manymore wrote:
R2 applicant who just had my first interview today.
I was just really nervous and felt like I was stumbling all over the place. It was just SO BAD!! There is no other way to explain this.
I was feeling embarrassed about my interview skills throughout my interview. I did do a couple of mock interviews, but really think I could have and should have done better.
This was my first Skype interview. I think I am usually a lot better face-to-face, but I just couldn't pull it through this time.
I think my applications is otherwise very strong, but I am afraid that I might have blew my chances of admission because of this bad interview....
Let me say that the following is my experience and I am sure there is someone who will say, "don't worry, I had a bad interview and I got in." but that wasn't the case with me.
I had 4 interviews during Round 1. As I walked out of the interviews I felt that 2 that went great, 1 that was so-so/bad, and 1 went absolutely horrible. This is the way I felt immediately afterwards, not a week later as I sat contemplating every answer. I got into the schools that I had good interviews at, WL'd at the so-so school, and denied at the horrible interview school. After reflecting on the entire process I think there are different types of bad interviews. I think what makes an interview bad with Adcom isn't the same as what makes an interview with a second year student bad, you really have to know your audience. I actually think if my horrible interview had been with a second year student instead of with Adcom, it wouldn't have been bad at all.
I'm not trying to scare you, I'm just trying to give you my experience, because after my horrible interview, I posted a similar post to your post and only received the typical "I'm sure it wasn't that bad" responses, but it was.
No matter what, what is done is done. Just try to think about what went wrong and why it went wrong. Spend some time practicing with mock interviews and hopefully the next one will go better. Who knows, maybe it wasn't that bad
If you want more details, feel free to PM me.