What year did you graduate, and what did you concentrate in?

Harvard calls majors concentrations, and using the word signals you have done more than skim a ranking. The graduation year also tells you how current their picture is: an alum 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?

This is a warm opener that also tells you who is across the table. Someone in their tenth season has calibrated against dozens of applicants and is hard to sway with charm, while a first-time interviewer is more likely to write down how the conversation felt.

Where did you live your first year, and what was that like?

First-year housing is one of the few experiences every alum shares, so the question almost always produces a real story rather than a brochure answer. Listen for whether they describe the people or the buildings.

Which house were you in, and how much did it shape your friendships?

The house system organizes upperclass life, and the answer tells you whether their social world came from the house, a team, a publication, or a lab. That is a better map of how people actually find each other than anything on the website.

What did you do outside of class that mattered most to you?

Almost every alum names an activity rather than a course, and the energy in their voice tells you how much of undergraduate life happens inside those organizations. It also gives you a natural opening to talk about your own commitments without reciting them.

Professional & Academic

Questions to Ask a Harvard Interviewer

Questions for an applicant sitting down with a Harvard alumni interviewer, covering what the interviewer can actually tell you about the place, how to keep the conversation two-sided, and what to ask about the process itself.

20 questions, each with the reason to ask it · includes a conversation guide

Open any question to see why it works.

1
What year did you graduate, and what did you concentrate in?
Harvard calls majors concentrations, and using the word signals you have done more than skim a ranking. The graduation year also tells you how current their picture is: an alum from two decades ago can speak to life afterward but not to how advising or housing works now.
2
How did you end up volunteering to do these interviews?
This is a warm opener that also tells you who is across the table. Someone in their tenth season has calibrated against dozens of applicants and is hard to sway with charm, while a first-time interviewer is more likely to write down how the conversation felt.
3
Where did you live your first year, and what was that like?
First-year housing is one of the few experiences every alum shares, so the question almost always produces a real story rather than a brochure answer. Listen for whether they describe the people or the buildings.
4
Which house were you in, and how much did it shape your friendships?
The house system organizes upperclass life, and the answer tells you whether their social world came from the house, a team, a publication, or a lab. That is a better map of how people actually find each other than anything on the website.
5
What did you do outside of class that mattered most to you?
Almost every alum names an activity rather than a course, and the energy in their voice tells you how much of undergraduate life happens inside those organizations. It also gives you a natural opening to talk about your own commitments without reciting them.
6
Was there a class or a professor that changed what you thought you would do?
This asks for a specific memory instead of a summary, and specific memories are what interviewers enjoy giving. If they cannot name one, that is information too about how much the classroom shaped their four years.
7
What surprised you about the place once you were actually living there?
The gap between the reputation and the daily reality is the most useful thing an alum can hand you. Answers tend to cluster around how ordinary the days felt, how much freedom there was, or how much of the university sat outside the college.
8
How available were professors, and how did students actually get time with them?
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.
9
How much did undergraduates cross paths with the graduate schools?
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.
10
What do people get wrong about Harvard from the outside?
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.
11
What did you find hard that you had not expected to find hard?
This gets past the highlight reel. The honest answers tend to involve pace, the weather, money differences between students, or figuring out what to want when everything is available at once.
12
How did you deal with being around people who were used to being the best at something?
Every admitted student arrives having been the strongest in some room, and the adjustment is real. Asking directly gives the interviewer permission to be candid, and their answer often becomes the part of the hour they remember.
13
Did you ever feel you had to choose between doing well in courses and everything else?
The answer shows how the workload actually sat alongside activities, jobs, and sleep. Watch for whether they describe a tradeoff they made deliberately or one that happened to them.
14
What kind of student thrives there, and what kind struggles?
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.
15
What would you do differently if you started again?
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.
16
How has the alumni network actually shown up in your life since?
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.
17
Is there anything I have said today, or anything in my application, that you would want me to explain further?
This is the most useful question in the conversation. The interviewer writes a report afterward, and this is your only chance to clear up something that puzzled them before they write it.
18
What happens to this conversation after we finish?
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.
19
If a question occurs to me later, would email be all right?
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.
20
If I do not end up there, what would you tell me about how much this decision matters?
Ending here shows you can hold the outcome loosely, which is unusual and disarming in a seventeen-year-old. Most alumni answer this generously, and their answer is often worth more to you than anything else in the hour.

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 give their time alongside a full-time job, and they submit a written impression rather than 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.

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.

Your questions are part of the impression

The questions you ask reveal what you care about faster than 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.

In the conversation

Pick four or five questions rather than the whole list. A short exchange with real follow-ups beats a checklist worked through at speed.
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.
Leave the notebook in your bag. Writing things down 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.

The questions

What year did you graduate, and what did you concentrate in?

How did you end up volunteering to do these interviews?

Where did you live your first year, and what was that like?

Which house were you in, and how much did it shape your friendships?

What did you do outside of class that mattered most to you?

Was there a class or a professor that changed what you thought you would do?

What surprised you about the place once you were actually living there?

How available were professors, and how did students actually get time with them?

How much did undergraduates cross paths with the graduate schools?

What do people get wrong about Harvard from the outside?

What did you find hard that you had not expected to find hard?

How did you deal with being around people who were used to being the best at something?

Did you ever feel you had to choose between doing well in courses and everything else?

What kind of student thrives there, and what kind struggles?

What would you do differently if you started again?

How has the alumni network actually shown up in your life since?

Is there anything I have said today, or anything in my application, that you would want me to explain further?

What happens to this conversation after we finish?

If a question occurs to me later, would email be all right?

If I do not end up there, what would you tell me about how much this decision matters?