Interviewers as Ambassadors for Princeton

This letter is to express my appreciation for David Montgomery ’83’s article on alumni interviewing in the April 2024 Princeton Alumni Weekly. A graduate alumnus, I have been an interviewer for 17 years. I love interviewing: Meeting and connecting with candidates for Princeton has always been a treat for me. I only wish that I was able to interview more than the seven or eight whom I am able to interview every year.

To be sure, only a few highly qualified students I interview can be accepted for admission, but I think the interviews have intrinsic value. (My own experiences are such that I think the Admission Office does a super job with selecting quality candidates for admission.) Maybe the candidate interviewed should — but doesn’t — get an offer of admission as an undergraduate, but if the interview is positive, they may return later to Princeton for potential admission to the graduate school, or as a postdoc, or maybe even as a future teacher or professor.

As an ambassador for Princeton, I strive to keep my interviews informative, helpful, and positive. Moreover, as Bradley Saft ’00 stated in the article, I also try to “add some color to the application that the admission office may not have.” I think interviews have value, for Princeton, for the candidate — accepted or not — and for me as an interviewer. I hope the in-person interviews continue. I also hope I can do this for another 17 years. As one of the thousands of us who interview every year, a big thank you again for this article. Go Tigers!