What Questions to Ask in a College Interview
Aimed at the person in front of you rather than the institution behind them. Most interviewers are alumni, and the one thing they can describe better than any prospectus is their own time as a student: the first semester, the week it got hard, what people did on a Tuesday night, who they still speak to. Ask these when you want the lived version rather than the administrative one, which Good Questions to Ask in a College Interview covers instead.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What year did you graduate, and what did you study?
Why ask it
An easy opener that also tells you how to weigh everything else you hear. Someone who finished last spring knows the current dorms and the course requirements. Someone from twenty years ago knows what has lasted. Both are worth having, but you should know which you are talking to before asking about a specific department.
What made you choose this school over the other places you were considering?
Why ask it
This gets a story rather than a brochure line, because the person has to name a comparison. Listen for whether the reason was money, one program, a coach, the location, or a feeling on a campus visit. If the deciding factor was something you do not care about, that is still useful to know.
What was your first semester actually like?
Why ask it
Colleges describe orientation; almost nobody describes the semester that follows it. Answers usually include something honest: homesickness, a course that went badly, months spent looking for a group of friends. You also learn how much structure exists for new students and whether a rough start there is survivable.
Was there a class or a professor who changed how you think, and what was it?
Why ask it
Asking for one person and one specific reason is hard to answer generically. A named professor and a particular idea suggests teaching is taken seriously there. A general answer about how all the faculty were wonderful usually means the classes were large and the relationships stayed thin.
What did an ordinary Wednesday look like for you in second year?
Why ask it
A fixed day is harder to answer in generalities than a whole year. You get the real shape of the week: when classes sat, what filled the gaps, when work actually got done.
What took up most of your time there that was not studying?
Why ask it
Locates where the culture really is, whether that is a job, a team, a paper or a lab. The answer tells you what you would end up doing if you went.
How did you find your people in those first few months?
Why ask it
How friendships form is a structural feature of a place, not only a matter of personality. Useful answers name the mechanism: a dorm floor, a first-year seminar, a team, a campus job, a choir, a religious group. If the honest answer is that it took a year and a half, take that seriously, because it may take you a while too.
What was the hardest part academically, and where did you go for help?
Why ask it
You want the difficulty and the response, since the second part is what the college controls. Strong answers name a resource: office hours, the writing center, a study group, a peer tutor they actually used. Reassurance that help is available everywhere often means it exists on paper and students never touch it.
How many hours a week were you in class, and what filled the rest of the time?
Why ask it
Time budgets tell you what a place really is. Twelve hours of class plus thirty hours of reading is a different life from twenty-five hours of labs and studio. Ask what took the remainder: a job, practice, rehearsal, commuting, sleep. This is the question that turns a course catalog into a picture of your week.
What did people do on a Tuesday night, and what about a Saturday?
Why ask it
Ask about both, because the answers differ and the gap between them matters. A campus where Saturday is one large event and Tuesday is deserted suits some people and not others. This also tends to produce candid comments about drinking, sports culture, and whether the campus empties out at weekends.
Is there something you wish you had done there and never did?
Why ask it
Regret produces specifics: a term abroad skipped, a language dropped, a professor never approached, a club joined too late to matter. Each one is a concrete opportunity you could take deliberately if you enrolled, and the list says more about the range of what is available than a page of program descriptions would.
How much did the town or city shape your experience?
Why ask it
Location accounts for half of four years and is consistently underrated in the decision. Ask whether students leave campus, whether you need a car, what is within walking distance, and whether the town and the school get along. An isolated campus can be either wonderful or claustrophobic, and alumni describe it more honestly than brochures do.
Did you work during the school year, and how did that fit around everything else?
Why ask it
Plenty of students work and almost no campus tour mentions it. If they worked, ask about the hours, whether the job was on campus, and whether it cut into coursework or actually helped them meet people. If money is part of your decision, it is also a natural way into the subject without asking the interviewer to price your aid.
Who from those years do you still talk to?
