Favorite Questions: If You Could Change One Thing...

Part of an on-going series of favorite interview questions you'll run into during your college admissions interview --CJ

Question: If you could change one thing about your school, what would it be and why? (Alts: Change one thing about your high school experience, about your classmates, etc. Related: What's your favorite class/teacher/aspect of your high school and why?)

Background/why you're being asked:
So you're sitting in a college admissions interview, and all the interviewer wants to ask about is your high school experience? Yup. This is a slightly tricky question to answer correctly--chances are, you probably haven't been asked something like this before and so don't have an answer ready (well, you hadn't... now you do). 

It's also a question that makes you think on your feet--you have to identify something you're unhappy with in your high school experience, articulate it coherently (where interviewees often trip up) and then explain why and how you'd fix the problem. It's tough to nail.

And that's the point. 

I ask this question in interviews that are going well as a way of pushing the interviewee a little harder to see whether they're a good applicant or a great applicant. 

Great college applicants are engaged with their surroundings--they're not just passing through life, they're actively interacting with their surroundings. As such, they're aware of the problems and shortcomings around them and have thought about ways to improve their environment. 

That level of insight and engagement is what your college interviewer is probing you for.

How NOT to respond

Again, this is a tough question, so a mediocre answer isn't going to hurt you that much. That said, there are some ways to blow it:

• Think your school is perfect. No school is perfect--surely there's something that you'd improve if you could. Not being able to come up with anything says that you're not a very critical thinker and/or haven't given your educational environment much thought. Not good.
• Hate your fellow students. Think everyone at your school is a mouth-breathing redneck? You might be right--but disparaging everyone at your school makes you come across as an anti-social loner. There's a fine line--complaining that your classmates are unengaged because your school doesn't offer a very broad curriculum? Fine---the problem is the curriculum, not your fellow students (per se). Complaining that your fellow students are "dumb and boring and just care about basketball" (direct quote from one interviewee I had)? Makes you sound like the friendless kid who eats lunch alone in the school office.
• Wish we didn't have to take French/math (or any variant that could be summed up as "I really don't like classes"). This should go without saying.
  
• Be shallow. Think your prom this year sucks? Hate the food in your cafeteria? You're probably right--but this isn't the place to voice that opinion.
  

How to nail it:
What your interviewer is looking for is depth of thought and the ability to critically engage with your environment. If you're deep and engaged, you're in luck--if you need to fake it, prepare for the question ahead of time! If you could change anything.... what would it be? 

Stuck? Couple of safe ideas for responses:

• Balance. Is your school too focused on athletics? Do a couple of clubs dominate, to the exclusion of smaller groups? Is it so academically focused as to be a pressure cooker? Some variant on "The culture of my school places too much emphasis on X, to the exclusion of Y and Z" is a good answer--it's generally hard to argue about needing better balance. How would you fix it? Easy--balance things... better.
• Lack of diversity. Like "balance", "diversity" is one of those concepts that's tough to argue against nowadays. Maybe the diversity you need is cultural and ethnic diversity--but maybe it's academic diversity (not enough varied courses) or diversity of activities (does your school offer water polo?) Fixing this is tougher--lack of diversity in your student body is typically a result of geography. Lack of course or extracurricular diversity is probably a resource issue. Ready to argue for higher property taxes to fund your water polo team?
• Lack of community. Another concept no one can argue against--everyone likes having more community. Should your school encourage more student-to-student mentoring? Should there be more programs aimed at bringing students from various backgrounds together? There you go: community building. Another variant of this is your school's role within the broader community--community service in your town, tutoring younger students, etc. 
• Lack of student input. Is your school too top-down, with little input from the student body? Arguing that your school should take more student input into consideration is another easy point to argue--and you can get somewhat creative in how you think student input should be gathered and incorporated. 

Bonus: Tie your answer into why you want to attend the school you're interviewing for. For example:

"I think my school does a lot of things right, but its biggest shortcoming is a lack of diversity of classes---we have the basics, like American literature and chemistry, but no chance to really explore a topic deeper in a classroom setting. If I could do anything, I'd address this, perhaps by allowing students to pursue independent studies for credit so they could pursue topics they were interested in. This is actually why I'm so excited about attending your school--it seems like it's large enough to offer a huge selection of departments and classes, and everything is strong across the board."

Again, a little preparation here goes a long way. You're going to be stressed enough during your interview--spend a few minutes prior to your interview preparing for this question so you'll be ready for it.   -----CJ