Northwestern Interview Preparation

Bamboosprout

As it is a point of distinction for NWPSL, there really isn't much material out there for us to prepare for this, so I thought I might share with you how I went from being unable to answer any questions in the given amount of time to answer every and any question they threw at me with ease and dexterity (and maybe you can see how much the process parallels the preparation for LSAT, and see how well preparing for LSAT can be a highly transferable skill if done properly). My starting point is probably lower than most of you. I deathly fear public speaking and interviews, and have had traumatic experiences that still make my forehead sweat and my hair stand when I think about them. But just like when I bomb an PT, I took a deep breath and chose to look at these failures as learning opportunities, and fuel to help me go farther.
Luckily for us, everything we need to succeed in the NWPSL interview is already given to us in the form of the Kira App.
I practiced the the whole month of Jan in conjunction with my LSAT prep, every day for 15-30 minutes. I will break down my experiences and results week by week.

First week: I was not able to formulate any answers, and I embraced that. I didn't try to brute force the questions and ramble off answers. Like with the LSAT questions stems, I tried to systemize my approach to these questions. So even though I wasn't able to answer any of the questions, I just kept listening to the sample questions, categorizing them, and breaking them down. By the end of the first week, I was confidently able to put every question they offered into one of four categories in a 2x2 matrix. On the x axis were the two types of questions: one, the X, Y, and C question types, which I define to be "tell me about a thing (X), why (Y) did you choose this thing, and conclude (C) what it meant to you" - an example in their words would be something like: "tell me what you are most disciplined in, and why?"; two, the S,T,A, and R question types, which many of us have heard about before, and is an acronym for situation, task, action, and result - an example in their words would be something specific like: "tell me about a challenging professional situation, how you resolved it, and what did you learn." or something vague like: "tell me a time you had to change someone's perspective." On the y axis were the two styles of responses I believe they expect: one is the professional business style interview response; and the other is the informal, coffee chat style interview response. I believe they want to see both sides of you. You will be able to differentiate these two based on the interviewer and their tone of voice. By the end of the week, with this matrix, I was able to start matching a few experiences to broad concepts that can apply to a bunch of questions. This simplification and streamlining process is key for those of us who are not natural speakers, since we can reduce the number of things we think about, and use a few flexible experiences to respond to almost infinite questions.

Second week: I was able to formulate broken or half responses to some of the questions. To clarify, in case it wasn't clear by this point, I used a notebook to write down my X, Y, C, or S, T, A, R's, and took notes on the questions and analyzed my responses for every question. Reviewing the recording is key, just like how you can learn a lot about your weaknesses by watching recordings of your PT, you can see every single mistake you make in interviews and try to fix them. By this point, I realized that the crux was that finishing early was a much better alternative than not finishing, and that rambling was the worst possible outcome next to complete silence. So I created some concrete rules for myself, such as: one, no tangents or background stories unless I still have 3/4ths of the timer left; two, start concluding before the 2/3rds timer mark. Background information doesn't matter; this is not a short story; you aren't graded on narrative; just get to the point. Pay attention to the timer. One minute is incredibly short, and we cannot treat this interview like any other. Just like the LSAT, it is better to skip certain things and get to the end, than to not finish. By the end of the second week, I was able to answer a some questions by rote that I have seen a handful of times at this point. I also realized, by practicing everyday, at different times of the day, that I answered much better in the afternoon/evening, than in the morning. Another thing that I noticed was that proper framing and recording techniques mattered, so what I mean here is: that your camera should be eye level; the frame should show a bit more than the top of your head on the top, and a bit more than your chest on the bottom (preferably show your hands to gesticulate); you should be either in the center of the frame, or slightly to the side, but if you are off centered, then it looks better to turn your body towards the camera.

Third week: I was very familiar with my matrix and was able to fairly confidently draft and talk about any topic the questions threw at me, but still had some rough edges. I was still tense, and often looked away from the camera when the topic was unfamiliar to me. Luckily, my brother was visiting me at the time, and I asked him for some feedback. He is younger than I, but was the social one of us, and he gave me one advice, to talk as if I was talking to a friend. This really helped, although it was a little unnatural at first. To further compensate for my nerves, I discovered that I was much more relaxed and better at the interview after I worked out, and something else that I did that helped, but I don't recommend, is I drank a ounce of wine 15 minutes beforehand. By the end of the third week, I was just going through the motions, and everything was pretty much just clicking into place, like some 1 or two star LR questions.

