University admissions officers, what was the most pretentious application you’ve ever seen?

I once had the chance to interview candidates for a highly competitive program during my undergrad years. A young man came in for his interview, and I offered him a seat. He immediately said, “I’d rather stand. This won’t take long.” I responded, “It won’t,” and he quickly replied, “My mom is the head of one of the departments, and my dad helped establish this program. I’m getting in.”

I encouraged him to take a seat and proceed with the interview, but he refused again. So, I explained that the interview was part of the selection process and that he needed to do well to be accepted. He then said, “You’ll say I did well, or my parents will make life difficult for you.” Since his parents had no power over me, I calmly told him as much. I even offered him the chance to restart the interview with a clean slate.

Instead, he completely lost control, yelling at me for several minutes. I documented the interview sheet with direct quotes from his outburst. Not surprisingly, he didn’t make it into the program.

A few days after the decisions, I got an email from his mother, who was indeed a department head. She requested a meeting and had a copy of the interview report. After reading the harsh things her son said about me, she sincerely apologized. She asked if he could redo the interview, but I told her the decision was final.

#shorts #short #redditstories

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