Questions to Ask a Harvard Interviewer
For the applicant's side of a Harvard alumni interview, and the moment the interviewer asks what you would like to know. The questions run from easy openers, such as why they chose Harvard and which house they lived in, through academics, campus life and their honest take, to life after graduation and how to close the hour. Each has a note on what the answer tells you or what to ask next, and Harvard's own vocabulary (concentrations, houses, sections, comping) is explained where it comes up. This is the list of what you ask them; the guide has a short part on what they are likely to ask you.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Openers
Why did you choose Harvard when you were applying?
Why ask it
The polished answer comes first, so follow it by asking what the other options were and what tipped the decision. An alum who admits the name did some of the deciding is likely to be straight with you for the rest of the hour.
What was your favorite part of your time at Harvard?
Why ask it
Nearly every applicant asks this, which is fine, because interviewers like answering it. What sets yours apart is the follow-up: was that something the college arranged for them, or something they had to go and find?
What surprised you about Harvard once you were living there?
Why ask it
The gap between the reputation and the ordinary Tuesday is something only a person who lived there can describe. Answers tend to cluster around how normal the days felt, how much freedom there was, or how much of the university sat outside the college.
Which house were you in, and how much did it shape your friendships?
Why ask it
From sophomore year students live in one of the residential houses, usually until they graduate, so the house is where most alumni place their memories. Hear whether their friends came from the house, a team, a publication or a lab: that is a better map of how people find each other than anything on the website.
What advice would you give a first-year arriving at Harvard this fall?
Why ask it
Advice from an alum dates quickly on the details and hardly at all on the habits. The parts about people, such as going to office hours early or eating with strangers in the first weeks, will still hold. The parts about requirements and deadlines may not.
What did you concentrate in, and what year did you graduate?
Why ask it
Harvard calls majors concentrations, so this is the local way to ask what they studied. If their email already told you, skip it and ask what drew them to the field. The year matters because it dates everything else: a graduate from two decades ago can speak to life afterward but not to how advising or housing works now.
How did you end up volunteering to do these interviews?
Why ask it
A warm question that also tells you who is across the table. Someone in their tenth season has dozens of applicants to compare you with, and a first-timer has only this conversation. The reason they give, whether gratitude, curiosity about applicants or a tie to the local Harvard club, points at what they will enjoy talking about.
Academics
How did you settle on your concentration, and how hard would it have been to switch?
Why ask it
Harvard students pick a concentration after they arrive, not on the application, so the story of how the choice got made is useful if you are undecided. Timing and rules get revised, so confirm the current ones with the college before you rely on theirs.
Was there a class or a professor that changed what you thought you would do?
Why ask it
A named course or professor is something you can look up afterward, so write it down once you are out of the room. Ask what they had planned to do before and what the class did to the plan. A long pause before any name comes is worth noticing: for some graduates the turning points were all outside the classroom.
Which course outside your concentration are you most glad you took?
Why ask it
General education requirements push every student into subjects they did not come for, and alumni often remember one of those courses more warmly than anything in their own field. The requirements have been redesigned more than once and the course may be gone. What made it good, a lecturer, a reading list, an argument in section, is the part that carries over.
How available were professors, and how did students get time with them?
Why ask it
Access is rarely automatic, so listen for the mechanism: office hours, a small seminar, a research position, a section leader. An answer that names a mechanism is worth more than one that says faculty were approachable.
Were most of your courses big lectures or small seminars, and when did the balance shift?
Why ask it
Large lecture courses at Harvard usually split into weekly sections led by teaching fellows, who are often graduate students, so ask who they saw more of, the professor or the fellow. Then get the timing: how early they reached the small rooms, and whether a seminar took an application or just turning up.
Did you have friends in the concentration I am considering, and what did they say about it?
Why ask it
Say the field by name. What a roommate complained about over dinner, such as weekly problem sets or a department too big to know anyone in, is second-hand but unvarnished. If they knew nobody in it, move on quickly and save the question for a current student.
How competitive did it feel day to day: were people sharing problem sets or guarding them?
Why ask it
The reputation is cutthroat, and an alum can tell you whether their own years matched it. It tends to differ by field, so get the course where it felt worst and the one where a study group carried them through.
