Don't Force It: How to Get into College without Losing Yourself in the Process

Alison Slater on College Interviews

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In today’s episode, I sit down with Alison Slater to explore the evolving role of college interviews. Alison shares practical advice for students on how to prepare—from researching schools to refining key talking points—and explains why strong interview skills are becoming even more critical as AI reshapes the admissions process. Whether you're a student or a parent, this is a must-listen conversation about how to stand out in a rapidly changing landscape.


Bio

Alison attended college far enough from home that her family wouldn’t visit without calling first, but close enough to pop home for a weekend, if she wanted to. She believes in the liberal arts and chose a major she loved, not knowing where it would take her after college.

She worked in selective college admissions for fifteen years and consulted one-on-one with students writing college essays and preparing for admissions interviews. She loves working with teenagers. Interviews are her favorite part of the college application because you can learn so much about someone in an interview, but they can also be a missed opportunity when students arrive nervous or unprepared.
 
Everyone interviews eventually—whether for college or grad school, scholarships, internships, or jobs. Through mock interviews and guided self-reflection, at Interview Prep, Alison helps students learn how to prepare in advance, interview with confidence, and leave a lasting impression each time. A memorable interview is a game-changer in standing out from the crowd, and interviewers can become advocates when selecting candidates for admission, awards, or jobs.
 Outside of work, Alison loves crosswords, board games, novels, trying new recipes, and the Oxford comma. 

Visit InterviewPrepLLC.com to learn more about their expert coaching for interviews, communication, and professional presence.

Use code SIGNET2025 at checkout to receive 10% off all services booked by July 1, 2025.

Access free resources and learn more about Sheila and her team at Signet Education at signeteducation.com or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheilaakbar/.

Alison Slater:

And you know, a lot of schools, they'll say, oh, it should be a discussion, not an interrogation. And I think that that's the right vibe. I do think students still need to approach this with some preparation.

Sheila Akbar:

Hey folks, welcome back to the podcast. I hope you're all doing well today. I've got a really great guest for us all who focuses on college interviews. And I can say, from my experience for a while there, I think everybody felt like admissions interviews are really not that important, or they're losing importance. They're just a way for alumni to feel involved with their school and hopefully then make more donations. And maybe for a while, that was true, but certainly not at every school. Some schools may know those interviews really, really matter, and at others, they are a little bit more kind of perfunctory, but as you'll hear in today's episode, because of changes with technology and how students are presenting themselves in their applications, interviews are actually making a comeback, and they're also taking different forms. You might you might have a 92nd video that a student needs to submit. Some of these they'll have the opportunity to edit and then submit with their application. And some of these they'll have to do on the spot with no editing, because colleges really want to understand who are these students in their sort of most real, unpolished, maybe slightly less prepared state. So I'm happy to introduce today's guest, Alison Slater, who is the founder of interview prep LLC. And you can check the show notes for more information about her company and what she does. But she's real admissions interview expert. That's the only thing that she works on. So she really knows this field, and also really understands how preparing for an interview can prepare students for things that they are going to need to do multiple times in their lives. So we're sharing this information with you here in May, because college application interviews aren't going to be happening until the fall, but you do want to prepare, so we thought, let's get ahead of it a little bit and give you some time to kind of sit with this information and then do the preparation that you need. I wouldn't want you to have this information, you know, the week before an interview, let's, let's plan ahead a little bit. All right, take a listen, and I'll see you on the other side. Allison, thank you so much for joining me today.

Alison Slater:

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah, I'm really excited to talk about things related to college admissions from the perspective of the interview, because I think a lot of people think that, and rightly so, that a lot of colleges are moving away from interviews, and some of them are, but really it's sort of like they're still doing interviews, it's just in a different format. And I think you and I talked a little bit before we started recording that with the admin of AI, it is likely that a lot more schools will kind of move towards leaning on interviews a little bit more in the evaluation process. So I love that that is your sole focus, and I'm so excited to dig into the nitty gritty with you. But before we get into that, I really love hearing people's stories, so I was wondering if you could share with us a little bit about your educational journey and how you came to do what you do now.

