ILS The Interview Guide

The Interview. What an alumni interviewer is actually scoring, and what gets written down afterward. “Of all the remarkable candidates I have met as an alumni interviewer, Michael is by far the most impressive.” — from my Harvard alumni interview report The categories on the form. Five things that earn a strong report. A preparation sequence for the two weeks before. MICHAEL TORTO · FOUNDER, IVY LEAGUE STORIES Harvard College. Personal statement published in 50 Successful Harvard Application Essays and featured by The Harvard Crimson.

THE INTERVIEW GUIDE IVY LEAGUE STORIES 2 BEFORE YOU READ Where this guide comes from A few years after I was admitted to Harvard, I requested my complete admission file. It arrived with everything in it: the reader ratings, the comments the admissions officers wrote to each other, and the full report my alumni interviewer submitted after our conversation. Most applicants never see any of it. The interview report opened like this. “Of all the remarkable candidates I have met as an alumni interviewer, Michael is by far the most impressive.” I appreciate this compliment greatly, but the most important parts of my interview notes come in the pages that follow. The report runs for four pages, and almost none of it is about my achievements. My interviewer already had my résumé. What filled the report was the conversation itself: specific sentences I said, specific people I described, and the way I connected what I cared about to what my classmates were going through. That is the useful part, and it is what this guide is built on. I impressed my interviewer, and I have since helped students prepare for theirs. What follows is what I learned from reading the document my interviewer wrote about me, applied to the conversation your student is about to have. Michael Torto ONE THING TO KNOW FIRST The interviewer is filling out a form. Every section of it carries a rating and a written justification, and the written parts are built from what your student actually said. Preparation means deciding in advance what you want written down.

THE INTERVIEW GUIDE IVY LEAGUE STORIES 3 PART ONE What the interviewer is filling out Families prepare for the interview as though it were a test with answers. It is a form. Knowing which boxes the interviewer has to fill changes what your student decides to talk about. These are the categories on the report my interviewer submitted. Other schools use their own versions, and the categories are close enough that the preparation transfers. Personal qualities Rated on their own: openness to new ideas and new people, potential contribution to college life, and what kind of roommate this student would be. There is also a field asking the interviewer to list descriptors for the student’s character. That last field matters more than it looks. Your student is not being asked to prove they are impressive. Someone is going to type five or six adjectives about them into a box, and those adjectives will be read by a committee. The conversation determines which words get typed. Extracurricular and community commitments A rating and a written section. The interviewer is assessing whether a commitment is genuine, and they can tell the difference between a student who loves something and a student who joined it. Academic This section is scored across love of learning, intellectual curiosity, and intellectual originality, each rated separately, alongside a written assessment. Those three are not the same quality, and a student can rate very highly on two and lower on the third. Overall, and one open question A single overall rating, a long written justification, and a final question asking whether there are circumstances the committee should understand about the student’s life or opportunities. There are also checkboxes. Two on my form were rare and rewarding exchange of ideas and easy flow of conversation. A conversation that runs well is itself a scored outcome.

THE INTERVIEW GUIDE IVY LEAGUE STORIES 4 PART TWO Five things that earn a strong report Each of these came out of reading what my interviewer chose to write down, and each one has held up with the students I have prepared since. 1 Talk about specific people. The longest passages in my report are not about me. They are about classmates I described. I talked about one student who was struggling in a demanding academic environment and later became one of the strongest students in the school. I talked about another who kept getting into trouble in a group that was pulling him off course. My interviewer wrote both of them down in detail, and used them to conclude something about how I see other people. “He has a rare ability to put himself in someone else’s shoes and see troubles without judgement from another perspective.” That sentence is a conclusion my interviewer reached, and they reached it because I gave them two people to think about. Anyone can assert that they are empathetic. Describing specific people, with what was actually going on for them, demonstrates it and gives the interviewer something to write down. TAKE THIS INTO THE ROOM Prepare two people your student can describe in detail. Not accomplishments. People, and what your student understood about their situation. 2 Bring something you have not built yet. I described a peer mentoring program I wanted to set up, pairing juniors and seniors with younger students who were struggling. It did not exist. I had thought it through, and I could explain who it was for and why. “He also spoke about his plan to set up a Brother to Brother peer mentoring program to pair juniors and seniors with freshmen and sophomores who are being disruptive.” An interviewer is trying to predict what a student will do on campus, and a plan a student can describe with specifics is direct evidence. Completed achievements are already in the

THE INTERVIEW GUIDE IVY LEAGUE STORIES 5 file. A plan is new information. TAKE THIS INTO THE ROOM Have one plan your student can describe in three sentences: what it is, who it is for, and why it does not exist yet. 3 Connect your own concern to a wider one. I talked about the pandemic, and then about what it was doing to my classmates and to students who were stuck at home in difficult situations. “This concern demonstrates his unusual ability to extend his personal concerns to more broad social concerns of his peers, and to try to do something about it with hope and vision.” My interviewer singled out the movement itself, not the subject. Students who stay inside their own experience for a full hour give the interviewer far less to work with. TAKE THIS INTO THE ROOM Practice the second step. After describing something your student experienced, move to who else it affected and what should be done about it. 4 Answer method questions with method. My interviewer asked what I attributed my success in speech and debate to. My answer went into the report in quotation marks. “I don’t get nervous in front of a lot of people. I think about how to make the judges FEEL what you are saying.” That is a description of technique, and it told the interviewer something specific about how I work. The common alternative is deflection, something like getting lucky or having a good coach, which is polite and gives the interviewer nothing to record. Students are taught that claiming competence sounds arrogant. In this setting, explaining how you do something is not a boast. It is the answer to the question. TAKE THIS INTO THE ROOM When asked how or why, describe the method. Modesty in this room reads as an absence of self-knowledge.

