Information Session: How to Prepare for Your Interview

Good morning everyone. Well, it's morning here in New Jersey I'm Christine Ding. And what we're going to do first is we're going to let a couple more people show up because it is just 9:30 on the dot. So we're going to wait for a few more registrants to come on in and then we will get started.

A couple of things just to make sure we're all in the right place at the right time. Again, I'm Christine Ding from The Lawrenceville School. I work in the Office of admissions more about me later, and this is one of our online info sessions specific to how to prepare for your interview so.

If you're on the wrong flight, I suggest you get off now, but otherwise we will get started in a little bit. Can someone anyone, please just put in the chat that you can hear me? I would hope that by this point someone would have said that they couldn't hear me if that was the case, but if you can hear me please someone put it out there just so I know. Oh thank you all, I much appreciate it. I like to play a little game as we wait for the rest of.

Are registrants anyone willing? Can you put where you are viewing from so we can see?

And so we can see where you're from, so I'd love to see alright. Hillsborough NJ Lovett, China Lovett, California, Hong Kong, Ithaca, NY Rumson, Singapore, Abu Dhabi. That's fun, Yardley PA love it. Morristown, Korea wonderful so.

Great, so we've hit. We've hit our number so a couple of things that I want to start with. Just welcome. It's so great to I can't see you but it's so great I'm so thankful that you've all joined me today to talk about tips for your interview. So a couple of things Montana. Throw that one in there. I like it a couple things so.

This session is for students as well As for parents. If you want to listen because your student is off working or you're listening because your students at camp and you just want to be able to relate to them all are welcome. So a couple of important things. So it's morning here, so I obviously still have my cup of coffee. I also have my water for hydration because it is a hot and humid summer day in New Jersey, so I hope you'll excuse me as I sit from them, but I hope you are in a comfy.

Place with some sort of beverage. Maybe your breakfast, maybe your late night snack for all my friends over in Asia, whatever it might be so.

We're going to dive in, so as I've said, my name is Christine Ding. I work here in.

The Lawrenceville Office of Admissions in the office. I am the director of Admissions, Communications, and the associate director of admissions. What does any of that mean? Well, if you follow us on social media, that's my content. So if you don't, it's at elville admission on Instagram and Twitter. So I get to do that. I get to do all the fun glitter type stuff that we're going to throw at you throughout the process. So the fun emails, the fun mailings, the Super fun.

You know acceptance package that would come at the end of the road and then in addition to that I also get to work with our tour guides. So hopefully throughout the process you'll be able to come and do a tour of our beautiful, beautiful campus. Those students that would lead you around. I train them. I pick them. I love being able to help them tell their Lawrenceville story. Do not worry if you won't be able to get to campus, we do if you do a virtual interview and then if you do.

Aren't able to come for a tour. We set you up online with one of our tour guides where you're going to be able to connect, you know, over e-mail and then maybe over zoom or FaceTime or Skype just so that you're able to hear a Laurentian story. I hear about their experience through the process, but also maybe.

What they're doing now on on campus. So that's and then I also I also do info sessions like this, so you'll probably see my face a couple more times throughout your admissions process. We run a full series of info sessions in the fall, so you'll see this face probably once or twice again. I also will interview, read applications and then sit in the committee that decides our next class.

In addition to my work in admissions, I also coach field hockey and lacrosse, and then I also serve as an assistant head of House in the Kirby House, which is one of our girls 10th and 11th grade houses. And so, as I'm sure you'll learn through your discovery of Lawrenceville, the house system is a really big deal here, so I live physically. My home is attached to the House Kirby House and I live there with my husband who works here at Lawrenceville, a football coach.

For math teacher and with her two children we have a four year old and a 2 year old and we have a dog. So while this specific info session is specific to how to prepare for your interview, I kind of have my hand in every little corner of campus. So if you have any other questions towards the end towards the end, they'll be a whole section. For that I can answer some questions that aren't just about you know how to prep for your interview, so.