Alison Slater:

Yeah. So I grew up in upstate New York. I ended up at a small liberal arts school in Pennsylvania. I always said when I was young that I wanted that sort of cliche, picturesque campus. I wanted the kids playing frisbee in the brick buildings and all of that. And that's exactly what I got at Bucknell. And I went in thinking I would be a science major, because for most of my childhood, I was praised for being good at science, and that was, you know, kind of what I leaned towards. But it took a really tough class, my first semester at Bucknell, to recognize that I didn't actually have any passion for science. I was just good at it in high school. So it was a pretty quick pivot for me to realize that the thing I loved was my French classes. And although I never had any intention of using that explicitly in my career, I wholeheartedly believed that with a liberal arts education you could go and do anything. And the statistics at least at the time, and it's been a few years, they said that about 20% of adults in the US with four year degrees were working in directly related fields, but most of the rest of the adults were still working, so I took that to heart, and I majored in French, and I minored in philosophy, which my parents thought was equally, you know, frivolous, and they worried a little bit about just where I would take that. But, you know, I did end up actually landing my first job the week before I graduated, so I knew I would have a path after leaving. College, and although I have not used my French, literally in in, you know, 99% of my work as an adult, I have used all of those liberal arts skills, the presentation, the communication, the problem solving, the teamwork, all of those bigger picture things have absolutely come to fruition. So as I was getting ready to leave college, I started to think about what my next step would be, and I had been a tour guide, and I had been an interviewer in the admission office, and those were things that I fell in love with, and thought, Wow, I can't believe this could be a job. It's hard to imagine leaving a college campus. So the idea of finding a new place where I could be an adult, as opposed to student, but being in that kind of a setting on a college campus was really appealing, so I did a nationwide search, but I looked mostly at liberal arts colleges, because it's the type of education I really believed in at the time and was comfortable with, but also they were places that did admission in a way that felt familiar, including using interviews as a part of that process. So that's where I started. I actually ended up spending a long time at the same institution, which is not necessarily typical in the admission field, but it was a place that was growing and changing, and I was allowed to grow in my career while staying at the same place, and interviews were always my favorite part. So I spent a couple of years after that working in an adjacent field that wasn't directly higher ed related, but I missed working with students. So when I decided to set out on my own and start a company, I wanted to figure out what I could bring to the table that was hopefully unique but also really helpful. So I started interview prep. I helped students to prepare for their interviews so that they go in more confident, less nervous. Really, truly prepared is the best word, but able to leave a stronger impression. Because I think sometimes students leave interviews where they go I survived, as opposed to I really had a chance to make a connection. So that's where we are now.

Sheila Akbar:

Oh, I love that. That's such a great answer. I want to kind of go back to what you were saying about majoring in French and minoring in philosophy. I love that so much. And I think that is one of the greatest things about a liberal arts college. You learn all these skills, no matter what the specific subject area is, but it's sort of like this opportunity to actually pursue something that's interesting and not rush into I gotta make money, I gotta have a career. I gotta, you know, all of these things that, yes, are important, and maybe increasingly important as we, you know, enter sort of uncertain economic times. But it's also important to pursue those passions, those things that you love learning about, because you just love learning about them. And so I love that you were able to do that, and that your parents went along with it.

Alison Slater:

They did. I mean, my dad didn't go to college. I think he didn't know as much about how it worked, and he was always incredibly proud of me for doing that, and for my brother for going to college period, it didn't really matter what we were doing, and I said to him at some points, I think he he may have thought I was working harder than I was, because I I was enjoying myself as well. It was definitely a balance. My mom went to nursing school, and she did eventually get a Master's, but she spent her entire career working as a nurse, so it was much more linear. And there's nothing wrong with that. A lot of students really do know where they're headed, but for those who don't, or those who are looking to explore something new, the liberal arts is a great place to do that. And I tell people now, especially with the sort of adult lens, looking back, I got a great education French was just the lens through which I did that. It wasn't ever the thing that was intended. I always said from the beginning, I don't think I want to be a translator, and I know I don't want to teach. So that left a lot of people wondering what was next, but in my mind, that sort of youthful optimism was like anything, whatever I decide.

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah, yeah, such a perspective only a teenager can have. But it is so important to encourage.

Alison Slater:

And I thought graduate school might be either my next step or my eventual step to really hone in on what I wanted to do long term. It turns out admission was a great home for me for much longer than I would have anticipated. But I'm actually in school now, so I am continuing my education.

