Welcome

As application numbers to Penn increase, interviews play an essential role in the committee review process. Interviews are both evaluative and informative, allowing students the opportunity to comfortably interact one-on-one with a graduate of the institution, while allowing the Alumni Interviewer to share information about the university, as well as about their individual Penn experience. Interviewers answer questions, provide a positive perspective on the University, and accumulate additional information about applicants for use in the application review process for the Penn Admissions Office.

The ideal alumni interviewer is comfortable discussing the Penn undergraduate experience in detail with prospective students, and does not have any personal interest in the admissions outcome for a specific student, for a particular secondary school, or for another undergraduate institution.

If this task sounds intriguing to you, and you have no conflict of interest, please complete the two steps below:

1. Obtain a functional PennKey and password: CLICK HERE AND FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS.

2. Once you have a PennKey and password, please CLICK HERE TO REGISTER as an alumni interviewer (PennKey and password required).

Serving as a Penn Alumni Interviewer is an especially meaningful way to continue your involvement in the life of the University. We look forward to receiving your membership application! If you have a PennKey and password, and your membership registration has been confirmed, you may access the Interview Portal HERE.

Since the early 1960s, Penn alumni have volunteered to meet and converse with prospective Penn students. For more than five decades, the efforts of these alumni have served a dual purpose; to inform prospective students (and their local community) about Penn and to inform Penn Admissions about prospective students.

Today, Alumni serve as Penn Ambassadors in all 50 US states and over a hundred countries, interviewing talented students from diverse backgrounds. Through a collaborative effort between four full-time staff members in Alumni Relations and dozens of regional Directors from Penn Admissions, the Alumni Interview Program is seeking to achieve a number of ambitious goals in the next three years; 100% coverage within the next three years, 10,000+ active alumni interviewers, and increased recruitment and yield efforts around the world.

For further information about the program, please feel free to contact us, or to review our online orientation handbook.

Interviewers reach out to prospective students after they have submitted complete applications to the university. About 15% of Penn’s applicant pool applies for the binding Early Decision Program (applications submitted by November 1st): interviews for Early Decision Program are conducted from mid-October through mid-November. The majority of Penn’s applicants apply during the Regular Decision Program (applications submitted by January 1st): interviews for Regular Decision Program are conducted from mid-December through late February. For every interview conducted, alumni submit a 1-page written report of that conversation, which is added to the student’s application file and is a valuable facet of the broader committee discussion regarding the applicant’s candidacy for Penn.

Alumni interviewers also assist the Penn Admissions Office in a variety of other ways throughout the annual admissions cycle. Alumni volunteers sometimes attend local college fairs or visit CBOs in order to share information about the university with prospective students. They may be invited to participate in admissions recruitment events in the fall and spring, helping to register guests at events or assisting with Q&A sessions at the end of an evening program. On the other side of the admissions process, alumni frequently seek to welcome admitted students to the university after decisions are released in late March: they may host an April yield event for admitted students to meet one another, a summer welcome reception for students who have chosen to matriculate to Penn, or an August student send-off for students who are about to join the university’s newest incoming class. For more information about getting involved in these additional admissions events, please contact Patrick Bredehoft at: patrb@upenn.edu.

Interview Program members are often actively involved in other Penn projects and volunteer efforts, many of them coordinated through our Regional Clubs around the world. For more information about these activities, please visit the Get Involved section of the Alumni Relations site, as well as the Regional Clubs page.

There are a number of reasons why alumni interviews are a crucial component of Penn’s broader Alumni Relations goals, and to the Undergraduate Admissions Office’s mission to recruit and admit a diverse class of the highest quality. 

Visibility

Penn should have a visible presence in every community. The Penn Alumni community is a body of over 287,000 extraordinary individuals, living all over the world and making contributions to every conceivable professional sector. These alumni ambassadors make it possible to personalize the admissions process by reaching out to applicants around the world. Informed alumni serve as ambassadors in their local community, building Penn’s profile for prospective applicants, their families, and neighborhood schools.

Equity

Alumni interviews bring greater equity to the admissions process. Interviews promote equity in the admissions process, ensuring that students have the opportunity to engage with an alumnus who knows nothing of their prior background, connections, or accomplishments.

Evaluation

Interview reports aid the Admissions Committee in difficult decisions. The Alumni Interview is a crucial component of the application evaluation process for the Undergraduate Admissions Office. A complete application includes a full record of the student’s academic achievements, standardized testing, and extracurricular accomplishments. The alumni interview provides additional context and information about the applicant’s passions, personal qualities, and potential fit for Penn. Interviews can help the Admissions Committee better understand how a student interacts with others, as well as their degree of curiosity, motivation, and self-awareness, their thoughtfulness and willingness to engage with ideas, their social and cultural awareness, their ability to think on-the-spot, and their facility with conversation. These reports can allow the committee to make more informed decisions, which can impact future generations of Penn students.

Student Yield

Student yield begins with the interview. An interview may be an applicant’s most memorable connection to Penn throughout the admissions process, and in some cases, the alumni interview is the first (and sometime only) direct interaction that a student will have with a representative from Penn.

Attracting Future Applicants

Interviews are engaging for students and alumni. Admitted students who have a positive interview experience are more likely to attend Penn. Students frequently share their impressions with friends, so the interview can have an effect on future Penn applicants.

Check back soon for a complete calendar of a year in the life of a Penn Alumni Interviewer!

Penn maintains Interview Program activity through local alumni volunteers on six continents, serving in over four hundred active interview committees. Almost all of these committees are eager to welcome new members—whether you graduated from Penn fifty years ago, or just last week! We are also managing a number of virtual committees, designed to engage alumni who

To register as an interview, please complete our online registration form.

For more information about the interview Program, and/or committees that might be operating in your geographical area of interest, please contact Liz Pinnie, Assistant Director of Recruitment, at: npinnie@upenn.edu.

We are currently in the process of developing a number of online platforms for alumni to communicate with one another, share best practices as interviewers, and stay informed about the university. Please check back soon for more information about access to our online community!

We are in the midst of gathering materials related to Penn’s interviewing efforts throughout the past 50 years, in order to record and share information about the largest volunteer project in the University’s history. If you have any records from past interview cycles, archived materials, or stories to share about the Secondary School Committee, as well as its predecessor(s), please contact Steve Hamilton at: hamiltos@upenn.edu.