Whose advice did you rely on at Harvard: an assigned adviser, a tutor in your house, or older students?
Why ask it
Advising there comes in layers, from a first-year adviser to people attached to the house and the concentration, and alumni are frank about which layer was worth anything. If the answer is older students, ask where they met them, because that is the part you would have to arrange for yourself.
Did you do research with a faculty member, and how did you get the position?
Why ask it
The route matters more than the project. An email to a professor, a funded summer program and a posted job each say something different about how much initiative the place expects from an eighteen-year-old.
Did you write a senior thesis, and would you do it again?
Why ask it
A thesis is a year of mostly solitary work, and people tend to feel strongly about it one way or the other. Whether it is required depends on the concentration and on honors, so hear how it worked in theirs and look up the field you have in mind.
Did you study abroad or spend a term away, and was it easy to fit in?
Why ask it
Some concentrations make a term away simple and others make it hard to manage without falling behind. If they stayed put, the better question is whether they wanted to go and what stopped them.
How much did undergraduates cross paths with the graduate schools?
Why ask it
The college sits inside a much larger university, and how much of that an undergraduate touches varies by field. Whether they took a course at another school or never set foot in one tells you how porous it really is.
Campus life
Where did you live your first year, and what was that like?
Why ask it
First-years are housed together in and around Harvard Yard before anyone is sorted into a house, so this is one of the few experiences every graduate shares. Notice whether the story is about the people on their floor or about the building. Roommates they did not choose and still see are a good sign.
How did you choose your blocking group, and what was Housing Day like?
Why ask it
Toward the end of the first year students form small blocking groups and are assigned to a house together, and picking that group is one of the first socially loaded choices the college hands you. Most alumni can still list who was in theirs. Older graduates were sorted into houses by a different system, which is a story in itself.
What did you do outside of class that mattered most to you?
Why ask it
Ask how many hours a week it took. A newspaper, a team or a theater company can run close to a second course load, and how the interviewer talks about that trade tells you where students put their real effort. It is also the natural point to mention the thing you do, in a sentence, without reciting your list.
How did you get into the activities you cared about: could you simply join, or was there a comp?
Why ask it
Many Harvard organizations ask newcomers to 'comp', a trial period that can be anything from a few friendly meetings to a semester of real work. Knowing which groups were open and which were selective tells you how the first autumn is likely to feel.
How much of the social life ran through the houses, and how much through clubs you had to be invited into?
Why ask it
This is the tactful way to bring up final clubs and other selective groups without asking whether the interviewer belonged to one. The useful detail is what a Saturday night looked like for someone outside them. The rules and the mood around those clubs have shifted over the years, so put it to a current student as well.
Which Harvard tradition did you actually take part in?
Why ask it
The Yale game, Housing Day, a house's own odd rituals: every alum has one they loved and one they skipped. 'Actually' is doing the work here, because it separates the traditions on the tour from the ones students turn up for.
Did you play a sport or follow the teams, and how much did athletics matter on campus?
Why ask it
Harvard fields a great many varsity teams, and whether anyone watches them is a separate matter. Someone who rowed or played will describe one campus and a spectator another, and both versions are worth having if a sport is part of your plan.
How often did you get out of Harvard Square and into Boston?
Why ask it
The city is a short subway ride away and plenty of students barely use it. Whether they went for concerts, a job, a team or nothing at all shows how self-contained the campus is in practice.
Did differences in family money show up in daily life among students?
Why ask it
Steer toward the everyday: who worked a term-time job, who could take an unpaid summer, who went away over spring break. Leave your own aid situation out of it, since the interviewer has no part in financial aid and questions about it belong with that office.
When someone you knew was overwhelmed, who noticed, and what help was there?
Why ask it
Because it is about a friend and not about them, it is easy to answer truthfully. A person, such as a proctor, a house tutor or a roommate, is a better sign than the name of an office. Support services have changed a good deal, so read what the college offers today.
How did you spend your summers as an undergraduate?
Why ask it
Summers show what the college's name and money were good for before graduation: a lab, a travel grant, an internship passed on by an older student, or the same job back home. It is fair to ask whether funding decided which of those was possible.
Honest take
What do people get wrong about Harvard from the outside?