Sheila Akbar:

There you go. You can't get away from from a college campus. The other thing you said, you said the statistic at the time was that only 20% of adults were working in fields directly related to their major. Now, I don't have at my fingertips the statistic for today, but I do know that a book, actually, I have ordered it, it has not arrived yet. A book just came out, written by a journalist who covers admissions, and it's called Hacking College, and the subtitle is something about like, why the major doesn't actually matter. And it's all about how the opportunities that students take advantage of, the skills that they build, the people that they meet in college, those are the things that actually predict long term success in career and life. And so I. Want to point that out, because, I mean, you, you seized on that statistic then, but it is more true than ever now. And you know, I mentioned AI at the top of our recording, but a lot of people I know who are really focused on how AI is going to shape the workplace are saying these sort of more humanities focused skills are the ones that are going to be in high demand, because things that can be automated are going to be automated. And the people who study French and philosophy are the ones who are going to be able to to help us through the next stage of this industrial revolution.

Alison Slater:

Yeah, absolutely. And actually, I think, you know, I don't know what the statistic is these days about who's working in directly related fields, but my guess is that it may have gone down, or that it may have shifted because there are new majors that have responded to the evolving working world, and yeah, AI is a big part of it. But when I was working in admission, one of the new majors at the time at the school where I was working was a data analytics program, but they required a philosophy class, because ethics is a part of philosophy, and I thought that was really interesting with big data.

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah, can you say a little bit more about I think the phrase you used was that you focused on liberal arts schools when you were looking for a job in admission, because it was the kind of education that you really believed in. You say a little bit more about that?

Alison Slater:

Yeah, I'm taking this class now where I'm learning about all different types of colleges, and I know that there are options for everybody, and that there are different types of places where students can be happy, but in my heart, I do still go back to the liberal arts education. I think anyone could be happy and successful in that context, because the goal so we talk about liberal arts colleges as a collection of institutions because they are really similar. Sometimes we even say small liberal arts colleges, because most of them fall into that bucket. But any institution could have a liberal arts curriculum, the goal being both breadth and depth. When I was a tour guide, I talked about this on a daily basis, breadth, meaning you get a broad education. There are often those general requirements, sometimes not specific classes that students will have to take, but specific boxes they'll have to check. You know, take something in the arts, something the humanities, maybe something with a global focus. It really depends on the school, but they're giving you that breadth so that you study different subjects, but also different teaching styles, different types of ways that they're being evaluated. They might do some presentations in classes in a certain area, and write more papers in a different department, and maybe take tests in other areas. And so I think all of that plays into the breadth of a liberal arts education, and then the depth is your major. I don't actually know of any school where you don't have to focus on a particular area in some capacity, and really get that depth and become an expert in one area, whether or not you tend to use that explicitly as an adult.

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah, I think that's just really helpful for people to hear because in so much of the kind of college admission frenzy and the media coverage of this, you only hear about a couple of schools, and technically they they do have liberal arts curriculum, but they are not often thought of as small liberal arts colleges. Yeah, people think these are small colleges in the middle of nowhere, in, you know, maybe flyover states or in the woods somewhere. And while a lot of people can kind of hold on to that romanticized ideal of the kind of campus you wanted to be on the Frisbee, yeah. But I think a lot of people are like, No, that's not what I want. You know, I want something very like in a city and, you know, this this big and whatever. But I think people miss, miss out on what the value proposition is of a small liberal arts college that may may or may not be a little bit more isolated from, you know, the hubbub of of a city, and they dismiss them out of hand without really taking a deep look, especially my students, who are more interested in maybe a STEM field, they're not realizing there are amazing programs at a lot of these colleges in which you are going to have much more exposure to your professor, a greater chance of doing real research at a high level, where you don't have to compete with a bunch of grad students and the professors are actually there to teach you. I know lots of people who have gone on to do PhDs at really impressive institutions who got such a strong foundation by studying STEM at a liberal arts college?

Alison Slater:

Yeah, I think a lot of times the advantages are the small student to faculty ratios, the especially the schools with the large endowments, the technology, the access to that, as opposed to watching a grad student perform some sort of chemistry or something like that. Again, I didn't end up majoring in science, so I do think there's a lot of advantages. And so when students are starting out their search, I always hope for them that they put all of their so called deal breakers in pencil, because I think they may change their minds as they start to explore a little bit whether. That means looking to a slightly larger or slightly smaller place, especially when you come from a high school that probably has hundreds of students. Any college that's in the 1000s is bigger. It's necessarily going to feel bigger. You don't necessarily have to go to 10s of 1000s or hundreds of 1000s to really feel that change. And you know, distance to cities might not be a huge factor. If you really chat with the students on a particular campus and find out how busy they are on campus, if everybody has traveled, it's not a very local population. It's much more diverse geographically. Probably not many of them are going home, so they are staying really busy. So I think there's a lot of advantages to at least trying out the idea of different types of places before you really settle in. And there are bigger places that have liberal arts curricula, including places that are very large but may have an honors program within them that runs like a small liberal arts.

