anyone knew whether this approach was the usual practice. Think before you try to "help" your kid. Of course, I'm sure interviewers as to supposed to take this type of thing into account, but they are human, and the school accepts a very small portion of applicants. And you just implied your son would lie if you advised him to. Really, get some judgment.