I also have I'm going into my 13th year of working in boarding schools and I'm a graduate of 1 so I can answer questions from the student perspective as well as the faculty perspective. So, alright, so we've hit our five minute mark and looks like everyone's kind of here. So we're going to get started. We do have a couple of housekeeping items before we move ahead, just so you know if you are watching and you want to share it with a parent, or vice versa, this will be recorded.

And then it'll be up, live on our travel and events website. So that's under the admissions header of our website and you'll be able to just see it right there and view this again. Maybe for family movie night, you can watch missus Ding close captioning can be made available by clicking the CC button at the bottom right. You can also make this be full screen. I don't know if you want this to be full screen, but you can do that. What you'll want to do if your audio or your video cuts out, you're really just gonna want to.

Refresh the entire screen and then if you have questions for at the end.

You can feel free to start populating them in the chat now if you want, but I'm not going to answer them until we get to the end and hopefully we'll have enough time to get to all of them so.

What I like to tell, my tour guides is they could when they're giving a tour they could spat out all the facts and and and and info about each building. But what people want to hear on a tour is about the spaces and how it connects to them.

So I say that all the time to my 300 tour guides and that's what this entire session is going to be about, because the big thing is in an interview, there are no right question or no right questions. Really. There are no set questions and there are no right answers because the entire purpose of the interview is for us to get out the importance of you. So we want to know about you. We don't want to know you know anything specific, but we want to get to know you and.

Find out if you're going to be a good fit for our community, so we like to know what's important to you, what in your life, maybe 131415161718 years of life. What has influenced you?

A big thing is obviously the people that you can do your interview prep with. Are your parents maybe a sister and aunt and uncle, but we really want to hear your voice. So while they can help you prep for it, we really want to hear what you have to say.

And a lot of that is us hearing and learning about you so that we can decipher what it will be like for you. Adjusting to a new school, a new community and specifically a boarding school. And for so many of you high school. Because this will be your first taste of high school so.

In our opinion, there are four PC's of interviewing, preparation, practice, presentation and passion, and we're going to go through all of those here together today and we can really kind of suss out what what we mean by that. So preparation so you know, sometimes it's good to go into things cold Turkey, but sometimes it's good to come in with a little knowledge of how you want to present yourself and.

A little knowledge about the institution that you're about to interview at. So familiarize yourself with our school. Prepare yourself with questions that pertain to you and our offerings so.

You know it's my job to interview people, but I would say you know I want to be asked questions at the end of the interview about things that you do here at our school.

You know the generic questions that you can find answers to one on your tour, but two also on our website.

That doesn't help me get to know you and what you want to do when you come to Lawrenceville. So definitely prepare questions that have to do with you and our offerings. You know Lawrenceville in terms of dress code.

Lawrenceville is a very relaxed dress code, so it is very important that you wear something that is comfortable for you.

An interview is not the time to wear that suit and tie for the first time ever in your life or that blouse. In that skirt combo, because you're not going to be comfortable. And I'm not saying show up in your jammies, have a four and a 2 year old so we still call them jammies, but definitely wear something that you would wear for a presentation at school for a nice meal out with your family. Something like that. OK, we're pretty casual, so just make sure you're in something.

That you are comfortable in. So for my friends that are going to be doing, you know an online interview. Just check your background. You know, I'm I'm sitting here facing the window, not sitting at my desk because I knew the lighting would be better and I rearranged some plants so it looked a little tropical I guess.

But just make sure that you've got, you know good lighting so that we can see your face because that'll make us see your facial expressions. We can see the passion in your face when you're talking about, you know the community service that you do, or Sunday night dinners with your grandma, whatever it might be. So try to get the light in front of you as opposed to the light behind you. Try to be in a quiet place without distractions.