Sheila Akbar:

Right, or a residential college or Learning Center, yeah, I love those. Well, you're here to talk to us about interviews, and because interviews are a great way to learn more about schools, right? It's not just an opportunity for a student or for a school to evaluate a student. It also kind of goes both ways. So talk to us about how you kind of conceptualize the interview and what's happening.

Alison Slater:

Yeah, interviews should absolutely be a two way street. And you know, a lot of schools, they'll say, oh, it should be a discussion, not an interrogation. And I think that that's the right vibe. I do think students still need to approach this with some preparation, as opposed to with the casual vibe of a conversation with somebody who they're already very comfortable with, but it should definitely be both sides. So I always encourage students to arrive to every interview with a handful of bullet points about themselves and their experience that they feel like they need to share things that are sometimes not in their application, or just things that are so central to them that they make sure that they really want to highlight those points and with a few questions that they want to ask of that interviewer. Usually those are questions about the school, depending upon who you're meeting, especially if it's a student or an alum, you may want to ask some opinion questions as well, but I also always give the advice that you should ask informed questions, meaning not the ones that are highly googleable. They should be things that you can go a little deeper. So if you go in and ask, Hey, do you have a soccer team, every Interviewer You ask is going to answer you honestly, but instead, you could do a quick Google search and come back and ask the deeper question. I see you have a varsity soccer team and a club team. Can you talk to me about the difference and help me figure out if maybe I would fit on one of those teams? That gives you a more thought out question, which gets you a more thought out answer, but also it shows that you've put in a little bit of time and that you are thinking seriously about that institution. So the interview is evaluating way more than what you're saying on the surface, but that's often what you can prepare for upfront.

Sheila Akbar:

So I know that in my experience helping students through this process, in my own experience applying to colleges, every institution approaches the interview a little bit differently. And there are certain things, of course, you can expect, but then there, there are places that really do it. You know, very specifically. You know, this is this kind of interview, and this is that kind of interview. Do you have some kind of categories to describe the kind of interviews that students might encounter?

Alison Slater:

Yeah, I think there's a couple different ways to categorize them. So in most cases, you'll be one on one, but there's a chance of a group interview that happens sometimes when you're interviewing for jobs and scholarships and things as well. There are opportunities to interview in person while you are on campus visiting. There are opportunities off campus, whether that be an admission rep coming to your high school or your area where you meet in on neutral ground, sometimes that also means meeting with an alum somewhere in your area, also usually on neutral ground somewhere, and sometimes meeting online. So since COVID, there are a couple of things that higher ed has held on to, and one of the ones I'm really happy about is the virtual interview. This makes interviews available to so many more students and for longer stretches of time, as opposed to I'm visiting this campus as a junior. It's probably the only time I'll be here. I guess I better interview now, when you might not truly feel ready to do that, and now, most schools who are offering interviews are also offering that virtual option, so you can go a little bit later into the high school experience, into the application cycle. So there's a lot of different styles in that way. Also, while a lot of places do say we're going to approach this like a conversation, they're definitely evaluating you. They are definitely providing answers to your questions as well. They want to find that balance of learning about you and sharing about the institution. I know of at least one place that is doing a very standardized interview these days where the same questions are asked across the board. I hope there's wiggle room for follow up questions and things like that when there's anecdotes and tangents, but generally speaking, they go in with a stricter out. Mind making sure that they're asking students the same topics to get a little bit more unbiased approach.

Sheila Akbar:

So, I mean, I'm so glad you brought that up, because it, you know, begs the question, well, how do we prepare if everybody's doing it differently? And I know, you know, if we if, if I had an interview scheduled for next week, you would probably talk to me about some very specific things, including, what do we know about our interviewer, and what can you plan to ask them? Or what would you really want to know from them based on what you know about, you know, what they majored in, or, you know, whatever, whatever they're doing now. But yeah, how do we prepare for this? Especially, I think, in the age of Reddit, where whatever those nine questions are that that one school is asking is probably online, so

Alison Slater:

I'm sure they're out there.

Sheila Akbar:

So how did you How do you adequately prepare? What are some of your best tips?

