If your student is applying to college this year (of you’re the student) there’s a good chance their essays have already been touched by AI in some way, even if just to brainstorm or polish. Admissions offices know this. And it’s part of why the interview, when it’s offered, is becoming a more meaningful piece of the process. It’s one of the only parts of the application that AI can’t do. In the interview it’s just the student and their ability to talk about who they are.
That can feel like a lot of pressure, especially for a teenager who has never sat through a formal interview before. I’ve seen it repeatedly. I’ve also repeatedly seen the confidence comes when students realize that preparing for a college admissions interview isn’t about memorizing the “right” answers. It’s about getting comfortable talking about yourself in a way that feels honest, authentic and not rehearsed.
I work with high school students on exactly this, and the same pattern shows up almost every time: a bright, capable student sits down to prepare and has no idea what to say or where to even start. Too often an adult has given them the bad advice that they need to “sell themselves” which adds to the pressure (and a feeling of ick). I help them learn strategies so they don’t have to write scripts and/or stress out.
Start With a Strong First Impression
Before content even comes into play, a student needs to know the basics of walking into a room or showing up on Zoom with confidence: a solid handshake or good background and lighting, eye contact, and knowing how to make small talk with an interviewer without freezing up. This sounds simple, but for a student who has never done this before, even the first ten seconds of an interview can set the tone for how relaxed they feel through the rest of it.
Prepare for “Tell Me About Yourself”
Almost every admissions interview includes some version of this question, and it’s often the one students dread most because it feels so open-ended. I have students work through identifying three things about themselves they’d genuinely want an interviewer to know, whether that’s an interest, an experience, or a strength. Once they have those three things, we shape them into an answer that sounds like them, not like a resume.
Talking About Strengths Without Bragging
Students, especially teenagers, often resist talking about their strengths because it feels like bragging. I help them reframe this: an interviewer’s job afterward is often to write up notes or a report on the student. When a student clearly and specifically describes their strengths, backed by real examples of how they’ve used them, they’re not bragging. They’re making it easier for the interviewer to represent them accurately. That reframe alone tends to ease a lot of the discomfort.
Build Real Answers to Behavioral Questions
Questions like “tell me about a time you overcame a challenge” or “describe a time you worked with a difficult group” require a story, not just a statement. I help students learn how to structure a short, clear story that actually answers the question instead of wandering. This is a skill that transfers well beyond college interviews. Students who learn it here tend to use it again in scholarship interviews and, eventually, internship and job interviews.
Get Past the Answer ChatGPT Would Give
When it comes to questions like “why are you interested in this school?” or “why this major?”, the honest answer is often buried under a generic one. If a student can already articulate a specific, genuine reason, my job is simply to help them polish it. If they can’t, I start with easier, more natural questions instead of the official interview question itself. Asking about their interests and changing up the questions tends to open students up much faster than asking them to explain their academic interests on command. From there, we find the real reason(s) and shape it into an answer that’s specific to them, not one that could apply to any applicant at any school.
Asking Genuine Questions Back
The same principle applies to the questions students ask their interviewer. Instead of pulling from a generic list, I ask students what they genuinely don’t know yet about the school, the program, or the person interviewing them. We build their questions from actual curiosity. It’s a small shift, but it’s usually obvious to an interviewer when a question is genuine versus when it’s copied from a “questions to ask in a college interview” list.
Work on Delivery, Without Overdoing It
We also spend some time on delivery: increasing eye contact, and gently reducing excessive filler words such as “like” if they’re getting in the way. I’m careful not to push too hard here. The goal isn’t to eliminate every habit or make a student self-conscious about how they sound. It’s to help them feel more at ease, not less. Fully changing a speaking habit takes time, and an hour or two before an interview isn’t the moment to try to overhaul it. Small, manageable adjustments go much further than a long list of things to fix.
The Real Goal
An admissions interview isn’t a performance, and it isn’t something a student needs to fear getting “wrong.” It’s one of the few moments in the entire application process where a student gets to simply be a person talking to another person, with no algorithm involved. The students I work with usually walk away from our sessions less worried about saying the perfect thing and more confident that they know how to talk about themselves honestly, whether that’s in a college interview, a scholarship interview, or an internship down the road.
If your student has an upcoming college admissions interview and could use help preparing, I offer one-on-one coaching sessions designed to help them walk in feeling ready, not rehearsed. You can book directly if you’d like to get started increasing confidence with college admissions interviews.