THE INTERVIEW GUIDE IVY LEAGUE STORIES 6 5 Give the interviewer something that lasts a few days. My interviewer did not write the report on the night of the interview. “I took a few days to let his message sink in for me, and the content has staying power.” The report is not written in the room. It is written later, from memory and notes, which means the material that survives is whatever the interviewer is still thinking about days afterward. That is almost never a list of activities. It is one story, one plan, or one thing the student said that the interviewer had not heard before. TAKE THIS INTO THE ROOM Decide in advance on the one thing your student wants the interviewer still thinking about on Thursday. Then make sure it comes up.

THE INTERVIEW GUIDE IVY LEAGUE STORIES 7 PART THREE Preparation, in order The interview is a thirty to sixty minute conversation with an adult who volunteered their evening. Preparation is straightforward, and most students do very little of it. Two weeks out: build the material. Two people to describe. One plan that does not exist yet. One thing your student cares about enough to talk about for ten minutes without notes. That is the entire preparation, and it is more than most applicants arrive with. One week out: practice out loud, with an adult. Not a script. Your student needs practice holding a real conversation with an adult about their own interests, because for many students that is genuinely unfamiliar. A parent, a teacher, or a family friend works. Fifteen minutes twice is enough. Prepare three questions to ask. Ask the interviewer about their own experience at the school, what surprised them, or what they would do differently. Questions about rankings or admissions statistics waste the opportunity. Interviewers are alumni, and most of them enjoy being asked. On the day: the logistics that go wrong. Test the video connection and the lighting. Sit somewhere quiet with a door. Have a glass of water and a notepad. Arrive five minutes early. None of this earns a rating, and all of it can cost one. Afterward: send a short thank-you note. Three or four sentences within a day, referring to one specific thing from the conversation. The report is often written after the note arrives.

THE INTERVIEW GUIDE IVY LEAGUE STORIES 8 WHAT COMES NEXT Two ways to work on this with me The Story You Already Have. A three-session live essay intensive, from $149. Sessions one and two build your student’s personal statement from their own material. Session three is the walk-through of my complete Harvard admission file and interview report described above. Parents are invited. The full fee credits toward one-to-one work within 30 days. A free 30-minute profile review. I read your student’s profile the way an admissions reader would and tell you where it stands. I will also evaluate how impactful their current essay topic is. No obligation. You will leave with the two or three moves that matter most before the deadline. ivyleaguestories.com · [BOOKING LINK] Michael Torto is the founder of Ivy League Stories and a graduate of Harvard College, where his own application essay was published in 50 Successful Harvard Application Essays and later featured by The Harvard Crimson. He is a national speech and debate champion and a professional actor. He works with every student personally, with no associates and no handoffs, and caps his roster each cycle. Students he has advised have earned acceptances across the Ivy League, the University of Chicago, Duke, Rice, Vanderbilt, and NYU Stern, along with QuestBridge full-scholarship matches. THE FULL FILE What else is in the document This guide is drawn from the interview report. The file it arrived in contains a good deal more than that. The interview report alone runs four pages. Alongside it, the file contains every reader rating my application received and the comments the admissions officers wrote to each other while deciding. The five moves in the previous section are the parts that transfer directly to the conversation your student is about to have. The ratings and the internal comments answer a different question, which is how a full application gets read once the interview is over.8 WHAT COMES NEXT Two ways to work on this with me The Story You Already Have. A three-session live essay intensive, from $149. Sessions one and two build your student’s personal statement from their own material. Session three is the walk-through of my complete Harvard admission file and interview report described above. Parents are invited. The full fee credits toward one-to-one work within 30 days. A free 30-minute profile review. I read your student’s profile the way an admissions reader would and tell you where it stands. I will also evaluate how impactful their current essay topic is. No obligation. You will leave with the two or three moves that matter most before the deadline. ivyleaguestories.com · [BOOKING LINK] Michael Torto is the founder of Ivy League Stories and a graduate of Harvard College, where his own application essay was published in 50 Successful Harvard Application Essays and later featured by The Harvard Crimson. He is a national speech and debate champion and a professional actor. He works with every student personally, with no associates and no handoffs, and caps his roster each cycle. Students he has advised have earned acceptances across the Ivy League, the University of Chicago, Duke, Rice, Vanderbilt, and NYU Stern, along with QuestBridge full-scholarship matches. THE FULL FILE What else is in the document This guide is drawn from the interview report. The file it arrived in contains a good deal more than that. The interview report alone runs four pages. Alongside it, the file contains every reader rating my application received and the comments the admissions officers wrote to each other while deciding. The five moves in the previous section are the parts that transfer directly to the conversation your student is about to have. The ratings and the internal comments answer a different question, which is how a full application gets read once the interview is over.THE INTERVIEW GUIDE IVY LEAGUE STORIES 8 WHAT COMES NEXT Two ways to work on this with me The Story You Already Have. A three-session live essay intensive, from $149. Sessions one and two build your student’s personal statement from their own material. Session three is the walk-through of my complete Harvard admission file and interview report described above. Parents are invited. The full fee credits toward one-to-one work within 30 days. A free 30-minute profile review. I read your student’s profile the way an admissions reader would and tell you where it stands. I will also evaluate how impactful their current essay topic is. No obligation. You will leave with the two or three moves that matter most before the deadline. ivyleaguestories.com · [BOOKING LINK] Michael Torto is the founder of Ivy League Stories and a graduate of Harvard College, where his own application essay was published in 50 Successful Harvard Application Essays and later featured by The Harvard Crimson. He is a national speech and debate champion and a professional actor. He works with every student personally, with no ass