Why ask it
The answer describes what the place leaves behind. A roommate, a research advisor, an entire team, or one close friend each point at a different way the community forms. A vague sense of having drifted away from everyone is worth noting quietly and comparing against your other interviews.
How has the school changed since you were there?
Why ask it
Alumni watch their colleges change and generally have views: new buildings, larger lectures, a shifted emphasis, a different kind of admitted student. Treat it as one perspective rather than the record, but the direction of travel matters more to your four years than what the place was like a decade ago.
When you talk to recent graduates, what do they say is different now?
Why ask it
This separates what your interviewer knows first-hand from what they have heard, and most people will draw that line honestly once invited to. It is also the courteous route to current information from someone whose own experience is dated, without suggesting their experience does not count.
What did the school not prepare you for?
Why ask it
A serious question that alumni usually answer generously: writing, statistics, managing money, asking for help, working alongside people who took a very different path. What comes back shows where you would need to be deliberate. Insistence that it prepared them for everything means you are being sold to.
What did you never do there that you wish you had?
Why ask it
Regret produces specifics: the course not taken, the term abroad skipped, the professor never spoken to. It is also a quiet map of what the place offers and few students use.
What did the place cost beyond tuition, in the things people forget?
Why ask it
Flights home, a laptop, lab fees, the social life you are expected to keep up with. Alumni remember these clearly and no official figure captures them.
If I spent one day there as a student, what would I be doing from morning to night?
Why ask it
Ends the conversation with a picture rather than a fact. It also gives the interviewer something enjoyable to answer, which is a good note to finish on.
How to handle a college interview
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Who is interviewing you, and what they can tell you
An alumni volunteer
The most common case. They are unpaid, they may have graduated decades ago, and they usually cannot answer questions about financial aid, admissions criteria, or current course requirements. What they have is their own four years, which is the most interesting thing available to you. Ask about their experience, not about policy.
An admissions officer
Can speak to the process, the programs, and often the region they cover. It is reasonable to ask about the shape of the class, how the school reads applications, and what happens after the interview. Even here, questions answered on the website will cost you more than they gain.
A current student
The best source on the present day: dorms, dining, workload, registration, whether people are friendly in February. Their view of the whole institution is narrow, so weight it toward daily life rather than outcomes or reputation.
Before the interview
- Read enough of the website that you never ask something it answers plainly. Ten minutes is usually enough to avoid the worst version of this.
- Write down two or three questions on paper and bring them. Referring to notes reads as prepared, not stiff.
- Look up your interviewer's name if you were given it, so you can ask something specific about their field or class year.
- Decide on two things about yourself you want the interviewer to be able to write down afterward, and make sure they come up naturally.
- Check the format and time in advance, and join a video call a few minutes early from somewhere quiet.
During the conversation
- 1Answer questions with specifics rather than summaries. One story about a project you actually did beats three sentences about your qualities.
- 2Ask your questions as they fit the conversation, not all at the end in a list.
- 3When you get a short answer, follow up once. "What made that hard?" gets you the interesting half.
- 4Take a note or two. It is polite and it helps you compare schools later.
- 5Leave time to ask the closing questions, and say near the start that you have a few.
- 6Get the interviewer's email before you finish so you can send a thank-you.
What not to ask
- Anything answered by the first page of the website: enrollment, majors offered, application deadlines.
- Your odds of admission. Alumni volunteers do not decide, and asking puts them in an awkward position.
- Financial aid specifics, from anyone other than a financial aid officer. The interviewer cannot help and the office can.
- Rankings and prestige comparisons. They tend to shut down an otherwise candid conversation.
- Questions phrased so the only possible answer is yes, such as whether the professors are supportive.
After
- Send a short thank-you within a day that mentions one specific thing from the conversation. It should be three sentences, not a letter.
- Write down, while it is fresh, what you learned about workload, social life, and who struggles there. Interviews blur together after the third one.
- Note any question the interviewer could not answer and take it to the admissions office or a current student.
- If something you heard changed your view of the school, up or down, record it. That impression is easy to lose by spring.