How to prepare for a college interview with your resume

IIn Stanford's admissions office, much of what separated a forgettable alumni interview report from a useful one came down to how a student handled small talk. Interviewers often do not ask questions so much as make observations. They glance down at a resume and say: I see you play football. A student without preparation answers with a sentence and waits for the next remark, and the report that follows says little more than that the student was pleasant.

Most students treat a remark like that as filler. Whether an interviewer has anything specific to write depends largely on what happens in the moment after it, and the work behind a good answer is plain enough that few applicants think to do it.