Let’s Talk About Interviewing
Admit It! College interviews might fall just shy of standardized testing on your list of things you want to do this summer to prepare for college applications. Well, W&M’s on-campus interviews will make you feel differently. Our on-campus interviews are designed to simply be a conversation between you and the rising W&M senior who interviews you. It’s a chance for us to take you off the two-dimensional paper application and let you show us your three-dimensional self. Putting personality into an application is tough to accomplish, showing up in person and simply being yourself is far easier. So we invite all interested rising seniors to come to campus this summer and interview with one of our 14 Senior Interviewers.
Our interviews are evaluative, meaning an assessment of your interview becomes part of your application should you choose to apply. We liken the interview to a teacher recommendation in reverse. A teacher who writes on your behalf knows you well, but may not know W&M terribly well. Our Interviewers will not know you terribly well after your 20-ish minute interview but they do know W&M incredibly well. Their assessment is designed to give the Admission Committee an idea of how you will fit into and impact our campus as a potential member of our next incoming class.
The best part about our interviews: you get to sit down, one-on-one, with one of W&M’s very best. Each year we hire 14 rising W&M seniors to serve as our Senior Admission Interviewers. These students are bright, accomplished, engaging, friendly, and most of all, simply want to get to know you and help you learn more about W&M. Just as with any interview, the interviewee is also an interviewer. Through this process, you can ask questions and determine more fully for yourself if W&M is a campus where you wish to spend your next four years.
Our interviews are offered weekdays through August 14. We will offer a limited number of interviews in the fall (that schedule and registration will be available September 1) but we encourage students who are available and interested to interview during the summer when appointments are much more abundant.
Keep in mind that interviews are entirely optional. We recognize that many interested students are not able to be on campus when interviews are offered and that’s perfectly okay. Only 20% of our applicants interview, so most students apply to W&M without this particular application component.
Amanda, Brendan, Catie, Conor, Emilyann, Joanna, Maddie, Mark, Nicole, Raven, Ross, Sarah, Sydney and Yousif look forward to welcoming you to campus.
Wendy Livingston ’03, M.Ed. ‘09
Associate Dean of Admission
Comments are closed on posts older than one year, but we still want to hear from you. If you have a comment or question for us, please email admission@wm.edu.
What a wonderful experience. The process is well designed. The board with the Senior Admission Interviewers photos and short bio is a terrific idea, and helps with the initial hello. The color card with the interviewers names also eliminates the guessing of who is who. All the students came out with genuine smiles and the feeling in the waiting area was upbeat, not stressful. Everything was designed to put the applicant at ease, which probably results in some honest interviews. My son appreciated the opportunity to meet one on one with an admissions representative. This was an important part of his college application process. We made the trip expressly for the interview and it was well worth the time and effort. Kudos again W&M.
@Lynn Barnsback, so glad to hear that your son enjoyed his interview and we appreciate all of the positive feedback regarding our interview process! We hope your son will apply to W&M this fall.