Georgetown University

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Interviews

Below are interview questions reported by our users and 7Sage Admissions clients.

Did you interview with Georgetown University?

At first, he told us to lose our “grim faces.” Then, he asked us to go around and say where we’re from, where we’re at, and a fun fact about ourselves. We did 3 scenarios. He shared screen with us and asked us to give a thumbs up when we’re all set reading it. In all three, he named the first student to go and wanted everyone to talk. In the second and third scenarios, he called on people one by one to go. After we all went, he told us what he thought and his decisions. He also said that there was no right answer.

All three scenarios involved students with great stats. The first was an Ivy-graduated applicant who plagiarized freshman year. Her addendum made it seem like it was a very casual and light incident, but she was suspended for a semester. The dean wrote a note for her saying that she’s been a model student since. We had four options to choose from—no impact, minor impact, major impact, or game over (deny). Most of us went with minor, two of us went with major, and Dean Cornblatt went with major, too. He said it was because of how light the student made the plagiarism seemed contrasted with the result of suspension for a semester.

The second scenario was the sloppy PS—spelling errors and used the wrong name. The student’s recommender also mentioned that he was a great writer. We were asked to rate the impact of this sloppiness to his application from 0 to 10 (game over, deny). We answered between 6-8. Dean Cornblatt said it was a 7-10 zone for sure because of the contrast between the recommendation letter and the PS.

The third scenario was an almost Oxford Masters graduate who was accused of plagiarism and withdrew from Oxford. He was already accepted into Georgetown. He let Georgetown know about the accusation but when asked, said he’d rather not get into the details. We were asked to either rescind or let him keep his acceptance. Almost all of us went with a no because of how he handled it. Dean Cornblatt asked what would’ve happened if he wrote an apologetic email that admitted fault but that still didn’t go into the story. Some of us (me included) said we would then let him keep his acceptance. Dean Cornblatt said that didn’t happen with this guy, though usually any tiny mistake in the application is followed by a frantic apologetic fixing email. Dean said he had to chase this guy down multiple times and ask him about what happened and the guy still never gave an answer. Dean said there was “fog everywhere” with this case, so he ultimately rescinded the guy’s application.

Later he told us that he was doing 450 of these group interviews, and that we should expect to hear from him about our decisions between 12/15-1/5, probably towards the beginning. He also said last year he interviewed about 2600 students, and this year 3000. I don’t know if that means the application pool increased or if he wanted to meet more people.```

The Dean began by having us all-state “where we are from, what we are doing, where we are now, and a fun fact about ourselves.”
The Dean then presented a character and fitness issue to us about an applicant who plagiarized during a French course. We took about 2-3 minutes to silently read the addendum, then presented our opinions of whether it was “no issue, minor, major, or game over.” We had to of course justify our opinion. I said it was “major” but would still accept her as she took great strides to redeem herself.
He then presented a synopsis of a disciplinary issue of a past applicant, in which the applicant was already accepted to Georgetown, but dropped out of his master's program at Oxford due to accusations of plagiarism. He essentially dropped out to avoid disciplinary in fracture. Should his acceptance to Georgetown be rescinded? I said Yes to this one.
He asked one more question on the Oxford case - he explained the issue in a different way in his own words with a bit more integrity and honesty, and asked if we would still rescind the offer. The group was split 50/50.
The last application issue discussed an otherwise glowing application that unfortunately had a series of spelling and grammatical issues in the personal statement as well as a reference to a different law school. He asked us to rank how “bad” this was on a scale of 1-10. I stated I would give it a “5 with an asterisk,” and I stated that a few spelling mistakes are inevitable for all applicants, however the reference to a different law school was more egregious and showed carelessness. Everyone else gave it a 7-9.
Finally, the Dean asked us to describe in one word an adjective for successful applicants. I used the word “Unique” … however, others used words such as honest, hard-working, etc.

I think for question 6, one shouldn’t say “intelligent” or “smart.”

And that was it, he told us we would know sometime between December 20th and January 15th, however, it could always take longer.

Over all it was a great experience. I did not feel stressed or thrown off at any point, and generally the vibe was very warm and discussion-friendly, rather than a grilling session.