Why ask it
Alumni usually have a ready answer here, and it reveals what they are tired of defending. It also lets you show that you are interested in the institution as a place to live rather than as a label.
What did you find hard that you had not expected to find hard?
Why ask it
The expected difficulties, the reading and the exams, are not what this is after. Candid answers tend to involve the pace, the winters, money differences between students, or working out what to want when everything is on offer at once.
How did you deal with being around people who were used to being the best at something?
Why ask it
Every admitted student arrives having been the strongest in some room, and for most the first semester ends that. Graduates usually remember the moment it happened: a first grade back, an audition, a classmate who had already published. What they did the week after is the useful part.
Coming from your high school, did you feel prepared next to your classmates?
Why ask it
Students arrive from schools that send someone every year and from schools that never have, and the first semester feels different for each. If their background resembles yours, this may be the most practical answer of the hour. If it does not, ask what they watched their roommates go through.
Did you ever feel you had to choose between doing well in courses and everything else?
Why ask it
This is the workload question in a form that gets a story instead of a number of hours. Watch for whether they describe a trade they made on purpose, such as a lighter term for a production or a season, or one that crept up on them.
What kind of student thrives there, and what kind struggles?
Why ask it
You are asking for a pattern rather than a compliment, and thoughtful interviewers give a real one, usually about self-direction or about being willing to ask for help in a place where nobody chases you.
Did Harvard feel like one community or a lot of separate ones?
Why ask it
Some alumni describe a college, and some describe a team, a house and a publication that happened to share an address. Neither is a criticism. It tells you whether you would need to find your corner quickly or could wander for a while.
If you were seventeen again with the same options, would you still pick Harvard?
Why ask it
A yes is the expected answer, so notice how fast it comes and what gets attached to it. If they hesitate over cost, pressure or distance from home, find out which of those they would weigh differently now.
If you were put in charge of the college for a year, what would you fix first?
Why ask it
Loyal alumni still keep a list, and the first item is often something a student feels early: advising, a requirement, the cost of small things, how a group chose its members. A specific complaint also makes their praise easier to believe.
What would you do differently if you started again?
Why ask it
Regret is more specific than advice. Common answers involve courses skipped out of fear, faculty never approached, or years spent optimizing for the next credential rather than the current one.
After Harvard
What do you do now, and how did you get there from Harvard?
Why ask it
The interviewer has spent the hour asking about you, and most enjoy a turn. A crooked path, with a change of field or a few uncertain years, is worth hearing at a point when everyone is asking you for a ten-year plan.
How did Harvard prepare you for the work you do now, and where did it leave gaps?
Why ask it
Adding the gaps keeps the answer from turning into a commencement speech. Notice what gets the credit, whether writing, argument or the people they met, and what they say they had to pick up later on the job.
How has the alumni network shown up in your own life since you graduated?
Why ask it
Push gently for an instance rather than a claim. There is a wide gap between an alum who can describe a single call that changed a job and one who describes the network as a general benefit.
When has the Harvard name helped you, and has it ever got in the way?
Why ask it
Alumni have usually thought about this and are rarely asked. The first half tends to be about a door that opened early in a career, and the second about assumptions strangers make, which says something about the label you are applying to carry.
Where did your closest friends from Harvard end up, and are you still in touch?
Why ask it
One graduate is a single data point, and a blocking group or a newspaper staff is at least a handful. If they all landed in the same two or three industries, ask whether that was the plan or the current. Whether those friendships outlasted the place is its own answer about what the four years were for.
How much pressure was there to head for the same few careers?
Why ask it
Recruiting for consulting, finance and technology is loud on many selective campuses, and alumni disagree about how hard it was to ignore. The telling part is what happened to friends who took another road, and whether anyone at the college made that easier.
How has Harvard changed since you were a student?
Why ask it
Anyone who goes back for reunions or meets applicants every winter has a view on this. The answer also shows you which of their earlier stories come with a date on them. If they say it has hardly changed, ask what they hope never does.
Closing
Is there something about me you would like to know that we have not got to?
Why ask it
The interviewer's write-up can only contain what came up, and alumni interviewers have usually not read your application. Asking this lets them fill a gap they noticed and you did not. Have one thing ready in case they turn it back to you: a project, a responsibility at home, the context for a rough term.
What do applicants never ask you that you wish they would?
