over the weekend I took a table at our local coffee shop. two tables opened up right next to me and, by coincidence, one table was used by a middlebury interviewer, the other by a dartmouth interviewer. I was most struck by the gap in communication skills between interviewer and interviewee. The interviewers were very gentle with the kids but it was almost painful to watch. My favorite moment was when one of the kids interviewed first with middlebury and then dartmouth, the dartmouth interviewer asked "why middlebury?"
IMO, the biggest improvement schools could make would be to find interviewers that are a little closer to the age of the candidates. Both interviewers were 40+, clearly passionate about their schools but I'm not sure they understood current campus culture and the age difference made it more difficult for the kids to communicate.
the coffee shop plays music and it's loud and busy so I probably heard less than 2% of the conversation but it seemed to me the best thing we can do as parents is have our kids prepare a couple of pocket questions:
"what did u like about your experience at school x", etc.
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