It was a group of 7 applicants, with Dean Cornblatt himself conducting the "interview." He basically turned us into an admissions committee, and ran 3 different cases by us (all real situations he had to weigh in on in his time at admissions). Each 'case' was briefly screen-shared, and he then allowed each person to contribute their thoughts (it was clear from the get-go that he only wanted to hear a couple of sentences, from each person, after each case was presented; so there was no issue of trying to make yourself heard, and no one had the opportunity to hog the spotlight - he repeated several times to keep answers short so he could hear from everyone).

After everyone contributed their thoughts, he would explain what decision he had made and why, and a couple of times he asked a hypothetical follow-up question (eg. "in this case, if the applicant had instead written/done X or Y, would you feel differently?").

The leading theme was clearly "integrity" and how to deal with questions about candidates' integrity.

The cases/questions were:

A 24-year-old applicant with a solid LSAT and graduating in the top 20 of her class had been suspended for a semester for plagiarism. In her addendum, she said she was sorry for the mistake but also claimed it had merely been an issues with properly attributing citations; and while she took responsibility it didn't seem like she fully acknowledged the severity of the 'mistake'. He asked us to rate this issue in her app from "no problem" > "minor" > "major" > "automatically disqualifying" and explain why. Ultimately he explained that he saw it as a major issue, and denied her admission because there was a clear disconnect between how she framed the issue and the severity of the punishment. Her addendum did not do enough to explain this disconnect, and over all he felt that she spent more time trying to make the issue sound small than apologizing and taking responsibility- he said it showed a lack of growth.
A student who had already been admitted writes to admissions informing them that he is dropping out of his Oxford masters program early (without obtaining the degree) without providing additional info. Upon being asked about it, he volunteers that he has been accused of plagiarism in his dissertation and that he decided to drop out rather than facing the academic tribunal. Upon several attempts by the Dean to get more information in calls with him, the admitted student beats around the bush and says he would "rather not get into it." Should Georgetown rescind his offer or not? He explained that rescinding an offer is a BIG deal, and that the standard for doing so is much higher than denying an applicant. After we gave our answers, the dean explained that A) this showed a lack of integrity because he was fleeing the issue rather than confronting it, and was likely guilty; and B) he should have been extremely transparent about what had happened and volunteered ALL the information he had right from the get-go without making the admissions committee chase him down only to be stonewalled (it disrespected Georgetown, he said). Ultimately he couldn't see this person as a member of the Georgetown community and thought there might be more issues going forward. He also asked a follow-up question, "what if he had written from the start that he was under academic investigation for plagiarism and apologized sincerely for the incident and said he hoped the committee could forgive him?" The Dean said that while it would have been harder to make a decision, he would still rescind because the kid's message did not provide a detailed account of what had happened, and still required the ad com to ask follow-up questions -- and this did not change the material facts of what had happened, which were pretty bad.
A student with a stellar GPA and LSAT, with glowing references that describe her excellent writing abilities, applies but her personal statement has typos and refers to the wrong school in the text. How serious is this on a scale of 1 "who cares" to 10 "disqualifying." He said that if the student had followed-up with an email acknowledging the mistakes and apologizing for them, he wouldn't have cared. But that because she didn't, it showed a level of carelessness - and a lack of interest in Georgetown; so why would he waste a seat on her? The glowing references about her writing ultimately showed him that she was a great writer when she actually cared, and that the poor quality of the statement therefore reflected her lack of enthusiasm.
He asked for a one word answer to: "If you had to pick the single most important quality to look for in an application, what would it be?" This wrapped up the interview.