Fourth week: I only had a few days left before I needed to do the real interview, and was getting a bit nervous due to the impending deadline. But I told myself to believe in the system and the process. For the last two days, I was just practicing as if it were the real interview. One thing I discovered this week that helped was that if I had the chance to meet with peers or friends to chat earlier that day, my responses came out more friendly and more naturally, so I organized a lunch on the day of the interview to chat and catch up with friends.

Actual Interview: Almost everything I prepared for came in exactly as I needed. I was relaxed and natural. The categorization helped put me into a flow that just helped ideas slide out. It was like antifreeze for my frozen brain, especially for topics I was unfamiliar with. The only thing that I did, but turned out to be unnecessary was that I differentiated responses that were 1 minute long and 1.5 minutes long. On the actual interview, all my questions only gave me 1 minute. Most of them were formal, 2 of them were informal. About half of them required the XYC format, and half required the STAR format. I just wore my comfortable clothes, which included sweatpants, and alumni jacket for my undergrad college.

In conclusion, everything's coming up Milhouse? This process was so helpful, I wish I could pay to have access to it again. It was such a wonder way to practice for interviews in general.
I apologize for the long post, but I thought maybe someone would appreciate the detailed process.

_oshun1_

“there really isn't much material out there for us to prepare for this“ - you can actually find every single northwestern question on TLS/Reddit/google. None of the questions should be surprises for anyone and one can prepare answers in advance.

Bamboosprout

@oshun1 said:
“there really isn't much material out there for us to prepare for this“ - you can actually find every single northwestern question on TLS/Reddit/google. None of the questions should be surprises for anyone and one can prepare answers in advance.

Your perspective is appreciated. For me though, that was anecdotally untrue. I built up a database of supposedly 150+ questions from the interviews, a full 10 pages worth, but of those 150+ questions, only 1 of them showed up in the exact form that was on my list. Of course, if one were able to memorize all 150+ questions and responses, then just by altering the response slightly one would be able to answer the questions in the interview as well, or if one were simply a natural speaker, then all one would need is to have a few anecdotes prepared, but I don't have that skill. In fact, I suspect if you are the type of person who feels that the available materials are sufficient for your prep, my story would have no meaning to you. It would be like a competition level tennis player reading a blog about how I first learned to serve consistently.

_oshun1_

@Bamboosprout said:

@oshun1 said:
“there really isn't much material out there for us to prepare for this“ - you can actually find every single northwestern question on TLS/Reddit/google. None of the questions should be surprises for anyone and one can prepare answers in advance.

Of course, if one were able to memorize all 150+ questions and responses, then just by altering the response slightly one would be able to answer the questions in the interview as well

Yeah that was kind of my point...I don’t think there are any bombshells in the NU interview that are different than any of the available practice questions online. One could just have notes next to them and quickly ctrl+f the word “weakness” or “friends” or “goals” or whatever the key word in the question is and skim the notes during the given interview preparation time so one wouldn’t have to really think on the spot.

The Cornell interview on the other hand, ugh. Your post would be useful for that.

Bamboosprout

@oshun1 said:

@Bamboosprout said:

@oshun1 said:
“there really isn't much material out there for us to prepare for this“ - you can actually find every single northwestern question on TLS/Reddit/google. None of the questions should be surprises for anyone and one can prepare answers in advance.

Of course, if one were able to memorize all 150+ questions and responses, then just by altering the response slightly one would be able to answer the questions in the interview as well

Yeah that was kind of my point...I don’t think there are any bombshells in the NU interview that are different than any of the available practice questions online. One could just have notes next to them and quickly ctrl+f the word “weakness” or “friends” or “goals” or whatever the key word in the question is and skim the notes during the given interview preparation time so one wouldn’t have to really think on the spot.

The Cornell interview on the other hand, ugh. Your post would be useful for that.

So I actually tried that as well, and found that it wasn't the ideal solution, at least for me. Even when I had everything planned, my delivery was unnatural, and awkward. I had to refer to my notes, and couldn't remember all my points. Maybe if I had a touch screen notepad, it would have looked less awkward. For me, at first, I did this on my laptop, so I had to alt tab between the pages, and, sometimes, when I went off the interview tab, the timer would mute itself, and I wouldn't be able to tell when the time was up. I even tried to use two screens for this, but again, it was awkward and unnatural when I stared off to the other screen. This was due to my limited capabilities though, so I know it would have been sufficient for someone else. I realized that unless I came up with the points on the spot, it didn't sound natural, so that's why I spent a week trying to come up with a strategy for analyzing the questions and standardizing templates.
What was the cornell interview like?