Attending College Interviews

Whether you're applying college places as back up just incase you can't (well, don't get the grades to) stay at your current High School, I would definitely recommend applying.. Just for the sake of it. Well, not literally. Okay okay- it is. College interviews provide you with experience and the basic of "how to sell yourself", this could be beneficial as it gives you an insight to what may happen at job interviews.. Although they're much more formal and important. Not that education isn't =)

Hours leading up to the interview (didn't have time to think about it because I was revising for exams), I was going over possible questions the tutors may ask me, such as "Why this particular college?", "Talk to me about some of the artists you have studied" for your information, the interview was for an A-level course in fine art.

These possible questions caused me to run answers over and over again in my head.. But it turns out that they didn't pop up! In fact, she (assuming she is a fine art tutor?) simply looked over all the work I've done since year 10, as the work produced in year 9 (school started GCSEs a year earlier) doesn't reflect my current ability.

Due to some complications, I joined the room half way through, whilst she was putting on a presentation of current and previous AS & A-Level artwork pieces. 

After the presentation, she explained how she expects high attendance from all of us, as Art in general is a demanding subject - particularly at Level 3 on the education system. So, she asked us all the attendance rate of us at this current school year.. Surprisingly, all of the responses were below 90%! I didn't really pay attention to the responses until I said that I had 100% so far - and everyone looked at me. She gave me a weird smile. Like the cheshire cat in Alice In Wonderland. To make it worse, she then decided to get us all to tell her our English and Maths GCSE predicted grades. Oh boy, that was awkward. (TURTLE!) 

The ones before me hesitated before saying that they either had completed the GCSEs with a certain grade, or are predicted with a grade whatever. (Insert grade here)

When it was my turn I decided to lower my actual predicted grades because they were a little high.. compared to the other 16 year olds applying for a place.. When I told her my targets, she hissed 'Lovely', yet again with the cheshire cat smile. But this time, cross that with Harry Potter's parcellin- parsel- PARSELTONGUE THAT'S IT! hissing sound- and you'll know what I mean. 

After all this, she wanted to look at my sketchbooks. As organised as I was, I even brought the official GCSE certificates along, even though they're not for Art. 

Flicking through my sketchbooks and recent pieces of work, she had the general idea and knowledge of a commited and organised person I am. When she was done, all she did was fill in the sheet of 'Short & Long Term Goals' for me and proceeded to ask me to list all the GCSE subjects I was doing.. 

Not on purpose, I started to list all 16 subjects I was studying for. (At this point I haven't told her that she may run out of paper.. because the box was 2cm x 5cm in size!) 

Anyway, