Application Interview(s)

Below you’ll find advice for the Application Interview(s) you may be subjected to when applying for a Nationally Competitive Scholarship.

Many Nationally Competitive Scholarships include personal interviews as part of their selection process. Often, you’ll have two interviews as part of your application process: the campus interview and the national interview. This page details both.

The campus interview occurs with the UAA campus selection committee while the national interview occurs with the national selection committee themselves. These formal interviews are an opportunity for the selection committees to evaluate your oral communication skills, social abilities, poise, and ability to think under pressure. The best interviews are memorable and dynamic conversations; they aren’t simple “question and answer” sessions.

Below are some suggestions to help you prepare for a successful personal interview.

APPLICATION MATERIALS
Personal Statements/Personal Essays
Statements of Grant Purpose/Research Proposal
Letters of Recommendation
Application Recommenders
Transcripts
Standardized Tests
Your List of Honors, Awards, and Activities
Application Interviews

APPLICATION INTERVIEWS

  • Preparing for the Interview
    Make sure you’re familiar with (and confident about) your application essay. Create ten questions that you think you’re likely to be asked by the campus/scholarship committee and develop answers for them. You can always ask your Scholarship Advisor for brainstorming ideas.
  • Catch up on Current Events
    Catch up on current events--local, national, and international--so that you will be able to express an informed opinion. Don’t ignore arts and literature, either--especially if it bears on your field. Many students have commended on the importance of stressing your ability to play an ambassadorial role. Publications and resources that might help include The New York Times, The London Sunday Times, The LA Times, The Economist, The Utne Reader, National Public Radio, New Statesman, and, of course, The Anchorage Daily News.
  • Register to Vote
    Register to vote (if you haven’t already done so). If you are a male applicant, you may be requested to explain why you are or are not registered with the selective service.
  • Read more books; think about your idols
    Have in mind a book that you consider important and a person who influences your life. A question posed to many Rhodes applicants is, “How will you fight the world’s fight?”
  • Prepare for pressure
    Expect to be nervous and to find some questions rather difficult. Listen carefully to each question and pitch your answert toward what seems like the most interesting or insightful leve. Pause if you need time to provide a thoughtful answer. And, if absolutely necessary, remember to request clarification of a question you don’t understand. (Try not to do that last one more than once.)
  • Admit your ignorance

    The smartest people know that they don’t know everything. Admit your ignorance; do not pretend to know what you don’t. Remember: ignorance is not the same thing as stupidity. Ignorance is the simple lack of knowledge; stupidity is the lack of an ability to gain knowledge--i.e., the lack of common sense--which leads to irrational decision-making.  

    Admitting that you don’t know something is fine. For example, if you don’t know who Harold Pinter is--Pinter  is the recipient of the 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature--then simply say so. Not knowing about Pinter is an example of innocent ignorance, but pretending to know about Pinter even when you don’t is an example of stupidity.

    If an opening occurs, steer the conversation into a series of topics you actually can discuss. Not knowing something isn’t the end of the world. It simply means you have more to learn.