Now I know it's it's been, you know what over almost you know two 2 1/2 three years of us doing online things. There's going to be the school bus outside honking. There's going to be the dog barking. There's going to be the younger sibling that runs in unannounced. We get that that happens, but definitely try to put yourself position yourself in a quiet room without distractions, and then again ensure that there's no one else in the room. And obviously someone might pop in because they don't know you're in there, but.

And when students, when you're doing your interview, that's an opportunity for you to say, hey, mom, hey Dad, hey Aunt, Uncle, Guardian time to step out. I'm going to have this conversation and more often than not, parents can hop back in. Guardians can hop back in at the end, but the conversation between you and someone at the school should be a really good open dialogue between the two of you.

So.

Practice, you know it's a really good opportunity to practice everything from start to finish. You know when you're in that waiting room downstairs and someone comes up to you to say that they're going to interview you. Stand up, shake their hand, be excited to see you because they're going to be excited to see. Be excited to see them because you're they're going to be excited to see you. So stand up, shake their hand, look them in the eye. Tell them your name.

And then for us here at Lawrenceville, the waiting rooms downstairs. Then you gotta walk up the stairs, and so they'll probably be some small talk up the stairs. I always say that's the best opportunity to get all the nerves out. I asked the easiest questions going up the stairs and then once you're meeting with the admissions counselor, you know it's go time. So when you're doing a run through, certainly you know. Remember your audience. Remember that this person works here at Lawrenceville.

They want to get to know you to see if you should come to Lawrenceville beforehand.

Kind of scan aspects of your life and decide what are the things you want to share with us and how you're going to share them.

Practice your answers to common questions you know.

I could, you know, for some students I'll say oh, what's your favorite subject? And they'll say math.

And then for other students, I'll say what's your favorite subject and they'll say, oh, math. I just love it. I love angles. I love doing any sort of question any and you know, I love solving for X, you know, so just be prepared that when we're asking you a question we want more than just that one word answer.

Exactly what the next bullet point says. Don't tell us. Don't tell. Don't just tell us what, but also why and how we love examples. Usually I ask you know what's your favorite subject? And then I always ask who's your favorite teachers? And often that'll flow right into itself because I'll say what's your favorite class? And they'll go on to tell me about their French class and how much they love their French teacher and why. And this and that. And and that's the stuff we want to hear because your passion and your interest come out so naturally during that.

Response.

You know, obviously, if you're doing some practice with a parent or a sibling or a guardian, there's going to be some feedback, which is great because oftentimes we're not fully aware of ourselves and what we're saying, and that we use our hands too much and it can be distracting. So definitely take the feedback of others, but try to stay true to yourself, OK?

Presentation OK, like I said, when we're when the admissions counselor is approaching you, they're going to be excited. You're about to be the next hour of their day. They're going to talk to you. Get to know you, try to figure out you know. Are you the right fit for the school for Lawrenceville? So bring the energy. We're going to bring the energy, so you should definitely bring the energy. Be yourself.

In interviews, I find more often than not students. When I ask a question and they don't know the answer right away, they start to freak out because it's like, oh now I'm sitting here and I don't know the answer. But one of the big things about Lawrenceville is Harkness and.

You don't always have to answer right away, but when you do answer it should be thorough and a thoughtful response. So take the time I'm not timing you. I'm not sitting here with my watch looking to see. Well that took 7 seconds. I'm just waiting to hear the response and to hear a thoughtful response from you so.

The other thing is, and this seems a little obvious, but you might not if you are not a morning person.

Don't don't schedule your tour your interview at 9:00 o'clock in the morning, either online or in person. If it takes you the full morning to wake up to get ready, maybe you're that you're that. 11:45 interview. You're maybe you're at two o'clock. 330 interview. That's when you really come alive. OK, so definitely put that into consideration.

The other thing is, don't be afraid to laugh. You're you're going to be a high schooler. It's fun, I'm fun. I like to have fun. It would be so boring to do my job if it wasn't fun, so we certainly want you not prepared with all your knock, knock jokes, but definitely come ready to have a fun conversation.

