How to Nail Your Private School Interview
A stellar transcript, a top-notch application, excellent SSAT scores, a dynamic essay—and now, just one more hurdle to jump: The admissions interview. On average, this evaluation is an opportunity for admissions teams to weed through the data and get to know your child’s unique gifts, strengths, passions, talents, and interests—in 30-60 minutes (dependent upon grade level).
So just what are private school admissions teams looking for? In middle and upper school interviews especially, resilience and empathy—proven predictors of academic achievement, collaboration, innovation, and problem solving—rein supreme. But how do you prepare your student to convey all of that in just half an hour?
Sustaining Conversation
According to Pew Research Center, 1/3 of teenagers send 100 texts a day. Our digital literacy emphasis has encouraged more reliance on screens as students are distracted and detracted from engagement in good old-fashioned, face-to-face conversation.
A 2014 article published by high school teacher Paul Barnwell in The Atlantic revealed the inadequacy of what teachers tend to call the “hidden curriculum”—social-emotional skills, such as empathy, self-awareness, active listening, and executive functioning. During a class project designed to spark conversation, Barnwell writes that he “came to realize that conversational competence might be the single-most overlooked skill we fail to teach students. Kids spend hours each day engaging with ideas and one another through screens—but rarely do they have an opportunity to truly hone their interpersonal communication skills.
The educational landscape is changing—no longer do we have kids sit in rows learning about the 3 R’s: Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic. Rather, educators embrace flexible seating, multimedia pedagogy, and variety of lessons designed to appeal to the myriad of learning styles. Now, peek into any lower school classroom and you may find students curled up in beanbags, lounging on a rug in the library, or sitting on a balance ball—learning firsthand how to apply the 4 C’s: Communication, Critical Thinking, Creativity, and Collaboration. These must-have skills are essential for our global economy and they are all fundamentally rooted in authentic conversation. Indeed, Psychologist and MIT professor Sherry Turkle writes in a New York Times column “Face-to-face conversation unfolds slowly. It teaches patience. When we communicate on our digital devices, we learn different habits … we start to expect faster answers. To get these, we ask one another simpler questions. We dumb down our communications, even on the most important matters.” Going back to the basics of conversation may be the edge your student needs to stand out amongst the crowd of applicants.
Barnwell ends it best: “It might sound like a funny question, but we need to ask ourselves: Is there any 21st-century skill more important than being able to sustain confident, coherent conversation?”
Take-Aways:
1. Be present and prepared. Schedule a campus tour and concoct a list of pros beforehand: What drew you to the school? What are some perks that interested you? Use open-ended questions. In this case, take a cue from journalists. Start your questions with who, what, when, where, why or how. If you put in a complicated question, you're going to get a simple answer out.
2. Pay attention to the other. Admissions teams are on the hunt for empathetic, servant leaders. Whether in a one-on-one evaluation or during a group interview project, admissions counselors are looking for applicants that possess collaborative and resilient habits that provide the “empathy advantage.” Educational psychologist Michele Borba points out that the first step to expressing this is by the power of perspective taking. One of the key strategies is to pay attention to the speaker. Review the five key listening skills that boost empathy and classroom success using the acronym SOLER:
S = Sit or stand still so you pay attention to the speaker
O = Be open to the speaker’s views and feelings
L = Lean in to convey interest
E = Look eye-to-eye.
R = Recognize the speaker’s view. Acknowledge by employing nonverbal cues, such as nodding and smiling.
3. Listen. I cannot emphasize how listening the number one most important skill that you could develop. Hemingway notes that he “learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.”
More Resources:
"My Students Don't Know How to Have a Conversation" by Paul Barnwell
"Connected, but Alone?" by Sherry Turkle
"Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less From Each Other" by Sherry Turkle
"10 Ways to Have a Better Conversation" by Celeste Headlee
"Unselfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-About-Me World" by Michelle Borba