Why People Really Love/Hate Alumni Interviews

Want to hear more about alumni interviews gone wrong? Yes, of course you do. Seemingly everyone in the admissions realm has cringeworthy stories about graduates behaving badly in the presence of applicants. And some downright disturbing tales out there should give campus leaders pause.

But first, let’s review. Last week The Chronicle published an article describing how one of Harvard University’s alumni chapters recently screwed up big-time. An alumnus who coordinated interviews in the San Diego area mistakenly sent a file containing personal information about prospective students to dozens of local applicants (his daughter was one of them). The same alumnus also asked prospective students to complete a three-page questionnaire, an apparent breach of protocol for Harvard’s legions of interviewers. The story was an awkward reminder: Sometimes, alumni go rogue.

The article, which described the double-edged nature of alumni interviews in general, elicited numerous responses. Dozens of readers emailed or tweeted to share their own firsthand experiences. Some described their fondness for a ritual they find meaningful; others said it was a charade that colleges should end at once. Some readers offered appraisals as nuanced as the admissions process itself.

Edmund DeHoratius, a high-school teacher in Massachusetts, wrote to say he loves interviewing applicants for Duke University, his alma mater. He enjoys getting to know students, playing a small role in their college experience. His least-favorite conversations are the ones when, he wrote, “students sit down and look at me as if their admissions decision is entirely in my hands (which, of course, couldn’t be further from the truth).”

Mr. DeHoratius likes teenagers. If he weren’t a teacher, though, he’s not sure he would feel comfortable interviewing them, “because of a lack of familiarity with kids.” Fact: Not everyone has a way with young people.

Some readers’ stories made that painfully clear. One young woman recalled an unpleasant interview with an alumnus of an Ivy League university that left her feeling bad about herself. For one thing, the interviewer scolded her for not having done much reading outside of school. When the alumnus later asked how she would spend a day without any plans or commitments, she turned sarcastic: “I guess I would read.” A-plus, kid!

One admissions officer shared an account of a stodgy alumnus who recently asked an applicant why today’s high-school students didn’t know more about the crisis in Syria? Without missing a beat, the applicant said it was because they were busy “keeping up with the Kardashians.” Take that, Grandpa.

‘A Faith-Based Endeavor’

All the anecdotes out there could fill a book. But, wait, hold on a second: Are obnoxious, weird, or uncomfortable alumni interviews exceptions to the rule? Maybe, just maybe, many of them are perfectly fine, useful at best, forgettable at worst?

Just because everyone’s got a horror story doesn’t mean most interviews are bad, said Davin Sweeney, senior associate director of enrollment initiatives at the University of Rochester. In his experience, the conversations are helpful, and students tend to enjoy them. “They get that much more of a personalized touch,” he said, “an experience with a college that’s getting harder to really have.”

Twice a year, Mr. Sweeney helps organize a major interview event for prospective students in Manhattan. This fall he and two colleagues gave 10 Rochester graduates (most in their 20s) some training and note-taking instructions over breakfast. Then everyone settled into a ballroom for a day of one-on-one chats with more than 100 teenagers.

The beauty of the event, Mr. Sweeney said, was that admissions officers could answer questions that alumni couldn’t. One young man took Mr. Sweeney aside to ask about applying as an undocumented student.

Though some admissions officers are wary of having young alumni represent their college, Mr. Sweeney is not. While graduates of all ages bring something good to the table, he said, recent ones are especially helpful in explaining what students can expect if they enroll. “It’s a faith-based endeavor,” Mr. Sweeney said of recruitment. “We’re telling them all these things about how their life will be at the university, but they don’t really know until they get there.”

Rochester asks its alumni interviewers to assess how well the applicant might “fit” the campus, and how he or she compares with students they’ve known who succeeded at the university. Showing up for the interview, though, matters most of all. “The overwhelming majority of the credit we give you is just doing that,” Mr. Sweeney said. “It takes a lot of guts to sit down and talk with a total stranger.”