And how do you do that? So we want to know what you love. We want to talk about the things you want to talk about, so come prepared with, you know, if French is your favorite and you also love computer programming. Come in ready to talk about that French project that you really enjoyed. That French immersion program that you did, that computer programming thing where you taught a robot. How to, you know. Use the spoon to get the soup, whatever it is. But that's what we want to talk about.

We want to know what you're doing now. A big thing is we want to know what you hope to do at our school, so that's where it really comes into play where you should do a little research beforehand to find out if we have French and to find out if we have computer programming because you're going to want to know. Oh, so I saw that you do blah blah blah blah. You know, can you give me the e-mail address of the person in charge of your computer programming and your coding clubs?

So another thing that.

I could talk about all day long is my family and right and so for you.

We want you to remember that when we're talking about your family or we ask about a passion, your family, your friends, your dog, you know your youth group, your dance team. That can be a passion. People can be your passion. So we are all about ensuring that you know we could sit and have a conversation the entire time. Talking about your grandmother.

I could sit here and talk all day about my dog. You know, we want to talk about things that are gonna end.

You know, ignite, passion and excitement from you so we can really get to see what you would be like in that Harkness conversation. What really gets you going? And let me tell you, Lawrenceville has so many classes, so many activities, so many extracurriculars that whatever you love to do, it's possible we have it here. And if we don't, you might be that person to start it. So we want to know we want to know what you're passionate about and and how you could bring that to Lawrenceville.

So.

Back to a couple nuts and bolts here, so scheduling so.

Here are some important details we interview is a required piece of the application. OK, so for the Lawrenceville School, our application deadline is January 15th, so we want to ensure that you get those appointments. And as the person that sends the emails, I can tell you that we'll be releasing our 202223 interview schedule mid August, so probably at the end.

Of next week, I believe the reason why it takes so long is simply because we're waiting for our schools academic schedule to be set. Then we got to look at the tour guides schedules to see when we have free periods and so it's not as easy as you know, we're withholding the schedule from you now. We're just waiting for everything on the academic side. Here is set and then we can kind of hit go. So a big thing is we want you to go to our website.

And see that you know we really want you to complete the first part of the gateway application before scheduling your interview. That way we have all that info already on file before you even come to our campus OK, and so the other thing is.

A campus tour is highly recommended. We set up our appointment so that it's a tour at 9:00 and then the interview at 10 so that you do that and you know it might be something that you've been to campus a couple of times because you swim in our pool or you did a camp here when you were nine. Well, that's great, and I'm so glad you'll have a little familiarity with our campus, but a big thing is.

We need to show you what your full life would be like now on campus, so there's spots that you might not know. You might never have been in a house. It also gives you the opportunity to get all those.

Little questions out of the way with the tour guide. You know, like what languages do you offer? Ohh, do you guys have this kind of club? You know that's the stuff you should come prepared to the interview with. And if you couldn't find it on the website, the tour is the great is a great spot to to get that answered.

So our in person and online interviews are going to begin mid-september so.

Like most schools, we have that those first couple days of school where it's a little wonky and we got to get things settled and so we'll have students here on campus as early as next weekend for football. Preseason then our student leaders, our other athletes, and then we'll have students here on campus in full force. I believe by September 1st and so we got to get all our tour guides trained. We got to get everyone moved into their rooms and so that's why we don't begin our interviews.

So mid-september so a couple really important things in that regard.

Actually I'm gonna go to the next slide because I think I'm already talking about that, so.

Now application process how to start? So you're going to definitely want to go to our website if you haven't already. Fill out the inquiry form if you haven't already. From there, that's when for the summer you would have been received immediately. The schedule to do a tour and interview, like I mentioned earlier, we will be sending an e-mail towards the mid end of this month announcing our fall to January. Or maybe just the fall interview schedule. So that's important for you to know. So the other things.

