College Visit and College Interview Guidance

College interviews can impact the likelihood of students being admitted or not.  I use both my past experience interviewing students for admission and my general knowledge of the interview process to coach students on college admission interviews.  I also provide advice about how to best use college visits to obtain the information families need to make decisions.  I offer students a tool to remain focused during their college visits on things that are important to the student. 

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One way to get a "leg up" on college admissions is to find ways to "demonstrate interest" in enrolling at a particular college, and college visits and interviews are places to do that.  Here is a blog article I wrote on that topic:  Interested in College? (educ8fit.com).

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Virtual College Visits

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College visits during Covid may feel frustrating since they are typically not in person, but prospective students with limited travel budgets have been navigating this for decades.  There are numerous official and unofficial campus tours.  You may be able to sit in on classes of interest using Zoom.  In addition, there may be opportunities to speak with multiple students and graduates by phone or video conference. 

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Consider networking to identify some of the people that you speak with so that you can get information that isn’t filtered by the school.  Here are a couple of ways to get the student perspective on individual schools:

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• Unigo offers a ton of information, but there are two pieces you might want to focus on to get unfiltered information for an individual school.  One is the “Reviews” section, which offers a narrative.  Another is “FAQs.”  Please keep in mind that students who are motivated to provide reviews tend to be either very happy or very unhappy.  Here is a weblink:  www.unigo.com.

• CampusReel is a website that offers tours by students.  Here is a weblink:  www.campusreel.org.  YouTube is another source for student-initiated tours.

• CollegeT matches prospective students with current students and graduates who serve as ambassadors of their universities.  Here is the link: The College T | Connect High Schoolers with College Students and Grads.

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College Interviews

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College interviews offer the opportunity for students to demonstrate their interest and learn more about the school.  Perhaps more importantly, it offers students a chance to practice interviewing, which will help them when they conduct job searches.  For more information on college interviews, please see my blog post on the topic:  Ace the College Alumni Interview (educ8fit.com).