Favorite Questions: If You Could Meet One Person....

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

Question: If you could meet one person, alive or dead, who would it be and why? (Alts: If you could have dinner with one person, who would it be? Who would you most like to meet in heaven? etc)

Background/why you're being asked:

Ever since Mitch Albom launched a literary sub-genre of people you'll meet in heaven books this has become a very popular question. The concept is that the person you'd most like to meet reveals a lot about you--if you pick grandma, you're probably very family-oriented. If you pick Abe Lincoln, you've probably got a leadership/history bent. If you pick your cat Toodles, you probably missed the point of the question.

So why are you being asked? Your college interviewer is trying to elicit from you what you hold important and what you most value. And since just asking "what do you value most?" is too dull and straight-forward, you're being asked the same question through the backdoor.

(Note that a secondary reason is to see how deep/clever/profound you are. If you pick the obscure 17th century German philosopher, you either get points for being deep--or it will backfire immensely, as we'll discuss in a second.)

How NOT to respond:

This is actually a lot easier a question than it seems if you're ready for it--the only absolute disasters I've had (I've used this question a couple of times in my college interviews) where when the student was caught completely flat-footed and unprepared. So how can you blow it?

• Don't answer. This should be obvious, but adamantly sticking to "I don't know" isn't a good strategy--even if you really don't know. But, since you're reading this entry, you can think about the question and have some answer already in mind--so you won't fall into this bucket.

• Pick someone completely obvious--or who isn't that important. Everyone's fallback is Jesus--everyone wants to meet Jesus. Which is fine, but it's pretty overused and trite--and would he really have that much interesting to say? After all, the guy's got a pretty good set of four biographies, if you want to get his thoughts on how you should lead your life. If you want to go religious, how about one of the disciples? Or Judas? Talk about an interesting conversation...

The corollary to this is when people pick someone who isn't that interesting or important--and then are unable to support why they picked them. This is where dead family members are tricky--if you want to talk to your great-grandmother, that's fine--but make sure that you have a good rationale for why. 
 
Remember: Your interviewer is really asking about what's important to you. So asking your great-great-grandfather what it was like to overcome the racial and social biases of his day, bring his family to America and start the family business? Good answer. Asking your deceased grandparents for funny stories about your father when he was growing up? Probably an equally entertaining conversation, but not a great college interview answer.

• Pick someone with no good reason. This should also be obvious, but if you get to talk to any one person ever--you need a reason for choosing them. Pick Abe Lincoln? A little obvious, but fine. Pick him and don't know why or what you'd talk about? Bad idea. (Side note: the answer "I dunno--he sounds interesting" isn't a good reason). Make sure you can tie your person into your life, current issues you're facing, or current events (locally, nationally or internationally). 

• Pick someone for a specific reason--but they're the wrong person. This is a much rarer mistake, but happens. Since this is a two-part question (who + why), make sure your "why" really does match the "who". For instance, I once had a student pick President Ford because he wanted to get his perspective on the current state of Israeli/Palestinian affairs. But he didn't mean Ford--he meant Carter (Camp David Peace Accords and all). Ooops.

Rarer still, but still worth warning about--you venture into a more obscure figure (that 17th century dead German we mentioned earlier), don't really know him or understand his work as well as you think you do, and it turns out your college interviewer does. Remember, your college interviewer is probably pretty smart and well-read, so if you're going to go the obscure-dead-guy route, make sure you know your person--and his work--cold.

Note also that if you pick some obscure intellectual figure, you run the risk of coming across like a pretentious ass, and that's never good. In general, I'd stay away from the uber-obscure, unless it really--really--is the person you'd like to meet and you're willing and able to explain your choice for the next 15 minutes.

How to nail it: 

The main trick to nailing this one--as with many questions--is to be ready for it. Give it a little advance thought, get your person and rationale ready, and you'll be ready to nail this interview question to the wall. Couple of pieces of advice:

• Be genuine. This is always good advice, but particularly here--if you can think of someone that you really, genuinely would want to meet, your explanation for that choice will be cake. It will also come across well with your interviewer--even the most novice college interviewer can tell a genuine response from a canned one.
  

• Focus on the rationale first. Remember, what you're really being asked is what's important to you, so use that as a starting point. What is important to you? (more on this here, here and here) Starting with what's important to you, who would be the best person to teach/explain/help you with that? There's your person--and your rationale. You get added mileage if you can work this into an aspect of your application you haven't already discussed.
  

Quick example--say that environmental issues are very important to you. You'd probably enjoy talking about modern environmental issues with someone like John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club. Good answer!


Bonus--if you start with something that you're passionate about, it's easy to talk about that topic and really focus on the "why" part of the question. (For our Muir example, you could talk about how it'd be interesting to get his thoughts on climate change and the current environmental challenges we face, what he'd do to focus public attention, what sort of policies he'd want to see enacted, what he'd be particularly happy/upset about when viewing his own legacy, etc). You're setting yourself up for a softball that you can nail.

Some ideas:

Still can't come up with a person? Some suggestions:

• Personal selections can be low-hanging fruit--just avoid being trite. Go ahead and pick grandma--just have a really interesting rationale ready that you can offer before your college interviewer's eyes glaze over. (see above)
  

• Common historical figures. For some reason, the historical responses are always the people you learned about before 5th grade: George Washington, Abe Lincoln, FDR, JFK, etc.

• Science (or other occupational) figures. Want to be a doctor? Maybe you should pick Louis Pasteur, or Marie Currie. Business figures (Buffett, JP Morgan, etc) work if you want to talk about business. Supreme Court justices (either current--Scalia, Ginsburg--or dead--Taft, Learned Hand) are also good picks, since they tend to be associated with concepts or philosophies that are interesting to talk about. Plus, Learned Hand is such a cool name....

• Academic figures/authors. If you're an agoraphobic writer, Dickinson or Thoreau might be good pics. Philosophers--Hume, Kant, etc--are fun picks because they give you a lot to talk about, just be careful that you're ready to talk philosophy with an interviewer who probably studied your person in college.

• Religious figures. Anything religion-related can be a little touchy, but I think it's fine here. As mentioned earlier though, everyone picks Jesus--if you want to stay Christian, I think Paul would be a fascinating person to talk to. Or go Eastern--hard to argue that meeting Buddha wouldn't be enlightening.

• Sports/entertainment figures. I'd probably avoid picking Brittney or Paris, but someone like Robert Redford or Charlton Heston would be interesting because of their work outside Hollywood. In general I'd avoid these though, for fear of looking shallow.
  

Just remember, whomever you pick, what's key isn't who, but why--make sure you have a compelling reason for picking them, which ideally ties into the main themes of your application. Put some thought into it, and you'll be golden.   -------CJ