That are required in the admissions process. The interview that we're discussing now the application, so some people often think that the application part, which is that first part of gateway that I just mentioned is the application, and that's that. Unfortunately, there's a little more paperwork, so there's a full student statement.

There's a parent statement. We'll also need your transcript, which should include the last three years of your grades.

In addition, we're going to need standardized testing based on your current school year. So what that means is if you're an eighth grader applying for the 9th grade, that's a little different than 1/10 grader applying for the 11th, so it's important that you go to our website and find what testing is required from you.

Next is 3 recommendations are required. We need a guidance counselor, a stem, and a humanities.

And my rule of thumb for these recommendations. So our application deadline is January 15th.

And so that's a while between September 15th and January 15th. And So what you want to do is.

Not walking on the first day of school and say here's my I need a teacher recommendation from you.

Because your teacher is probably going to say hi, what's your name? So you need to give your teacher enough time to come to understand you as a person, a student, a community member. So my rule of thumb is, I think it's always best right before Thanksgiving to ask your teachers in person.

If you can.

To write the recommendation for you because you're interested in going to the Lawrenceville School, I think it's good that you asked them before Thanksgiving break, because that then gives them potentially that break to do it. But then it's always good if they haven't done it, you can remind them right before winter break and then they have winter break to write it because it's due soon after the new year on January 15th.

So a guidance counselor can be your guidance counselor. It can be the school principal. It can be your advisor if your school is structured to have an advisor for STEM, that would include math, science, anything in that regard, and then for humanities history English.

Anything like that? We really strive to have your current teacher you be the person that is writing your recommendation. We understand that you'll have just started that year, but if you're waiting till November to ask them, then your teacher will have gotten to know you for the full term. Some teachers will be presenting grades by that point. Some teachers will, you know, be writing comments about you anyway, if that's what your school does, so using your current teacher.

Is completely appropriate because they'll know you the best for right now. If you're not able to use your current teacher, you can use the teacher from the year prior. But again, that teacher is going to know you from the 7th grade when we really want to know you right now.

So I hope that covers all the pieces of the application, so again, here are some important dates, so for all our day students joining the call, we are our day student. Interview Deadline is November 4th.

We will also in a couple of days, be launching that we're having a day student open house and on that day we'll have some interviews as available as well, but we have, you know, a ton of interviews on the schedule, so you'll certainly be able to get that taken care of by November 4th. January 15th is that big day, so the application deadline.

And this also is our application for scholarship aid. I cannot emphasize this enough, but if you are applying for scholarship aid, that is a completely different application than our application for admission. So please, please, please make sure that if you are applying for financial aid, you've completed that application as well. I've unfortunately interviewed a couple of families that you know submitted their application. It's January 15th and then they're contacting me.

Well or it's like January 29th and they're contacting me saying, yeah, we we applied for admissions and scholarship aid and I'll say we only have your admissions application and they won't. They didn't understand that there's that's a separate application, so please make note of that.

We we we know that testing happens usually first Saturdays of the month and so often what will happen is if the last testing in January is occurring on January 7th or you know, eighth because of a Sunday or something that won't be, the testing won't be in the results won't be in by January 15th. That is fine. We will certainly wait for that. But we do say that the January testing is the last that we accept, so all testing must be in by February 1st.

And then the remaining you know you OK, you guys kind of hit that submit button on January 15th and then you sit and wait until March 10th until we give you the news. We're over here reading away for hours on end and and meeting as committees for hours on end and then on March 10th is when we send out our admissions decision.

And then families have until April 10th to tell us their decisions. So Next up is the Q&A. So I have a couple of questions coming through on the chat and I'm happy to answer. So one question is, how long does the interview usually take while your visit will probably take between an hour and a half and two hours so.

Let's dive into the whole concept of a visit a little bit more so your tour is going to be between 40 minutes and about an hour. All depends upon you know our tour guides really try to cater to make sure that your.