Why ask it
After a few seasons an interviewer has heard the same handful of questions many times, and this one hands them the floor. Whatever comes next is usually what they most wanted you to know about the place.
Do you know anyone on campus now, or recently graduated, who would be willing to talk to me?
Why ask it
Even a devoted alum's knowledge has a date on it, and many are glad to hand you on to someone closer. Do not press if no name comes: the admissions office's own events for prospective students are the other route.
If I am lucky enough to have the choice, what should I look at closely before saying yes?
Why ask it
It treats the interviewer as an adviser and not a gatekeeper, and it assumes nothing about the outcome. Good answers point at something you can check for yourself: a visit for admitted students, a department's course list, a conversation with a student in your field.
What happens to this conversation after we finish?
Why ask it
Interviewers write up an impression and do not make admissions decisions, and hearing them say so tends to lower the stakes in a useful way. It also tells you what they will be trying to describe about you.
If a question occurs to me later, would email be all right?
Why ask it
Interviewers are unpaid volunteers with jobs, so asking rather than assuming is the polite version. It also gives you a reason for a short thank-you note that contains one real question instead of only praise.
If I end up at a different college, how much do you think that will matter ten years from now?
Why ask it
A graduate who works alongside people from many colleges can answer this from experience, and most answer it kindly. Keep it for an interviewer who has been candid with you. In a formal conversation it can sound as if you are asking for reassurance, so leave it out there.
Making the alumni interview two-sided
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
What the interview is and is not
The interviewer is a volunteer, not an admissions officer
Alumni interviewers are unpaid volunteers, and they send in a written impression, not a vote. Treating the hour as a conversation with a graduate who is curious about you produces a better report than treating it as an oral exam.
What they will ask you first
Expect the conversation to open with you: what you would want to study and why, what you do outside class and what you get from it, what you read or follow for its own sake, and why Harvard. There is no fixed script, since each volunteer runs the hour in their own way. Your turn to ask usually comes toward the end, so settle on your questions before you walk in.
Not everyone gets one, and that is mostly geography
Whether an interview happens depends on how many volunteers are available near you. Applicants read a great deal into getting one or not getting one, and there is generally less signal there than anxiety suggests. The admissions office's own pages say how an application without an interview is read.
Your questions are part of the impression
The questions you ask show what you care about as plainly as your answers do. Three specific questions about how people live and learn there read very differently from a list copied off a forum.
Confirm the logistics in your first reply
These conversations happen in coffee shops, in offices, and on video. Confirm the time, the place, and the expected length when you answer their first email, and arrive early enough that you are not hunting for a table when they walk in.
Which questions to bring
- Take one opener, one or two from the group closest to what you care about, one from Honest take and one from Closing. That is already a full conversation.
- Fit the question to the graduate. Someone a few years out can describe housing, advising and choosing courses roughly as they are now. Someone decades out is better on what the degree and the friendships turned into.
- If the interviewer concentrated in something far from your interests, ask about their own experience anyway and take the department questions to the college directly.
- Leave out whatever a search would settle, such as whether a concentration exists or what the requirements are. Those questions tell the interviewer you have not looked.
- Do not ask how you did, what the committee wants this year or how you compare with other applicants. The interviewer does not know, and the hour gets stiffer once you have asked.
In the conversation
- Do not race through what you brought. Two questions with real follow-ups leave a better impression than five read off in order.
- Follow up on the interesting half of every answer. If they mention a professor, ask what that person was like to work with.
- When you ask about something hard, let the pause sit. Interviewers often give their most honest answer after a few seconds of thinking.
- Bring one question only this person can answer, drawn from what they told you about themselves when scheduling.
- A card with your questions on it is fine to glance at. Writing down every answer is not: it turns the exchange into an interrogation, and you will remember the parts that mattered.
Afterward
- 1Send a short thank-you within a day or two. Three or four sentences is plenty.
- 2Include one concrete thing you took from the conversation, so it is clear you were listening rather than being polite.
- 3If you promised to send something, such as a link to a project you described, send it in the same note.
- 4Do not follow up repeatedly asking how it went. The interviewer has no information about your outcome and will feel awkward saying so.
- 5Write down for yourself what you learned about the place. If you get in, that page is what you will read while deciding.