In the first post of the ‘Interview questions’ series, we will simply start off by listing out some questions that are commonly asked at school interviews.

“Not this! I already wrote a bunch of stuff and took all these exams, isn’t that enough?!” I know, I know. Sorry but it’s part of the applying gig, guys.

On the bright side, chances are you’ve made it through the initial screening and one or two follow up rounds. So you have a chance! Thumbs up.

The interview process could apply to undergraduate admission interviews, med school, law school, dentistry school, clown school, chef school, marshmallow school, you name it. These are questions that are super general and broad but dey gonna azk it.

1. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
2. What are your interests/what would you like to pursue and why?
3. What are your strengths and weaknesses? Alternatively, what do you feel is your greatest strength and your greatest weakness?
4. Describe a time you had to overcome some sort of adversity and what you gained from that experience.
5. What is one thing about you that you would like the admissions committee to know?
6. Why do you want to attend this school? What could you contribute here?

So now my first-off reactions to each of these, that you may or may not share:

1. Um….hi? I’m a student, my name is… WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!
2. I wrote about it in my application, am I supposed to just repeat that?
3. I don’t know if I would call anything a “strength”…. I don’t really have a weakness (that I want to talk about here).
4. I can’t think of anything right now >.<
5. Oh crap, IDK…wow, am I really that boring of a person?
6. I want to attend this school because I like it, in case that’s not obvious, and I can contribute the same thing I could contribute to any other school which is just my brain for learning and fees for paying. Again, what do you want me to say?!

Ideally, you want the interviewer to know you, because then they can’t refuse. But that’s, most of the time, just not possible in 30 minutes.

So take some time to let these questions seep in and allow your brain to come up with things it thinks of that are related to this. Let it flow.

In our next post, we’ll take a closer look at how to break topics down.

What interview questions have you been faced with? What question really shocked you out of the blue? Share your story in the comments!