Alison Slater:

So there are a few schools who are notorious for a particular style of interview. Sometimes it's that students should know that they're going to bring up current events or what you're paying attention to in the news. Sometimes it's that they, you know, really dig on, dig into the educational experience. Sometimes it is some standard questions that you can expect to come your way, the one that everybody can expect in essentially every interview you'll ever be in, even if it's for a job, is some version of why us. So I can help students to prepare for that. You can also prepare for that on your own, just thinking through the fact that they want to know not just why they're great. When students would in my interviews Tell me all about why the college where I worked was awesome, I was totally in agreement, but they were sometimes quoting a brochure I had literally written. So it wasn't new information. It was. It was the first part of what I hope students will actually approach as a sort of two part question. And it's maybe not fair that interviewers don't ask for what they really want, but I tell students to approach that as if you've been asked why you for us, instead of just why us, because that way you're thinking about, what do you bring to the table, and what is unique about that college? Hey, you have this really cool major in this quirky area that nobody else has, and this is why I want to be a part of that program. This is what I will bring to that program. So it's not just, why are we great, that that's something that typically colleges already recognize those things they're sharing with you, but preparing in general, takes a handful of things. You can look at typical questions. There's lists all over the internet about that, many of them specific to college interviews. I have one on my own website, specific to questions that I've seen. You can just look up general interview tips. I don't think you'll ever get a bad tip from anybody, for the most part, all of these are really well intentioned. Do some self reflection, not only to be familiar with your resume, especially, like, gosh, what was that club I joined in freshman year? Those kinds of things, but really thinking about your own values, I find to be incredibly helpful, and it's something that I've worked into the curriculum of what I do with my clients. They dig into what really resonates with them. And then take it a step further to how has that helped them make decisions so far? And then, how does that help them as they lean towards whatever they're aspiring to in the future? So you can speak about a particular trait literally, or you could use a story to sort of show instead of tell. You could talk about a time when something happened that you had to persevere through, instead of just saying, I'm really perseverance like, there's ways to use that preparation naturally in your actual interviews,

Sheila Akbar:

Right. I always tell students to go through

Alison Slater:

It's at the top of my least favorite questions actually, this is sort of a random aside, but I have had many, many careers, and while I was leaving my job on Wall Street and applying for my graduate programs, I ended up working for a Wall Street recruiter, financial services recruiter. And one of the things I learned from my boss there was to sit down with the resume and to come up with a story, not make one up, but reflect and remember, a story that represents every single bullet point on that resume, because you don't know what they're going to ask about, right? But it's a really great exercise in in reflection to your point. And I think you know college applicants should absolutely be doing that too, with every one of their extracurriculars, every one of their values, every one of the classes that they took that they found really exciting, all of the things that they really want to do at the school, again, to your point, to be able to tell a story of how they got interested in that thing, or how they're kind of doing something similar right now, to really establish that match with The College, I think that is probably the biggest thing that students can do. Let me ask you this, if I can ask you for specific tips. In my experience, most interviews start with some version of Tell me about yourself, and people start in the randomest places, like they're going to tell you everything that happened before they were age five. Yes, or they're going to start at a very high level, like, you know, last week, and they're not going to give you any of that backstory. What's your best tip for handling the tell me about yourself question. list, but it is something that comes up a lot because it's so sort of intuitive from the interviewer side, without realizing how big and daunting it can feel from the other side. So for broad questions in general, I think the easiest way to approach that is to intentionally narrow the scope of your response so you can say, well, here's three things I definitely want you to know, and once you fulfill that promise, then you turn it back over. It's the interviewer's job to ask the follow up questions and to direct you a little bit more specifically. So you were talking about, you know, coming up with those stories, having that plan going in. I call that a personal elevator pitch, and that's one of the things that I work on with my clients, because it's a little bit of a business term. But it's not necessarily that often that you'll go into an interview and say, Hi, my name's Allison, and 123, hit them with all those facts in a row and use the full elevator pitch that might happen, or maybe that's how you respond to a big question, like tell me about yourself. In most instances, though, having done that preparation, you're bringing that pitch with you in your head with those few bullet points, and it becomes the outline for your conversation, so that you know you want to speak about each of those points, even if they don't all come up right at once.

Sheila Akbar:

That's great, very, very helpful. All right, we're coming up on time here, but I do want to ask you, what you think is going to happen to the future of interviews. Yeah, we've seen a lot of colleges pivot to a, you know, 92nd recorded video either that students can prepare on their own. And I know students who are spending weeks on this, or it's a thing that you click and you got to record it live. You don't know the question you're gonna get, and a lot of kids are freaking out about that for several weeks before they do it. But interviews are changing. What do you see? Kind of on the horizon?

