Questions to Ask Your College Interviewer
Questions for the part of a college interview where you get to ask, written to find out what the school is actually like and to leave the interviewer with a clear sense of you.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What made you agree to interview for the school?
Why ask it
Most interviewers are alumni volunteers, and this gives them the pleasant question first. Their reason usually contains the school's real selling point, which you can pick up and use later in the conversation.
What do students here complain about?
Why ask it
Easier to answer honestly than asking about weaknesses, because complaints are allowed to be small. Housing, advising queues, dining and one notorious requirement are the usual answers, and all four are worth knowing.
If you could change one thing about the place, what would it be?
Why ask it
Invites candor without asking anyone to criticize their own school. An interviewer who cannot name anything is either very loyal or very out of date, and either tells you how much weight to give their other answers.
What kind of student does well here, and what kind struggles?
Why ask it
The second half is the one that matters and the one people forget to ask. Listen for whether the struggling student they describe sounds anything like you, and ask what support exists for that person.
How do students actually get research or internship spots?
Why ask it
Every school lists opportunities; the question is the route. Answers about emailing professors directly, a formal application in sophomore year, or a career office pipeline describe completely different amounts of work on your part.
Who teaches first-year classes, and how big are they?
Why ask it
Faculty, graduate students or a mix, and thirty students or three hundred, changes your first year more than almost anything else. Ask specifically about introductory courses in the subject you intend to take.
How easy is it to switch majors or add something after first year?
Why ask it
Plenty of people arrive certain and change their mind by sophomore year, so the procedural answer is the useful one. Watch for capped majors, an internal application, and whether a switch costs you a semester of prerequisites.
How available are professors outside class?
Why ask it
Ask what happened when they needed help, not what the policy is. Office hours exist everywhere; whether students use them and whether emails get answered varies enormously between schools.
Which class do students recommend to everyone, whatever their major?
Why ask it
Names the school's signature teaching, and it is a question interviewers enjoy. If the answer is that nothing comes to mind, that is quietly informative about the teaching culture.
What happens to someone who gets there and doesn't click with anyone in the first month?
Why ask it
The most useful question about student life, because it asks about the case nobody advertises. Look for concrete mechanisms: living-learning communities, clubs that recruit late, a residential adviser who notices.
What does an ordinary weekend look like?
Why ask it
Ask about a normal weekend rather than the famous ones. Whether the campus empties, whether social life runs through Greek organizations, and whether people leave for the nearest city are all things brochures avoid.
How much of student life happens off campus?
Why ask it
Determines whether you will need a car, a bus pass, or nothing at all. It also tells you how much the surrounding town will matter, which is easy to shrug off on a visit day in good weather and hard to ignore in February.
Which support services do students actually use?
Why ask it
Advising, tutoring, counseling and disability services exist at every school; waiting times and quality do not. Ask how long it takes to see someone, since that single number tells you more than a list of offices.
What do graduates in the subject I'm interested in tend to do next?
Why ask it
Ask about the specific department rather than the school, because outcomes vary widely inside one institution. Two or three real examples are more informative than any placement statistic.
How does financial aid usually change between first year and later years?
Why ask it
Aid packages can shift, and first-year grants are sometimes more generous than what follows. It is a fair question to raise with an alumni interviewer, who can at least tell you what happened to them and where to ask officially.
What's the housing situation after first year?
Why ask it
Guaranteed housing for four years, a lottery, or a scramble for off-campus leases in November are very different realities. Ask what most sophomores end up doing.
What surprised you about the town?
Why ask it
Softer than asking whether the location is any good, and it gets a real answer. You are studying somewhere for four years, and the things that wear on people are usually mundane: weather, transport, how early everything closes.
Has anything about the school changed since you were there?
Why ask it
Alumni interviewers may be describing a place from fifteen years ago, and this question tells you how aware of that they are. It also surfaces recent shifts in size, selectivity or campus culture.
What do you wish applicants asked you?
Why ask it
Hands the conversation to someone who has done dozens of these interviews, and it is often the most useful minute of the whole thing. The answer tends to be the thing they know that nobody thinks to ask about.
If I end up enrolling, what's worth doing over the summer beforehand?
Why ask it
A good closing question because it is forward-looking without presuming an outcome. It also gives you a concrete follow-up to mention in a thank-you note afterwards.
Using your questions well
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Preparation
- 1Find out who is interviewing you. An alumni volunteer, an admissions officer and a current student can answer very different questions, and asking an alum about this year's aid formula wastes the slot.
- 2Read the department page for your intended subject, not just the main site, so your questions are about their courses rather than college in general.
- 3Choose four questions and write them down. You will realistically get through two or three, and having them on paper is normal rather than awkward.
- 4Prepare one story about something you did and what it cost you, since most of the interview will be you answering rather than asking.
- 5Check whether the interview is evaluative or informational, which the school usually states, because that changes how much of the time is yours.
During the conversation
Ask as you go, not only at the end
Questions that arise naturally from what they just said sound like interest; questions read off a list at the end sound like a checklist. Keep one or two for the closing slot regardless.
Follow up on the answer
One good follow-up is worth three new questions. Asking what they meant, or for an example, is what turns an interview into a conversation and is what interviewers remember.
Take a note or two
Writing down a course name or a person to contact is a compliment to the answer, and it gives you specifics for your thank-you note. Do not transcribe the whole thing.
Say what you are actually weighing
If you are choosing between two schools on a specific factor, say so and ask about it directly. Interviewers give better answers to real questions than to polite ones.
What tends to go wrong
Asking something the website answers
Class sizes, deadlines and majors offered are all published. Asking about them signals you did not look, and it uses the one part of the interview you control.
Asking about your own admission chances
An alumni interviewer does not decide and cannot tell you. It also shifts the tone from curiosity to anxiety, which is the impression that stays.
Having no questions
Saying you have none reads as indifference, and it leaves the interviewer with nothing to put in the part of the report about your interest in the school. Two prepared questions is enough to avoid it.
Skipping the thank-you note
A short email within a day or two, referring to one specific thing they said, is standard and easy. Interviewers often write their report a few days later.