And, yes, showing up for an interview is one measure of “demonstrated interest.” At Rochester the admit rate is higher for those who interview than for those who do not. As with any form of demonstrated interest, Mr. Sweeney said, an admissions office must consider an applicant’s circumstances. “We try to have realistic expectations about a student’s likelihood to demonstrate interest,” he said, “but also the likelihood that they even know they should.”

Mr. Sweeney’s opinions of interviews are informed by his experience as an applicant. Twenty years ago, as a high-school student in Portland, Ore., he met Jonathan Burdick, then an admissions officer at the University of Southern California. The two hit it off, talking about movies and film school.

“We had compatible personalities,” Mr. Sweeney recalled. “I got an enthusiastic response from a guy who would be reading my application at my dream school, which left me feeling much better about the process.” Mr. Burdick, vice provost for enrollment initiatives and dean of admissions and financial aid at Rochester, is now Mr. Sweeney’s boss.

“My whole life completely hinged on an interview,” said Mr. Sweeney, who ended up attending USC. “If I had been nothing but an application shoved into a pile, I don’t think I would’ve had a shot.”

‘Access to Good Blow’

When applicants and alumni get together, anything can happen. Surely that’s the best and worst thing about the whole enterprise.

One concern: Bias can creep into the conversation. As many researchers have noted, a slew of biases can color an interviewer’s evaluation. “Preconceived ideas and beliefs that we assign to candidates,” as one author puts it, can sway our judgments of them.

And plenty of other bad, awkward, and painfully unfortunate things can happen during an interview, as readers shared with The Chronicle. Several women recalled their discomfort while visiting a graduate’s home for an interview, a practice many colleges prohibit but some alumni insist upon anyway. One college counselor recalled a 22-year-old alumnus who asked a young woman to meet him at a bar at 9 p.m. (and … they later hooked up). One woman described interviewing with an alumnus whose wife later emailed her a profanity-laced warning: “Stay away from my husband!”

Two years ago, one college counselor had to step in after two female students complained about the same interviewer. An alumnus in his thirties had texted disturbing messages to one applicant, and described his suicidal thoughts to another. He had also passed along an observation: Going to an Ivy League university was great “because wherever you go, you’ll have friends with access to good blow.” That’s not something you’ll find in a viewbook.

In the end, alumni might not have much power to affect admissions outcomes, but as representatives of revered colleges, they do wield a particular kind of power. Call it prestige-based fear. Teenagers, desperate to attend their first-choice college, often hesitate to report inappropriate behavior by one of its alumni.

The counselor who relayed the above story described one student’s reluctance to share her concerns about her interviewer: “She was so nervous to tell me and did not want the college to know — like most kids, she feared that this person had real influence on the fate of their application.” The counselor contacted the college, and the interviewer was later removed from the list.

Several readers said that, in the Harvey Weinstein era, admissions officials should consider the worst-case scenarios when examining a process that routinely introduces adults to 17- and 18-year-olds. Josh Richards, a Philadelphia-based lawyer who has worked with many colleges, tweeted that though he interviews applicants for his alma mater, he has “often wondered about the mountain of potential pr and legal risk that comes along with the well-intentioned face time.”

Oh, and let’s not forget that some alumni have their own doubts about the process. Brobson Lutz, a doctor in New Orleans, started interviewing applicants for Vanderbilt University a few years ago. None of them were accepted, he wrote: “New Orleans is a small town, and I always feel a bit awkward running into the parents of students I couldn’t help get into Vandy.”

A while back, Dr. Lutz received what he described as an “I am going to be in your neighborhood” call from a university fund-raising official. “It sort of clicked,” he wrote. “They were grooming me for a donation based on my participation in their interview process where I doubt my input made any difference at all.”

When The Chronicle asked Dr. Lutz for permission to quote from his email, he said it would be fine to go ahead and include his name, too. “Since I don’t have children,” he wrote, “I don’t have to worry about pissing off college admission offices.”

See, colleges? You just never know what any of your alumni might say.

Eric Hoover writes about admissions trends, enrollment-management challenges, and the meaning of Animal House, among other issues. He’s on Twitter @erichoov, and his email address is eric.hoover@chronicle.com.