Your tour experience is really specific to you, so if you are very into instrumental music and when you're in Clark Music Hall, you run into the direct direct music. You might stay there and talk for a little bit just because that's that's going to be your person, and so you might have to. You know you might. Your tour might be a little bit longer, and then our tours and interviews are back-to-back to back. So if a counselor is running a little late, it might take them a bit to get to you, but then once you're having your conversation.

It's gonna be probably about 20 minutes. You know, maybe a little bit more and then afterwards when you're on campus, there's certainly going to talk to your parents.

So so yeah, so and then, so the Tori push the interview. It's about an hour and a half, almost maybe 2 hours.

So a couple other questions, so if you're asking questions about testing specific to you, please go to the website and check that out, because it lists exactly what tests to take for what grade you're in.

So a question is part one of the Gateway application, part of SA. Or is it the inquiry? So all three things that you just said are three completely separate things. So the Lawrenceville School has an inquiry form that you must fill out in order to basically become part of in our system. And then once you're in our system.

You're able to get all the communication from us. All the important information, the SSO, the standard application online is 1 application that you can fill out. And then there's also the gateway application. The Lawrenceville School prefers the gateway application, and so there's part one of the gateway application, and that's what we would hope that you would fill out before your interview prior to your interview, you're going to have filled out the inquiry form because you wouldn't have been able to get into our system and.

Information about interviews and tours. Unless you've filled that out, unless you just, you know, cold call us, but if you do that, we're going to tell you to fill up inquiry so it kind of goes inquiry first, then gateway application. So a couple of questions here that you've done a camp here, even if you've done the Lawrenceville School Summer Scholars program, it's highly encouraged that you take your own tour when you're going through the process because you were doing that from the perspective.

Of someone doing summer camp and now you're doing the tour from the perspective of someone that might choose to spend the next four years here.

So that's really, really important. It's it's looking at the campus from a different lens, and that's really important for you as the student, as well As for you know the whole process.

And then let's see yes. So interviews for all applicants from China as well as I think a couple other international countries will be through vierkant. So that is something that you'll certainly want to hop on now to to get that scheduled and get that taken taken care of. What if I can only do my interview online? Totally fine. Totally totally fine. I do think though.

Online interviews we've all become so comfortable with them. So back prior to you know, March 2020, we actually did conduct online interviews for students that weren't able to travel for various reasons. Now I think we're better off doing them because we're a little bit more comfortable. So if you're doing your online, your interview online totally fine. It's going to be a one-on-one conversation between you and one of our admissions counselors, and you'll be great, I promise.

Umm?

The application should be available online soon. That's a really great question. I'm not sure when it goes live. It might already be, but I'm not positive. But again, if you want to go to our website and go to the application process, there's links right there to the gateway and the Sao application.

So last one that's pretty tricky. How would you introduce yourself in the interview? So I would certainly.

Take the lead of the interviewer because I don't think it's good to come off too too strong, so it's certainly you know, answer their questions thoroughly. And if they say, how about you introduce yourself. I always think it's good to talk, you know, say your name where you're from, because it's likely they don't know where you're from and then.

You know, just kind of go into into, you know what makes you you so so yeah I mean.

For the recommendation for STEM, do you need a recommendation for science, technology, engineering and math? So as I mentioned, you only need three recommendations, one for the guidance Councilor, one for Humanities and one for STEM. So you're able to pick one of the teachers that you've had this year, either for science or for math. Or if you do take a technology class, so just three recommendations, so I'll see if there's any more last minute questions coming in. But otherwise we're going to start to wrap things.

Up so.

Here is just some important contact information that website righttherelawrenceville.org and then you'll go to the admissions drop down. Any information about the application is available under the application process and then if you want to follow us on any of our social media outlets, that's that's always always warmly welcomed. But other than that, we're we're going to. We're going to shut this down. We're going to call it a day, so any last minute questions.

Otherwise, uh, thanks for joining.

Big thing to remember. January 15th application deadline.