Alison Slater:

Yeah, it's interesting, because even just in the last few years, overall, interviews were feeling less important in college admission, at least at some places. But I think with the advent of AI and how accessible that is to students, we know they're using that to prepare their applications. Personally, I'm a fan of that, as long as it's used as a tool and not as a replacement for your own brain and doing your writing and all of that. But I think as an editing tool, it can actually be really helpful, because colleges know that there are AI components coming into play. I think a lot of them are starting to take that step back and lean into their interviews as genuine interactions with students to really get to know who they are, plus when students learn some of the statistics around application review. I think they are surprised. The average app is reviewed in like eight to 10 minutes. Sometimes I've heard up to 15 or 20, but I've also heard as low as, like four or five. I'm like, it takes me two minutes to read an essay. Remember that too? It only takes about two minutes to read your essay as much time as you put into it, and it's absolutely worthwhile putting that time in to make sure it says what you want it to say. But when you do an interview with somebody, you get 20 or 30 or 45 minutes to really make an impression. And if you're leaving that interview going, I survived, as opposed to I really got my message across. I shared some things that I think are important and unique. I think you could be missing an opportunity if you aren't preparing in advance. The other thing I didn't mention earlier that I should have mock interviews are one of the best ways to prepare for real interviews, and you can do that with anybody who's willing to sit with you and pretend to interview you, but oftentimes meeting somebody who has no preconceived notions is really advantageous because it mirrors the real scenario, and it brings somebody new to this preparation who can help give you some good advice.

Sheila Akbar:

That's a That's a great tip. I'll throw one on there as well. I used to practice interviews and presentations in front of my dog. Dogs are great listeners. He's just cocking his head to the side. I'm like, oh, Should I, should I go into more detail there? It can be a really great place to warm yourself up, or maybe a younger sibling or something like that, where there's really no stakes, and then you can go to asking a teacher or an older friend or you know, a parent to help you with a mock interview,

Alison Slater:

answer practice questions in the shower, in the car, while you're by yourself. It doesn't matter, but I do think practicing out loud is really helpful. It helps you to articulate complete thoughts instead of just sort of thinking through, oh, that's probably what I'll talk about. You're actually going through those sentences. It can also help with timing. I tend to be a bit chatty, so when I'm preparing, I try to make sure that I'm working on being a little more succinct.

Sheila Akbar:

That's a great point, too. I can also be very chatty. Well, you dropped some nuggets in here that you work one on one with students. You take them through a program to prepare them for interviews. I'm going to ask you two questions. One is, what are the long term benefits of preparing for an interview like this? And second is, how do people learn more about what you do, if they want to do this program with you?

Alison Slater:

Great. So interview skills are life skills, I think regardless of whether the colleges you apply to are actually offering interviews, because not everyone is. It's mostly highly selective institutions, smaller institutions, those who've chosen to prioritize interviews, everyone will interview at some point, maybe as soon as for a scholarship while you're in college, or an internship while you're in college, or jobs, and certainly graduate school and jobs as you're heading out of college on the other end. So these really are skills. There are professionals out there who help people prepare for their job interviews, too. This is not an unusual profession that I have chosen. It is less common in the college admission world, but I'm hopeful that will be just as beneficial to students, even in the long run. And I can share with you my website, my email, all those things. The easiest place to get started is interviewprepllc.com.

Sheila Akbar:

That's great. I'll make sure that's linked in the show notes. Yeah. So Allison, thank you so much for joining us today. This is super informative, and you're really fun to talk to, so I would love to have you back sometime.

Alison Slater:

Thank you. I really appreciate the chance to share, and I hope students took away some good tips.

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah, yeah. All right. There you have it, everybody. Allison was so much fun to talk to, and she just exudes an enthusiasm and a warmth that I know students are really going to respond to and feel comfortable practicing interview questions with. So if this is something you would like to learn more about, check our show notes for more information. On Allison and her website, she's also offering a discount code to anyone who mentions the podcast that is it for May. We'll see you again in June. We are ticking up into the height of application season. When junior year is done, everybody starts losing their mind, maybe to a more significant degree than they had previously. And so we will be covering some more tactical stuff around essays and supplemental essays and getting everything together. But just know that, you know, I feel your parents, it's it's stressful out there, and please let us know what we can do to help. All right, take care of yourselves, everyone. We'll see you next time.