Some other interesting things to mention:

He clearly did not care if people came to the same conclusions as him. It wasn't about getting the answers "right." Rather, he wanted to see honest reflection, and how you expressed yourself. I think more than anything this was about seeing whether he liked the applicants as people. So don't stress or deliberate too long about answers, just go with your gut and be honest.
He had already given our applications an initial read-through (and he mentioned that he wouldn't have invited us if our personal statements looked like the one in case #3 above). He explained that his process is to read through apps once (I'm assuming the committee distills out some of the worst ones, but he said nothing about that), interview those he is interested in, and then read the apps again before making a final decision. He said he would have an answer for us probably in November, but very likely no later than December 10 (soon!!).
He explained that he's doing 3-4 of these interviews a day for months (pretty intense!!), so he's definitely talking to a whole lot more applicants than will ultimately be admitted (he said he is probably going to meet this way with about 3000 students, and the entering class is 560).
He gave us his email at the end, and then followed up with a nice note (which I responded to of course):

"Hello [FIRSTNAME], Just a quick note to thank you for being a part of our group interview. I love these group interviews as it allows me to get to know applicants a little more and makes you more than just a file. And in this Covid world, I am particularly happy to get the chance to connect with so many of you all over the world. Yours was an exceptional group. Hope you had fun. Thanks so much for coming and I look forward to reading your application even more now that I have met you. Best, Andy"

Hope this is useful and can help other applicants to Gtown not stress out about the process!! Just be yourself, be honest and you'll do great.

Introduction: Dean passed out name plates to put in front of us. Then, we were asked to go around and say our name, hometown, and a fun fact about ourselves.

Instructions: He handed out a packet with scenarios written out, and he told you to keep it face down until he finished his instructions. (He called out people that reached for the paper before he finished speaking.) He then divided us into groups of three, and he told to read through the first scenario. Then, we were to pretend that we were members of the admissions committee and decide as a group if the issue raised had “no impact,” “little impact,” “big impact,” or “game over impact” on the prospective student’s application.

First Scenario: A student was suspended for a year for plagiarism. She said that she made a careless mistake because she mis-cited a paper in French, and she was sick at the time. She said that she took a year off to reflect and tutor children. (The Dean asked students questions like, Can you sum up what your group thought? What did you think about her time off? What do you think about how she framed the story? The Dean ultimately said that this had a “big impact” because he did not like that the student did not own up to the seriousness of the situation—she was suspended for a year. He thinks that she is not telling the full story.)

Second Scenario: An Oxford masters student, who had already been accepted to Georgetown Law, told Georgetown that he withdrew from his masters program. When asked why, he admitted that he had failed to include citations in his dissertation, and there was going to be a disciplinary hearing about the issue. Before the hearing, he decided to withdraw from school. (The Dean said that this was “game over” because the student would not give him a lot of information, and he felt that he lacked integrity.)

Note: During the first two scenarios, he randomly called on people, and he asked them specific questions. He did not let people raise their hand and share their opinions freely. He took a more Socratic approach.

Third Scenario: A student had stellar GPA and LSAT stats as well as letters of recommendation praising her writing skills. However, her personal statement had typos, including the wrong school name. (During this scenario, the Dean asked us to rate the seriousness of the issue as a whole group on a scale of 1-10. He observed our large group conversation. The Dean then weighed in, and he believed that this should be rated as a 7. She should not have written the wrong school name. That shows that she does not care about Georgetown, and there is no point in wasting a seat on her.)

Fourth Scenario: Student A has slightly better stats than Student B, but Student B wrote an unsolicited “Why Georgetown” essay. Who should you admit if you have to choose one over the other? (He had us go around and say “Student A” or “Student B” without any discussion. The Dean said that he would let Student A in because a “Why Georgetown” essay was not required, so Student A should not be penalized for not writing one.)

General thoughts: The Dean appreciated decisiveness; he did not like it when interviewees were in between “little impact” and “big impact.” He cares a lot about integrity, so I would be sure to highlight that in your answers. He also cared about order and structure — he noticed people who did not follow his instructions precisely or spoke out of turn. He appreciates collaboration, so be sure to speak about the conclusions your group came to, not necessarily the ones that you individually came to.

He started with introductions—nothing crazy, we just went around the room stating our name, where we’re from, what we’re doing now, and a fun fact about ourselves (so maybe come with one prepared).

Then he split us up into groups. We had maybe 12 people in the room and split into 3 groups of 4. We were handed a packet with different scenarios from real applicants who had applied to Georgetown the previous year. We were told that we would be playing the role of an admissions committee, and that we were to discuss the scenario in our individual groups and figure out how much this impacted the decision, on a sliding scale.

