Questions to Ask a College Interviewer
For applicants meeting an alumni volunteer, an admissions officer, or a current student. Twenty questions on what their own years there were like, who does well and who struggles, what has changed since they left, and how the interview report is used.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Did you go here yourself, and when were you a student?
Why ask it
Interviewers are usually alumni volunteers, sometimes admissions staff, occasionally current students, and each can answer completely different questions. Settling this in the first minute stops you asking a graduate from twenty years ago about current housing.
What did you study, and what are you doing now?
Why ask it
This shows you what one version of the degree turned into, and it hands you something specific to follow up on. It also moves the meeting toward conversation, which is what most volunteers are hoping for.
What keeps you doing these interviews years later?
Why ask it
Volunteers give up evenings for this. The answer is usually a particular attachment to the place, and it tells you what the school meant to someone more directly than any question about its strengths.
What did you not expect about the place before you arrived?
Why ask it
Expect the workload, the weather, the size, or the cost. Whichever they name is more useful than the tour version, and it gives you one concrete thing to check with current students afterwards.
What did you do in your first year that you would tell someone to do again?
Why ask it
First-year advice from a graduate tends to be narrower and more practical than anything admissions offers: one office, one club, one habit. Asking what they would repeat, rather than what they regret, gets the specific version.
Which parts of campus life did you never touch?
Why ask it
What someone deliberately skipped shows which parts of the place are genuinely optional. If regret creeps into the answer, it usually points at something hard to start after the first year.
How well did you get to know your professors as an undergraduate?
Why ask it
Faculty access differs enormously between schools of the same size and reputation. A graduate can describe what it looked like from a student's side, and warm praise with no example behind it tells you something too.
Are you still in touch with people from your class, and how did you meet them?
Why ask it
Where a graduate met the friends who lasted is the closest thing to a map of the social structure: a dorm floor, a team, a campus job, a small seminar. Ask before you assume the version in the brochure.
Who has a hard time here?
Why ask it
Few interviewers will criticize the school, but most will describe the student who struggled, because that gets framed as fit rather than fault. Listen carefully for whether the description sounds like you.
Is there something people outside consistently get wrong about the school?
Why ask it
Alumni interviewers hear the same misconceptions every admissions cycle and are usually glad to correct them. Asking also shows you understand that a reputation and a daily routine are different things.
How did you get from that degree to the work you do now?
Why ask it
Routes out of a major are rarely straight, and this is the moment to hear one told slowly. It is also the question most likely to run long, which in an interview is usually to your benefit.
What do graduates here actually do for one another?
Why ask it
Push for an example: an internship that came through, a call returned, a mentoring scheme someone uses. Every school describes its alumni network as strong, so only specifics distinguish one from another.
What have you heard has changed since you were a student?
Why ask it
A graduate from a decade ago cannot describe campus life first-hand, but they usually know what current students grumble about. Framing it as what they have heard gets you honest secondhand information instead of a guess offered as fact.
What was the town like to live in as a student?
Why ask it
Four years happen off campus as well as on it. Cost of living, transport, whether anything is open late, whether the place empties out at weekends: a graduate can answer all of that from memory.
If you were applying now, what would you want to find out before deciding?
Why ask it
This asks the interviewer to swap seats with you, and the answer is often the most useful thing said in the half hour, because it names the question they think matters and you have not thought to ask.
What are you hoping to learn about me today?
Why ask it
Formats range from an open conversation to a form the volunteer has to complete afterwards. Knowing which one you are in changes what you should do with the time that is left.
Is there anything in my application you would like me to fill in?
Why ask it
Applications leave gaps: one weak term, a gap year, an activity that stops abruptly. Offering an explanation, rather than waiting to be asked, is the difference between a report that says unclear and one that says accounted for.
What do applicants most often leave out of these conversations?
Why ask it
Interviewers see many students and know what routinely goes unmentioned, usually paid work, family responsibilities, or the reasoning behind a choice. The answer gives you their pattern instead of your guess about it.
What happens to your notes after this, and when do applicants usually hear anything?
Why ask it
Interview reports carry different weight at different schools, and some are only read when a decision is close. Asking is normal, and it stops you reading significance into how the conversation happened to feel.
Would it be all right to follow up with you, and how do you prefer that?
Why ask it
A short thank-you note is standard and rarely misfires, but preferences differ, and some volunteers are instructed not to correspond with applicants at all. Better to ask than to guess wrong in either direction.
Using Your Time in a College Interview
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before and During
Bring Three Questions, Not Twenty
Most interviews run about half an hour, with the last five or ten minutes left for you. Choose three questions you genuinely want answered and let the rest go. A list read off a phone reads as preparation for a performance rather than interest in the school.
Find Out Who You Are Talking To
An alumni volunteer can describe their own years and what they hear now. An admissions officer can describe policy and process. A current student can describe this semester. Ask early, then spend your questions where that person actually knows something.
Do Not Ask What the Website Answers
Class sizes, deadlines, majors offered, and study abroad destinations are all published. Asking about them uses up your time and signals you did not look. Ask instead about how something felt to live with.
Take the Opening at the End
When you are asked whether there is anything else, that is not a formality. It is the moment to fill a gap in your application or return to something you answered thinly earlier.
Common Pitfalls
Asking About Your Chances
Most interviewers have no part in the decision and no access to your file beyond a summary. The question puts them in an awkward position and produces a non-answer, which is then easy to misread as bad news.
Asking Only About Rankings and Outcomes
Questions about placement rates and prestige get you numbers you can already look up, and they tell your interviewer that the school is a means to something else. Neither helps.
Treating Warmth as a Result
Friendly interviews and disappointing decisions coexist routinely, and so do stiff interviews and offers. Volunteers vary in manner. Do not adjust your other applications based on how this hour felt.
Letting It Become a One-Way Quiz
Interviewers consistently report that the best conversations were the ones where the applicant was curious back. Answering only what you are asked, and then thanking them, is the most common missed opportunity.