My girlfriend teaches medicine and is on the admissions committee. Every year she has to kick parents out of the interviews, but she says the problem has gone up dramatically over the past 15 years.
Ruken
April 19, 2012, 7:43pm
62
Yeah, it freaked me out. The guy asked me who had brought me and then was up and out the door asking her in before I got a word in. I don’t think I applied there.
Ruken:
When I was interviewing at potential colleges, my mother was invited into the interview room at the end of one interview. I think this was at Claremont McKenna. I found that odd. Fortunately she just said that she was impressed by the school but ultimately this was my decision. I don’t recall how many schools I actually interviewed at, but that was the only time anyone even acknowledged that a parent was even nearby.
Well, unlike a job, the parent is going to pay the bills, so I can almost see this. Parents get invited along on campus tours all the time.
BTW, when acting kids audition, parent are never allowed in. Ever. If ten year olds can do it on their own, college students can too.
Zeriel
April 19, 2012, 8:16pm
64
Odesio:
According to the PDF I linked earlier most of the more outrageous behavior does not happen all that often. i.e. Only 4% of the people who responded to the survey said they had a parent showed up to an interview. And of those respondents, we don’t know how many interviews they have conducted. I suspect the more outrageous examples we’ve heard about are pretty rare. I hope they don’t become more common.
Also, I don’t see this reflecting poorly on the younger generation. It reflects poorly on the parents I think.
I’ve personally had it happen to me exactly once.
Specifically, it was a parent asking me if he could do the job interview FOR his son, because said son decided to take a spur-of-the-moment vacation.
I hung up on him after retracting the interview offer.