We did them one by one. So, we started with the first scenario, talked amongst our group for a while (only 3 or 4 minutes), and then we would bring it all together. He would call on someone in each group to give a summary of what their group thought, as well as sometimes some individual questions to a student about what they thought. Then we would progress onto scenario 2, and so on.

First scenario was about a student who had been suspended for a year on account of plagiarism. She had a high GPA/LSAT, and she’d won awards for her writing before. The plagiarism in question was for a first draft of another writing piece she was submitting for an award (I think? or maybe it was just an assignment I’m not sure, but it was definitely a first draft). She chalked it up to a careless mistake because parts of it had to be in a foreign language, and because she had meningitis or something, so she was uncharacteristically tired/ill. She said she took a year off to reflect and tutor kids.

Dean didn’t like that because a whole year’s suspension from the undergrad institution is a pretty big penalty, and she seemed to not be portraying things very honestly. He said if she had just written, “I’m sorry. I take full responsibility and please note that I have never done such a thing since that time,” it might have been a totally different story. It wasn’t even that much about the plagiarism itself as the way she framed the situation. He said something like, “Sometimes it’s best to say I’m sorry and then zip it.”

Second scenario was about a student who had already been accepted, and was currently in a graduate program at Oxford. He called Georgetown saying he was withdrawing from the program. When asked why, he admitted he had failed to include citations in his dissertation, and that there was going to be a disciplinary hearing about it, but now that he’s withdrawing there would be no hearing and no effect on his record.

Obviously this was all super sketchy, but the crux of the issue here was that the offer had already been given out, and they would have to rescind without any real evidence of wrongdoing (they called Oxford and didn’t get much info, and the student didn’t give any more info). Nonetheless, the Dean ultimately decided to rescind the offer.

Third scenario was about an applicant with gleaming GPA/LSAT, letters of rec commending his strong writing skills, and then a personal statement with multiple typos and a mention of the wrong school. A lot of people in the group interview thought this wasn’t unforgivable, especially given that the previous two were pretty big ethical violations, but as it turns out it was a rejection as well. The reasoning from the Dean was that it does a disservice to the qualified applicants who did write glowing personal statements. It shows a huge disinterest in Georgetown, so he’s not about to waste an acceptance on someone who’s not serious. He also pointed out that when you care, you will reread your application fifty times before your friend tells you, “Oh my god, just press the damn button already.” So the fact that this had so many mistakes was actually pretty telling. He did, however, note that it would be different if the student had immediately apologized and sent a follow-up email with a correction. Then that would have been fine.

Finally, he gave us a hypothetical scenario that was about Amy, a student with higher grades/LSAT but no “why Georgetown” essay versus Barbara, with slightly lower stats but a compelling Why Georgetown. Everyone almost unanimously guessed Barbara would be the one to get in. It was Amy. The reasoning is that Why Georgetown wasn’t required, so Amy didn’t do anything wrong. He’s not going to assume Amy is disinterested because that could be totally off the mark. And while Barbara was advocating for herself as much as she could, the numbers still usually win out.

A couple notes on this: I think he was listening to how people were collaborating in the groups, so just make sure that you state your opinion, but that you’re a good listener and mesh well with others. When we all come together to discuss, he does call on you randomly, but don’t stress—you’ll have had the opportunity to already talk about it in your group, and even if he asks you a more particular question, you’ll have thought about the scenario enough to easily give an answer. Which brings me to my next point: don’t worry about giving the right or wrong answer. Once he hears from all our groups, he states his own opinion before we move onto the next scenario. And we were usually wrong! After all, we aren’t a real admissions committee. Don’t be fazed by it.

After the discussion, he offers closing remarks and brings up why he does these interviews, which I think might be helpful information to know, since I was certainly curious about this - after all, he’s not really looking for a right/wrong answer, and this interview doesn’t ask any traditional questions. He said it was to get to know us just a tiny bit better than he did an hour ago, and that he manages to achieve that goal, and with so many applicants, that’s really the best he can do.

He then walked us out, thanked us each individually as we got onto the elevator, and we all breathed a sigh of relief!```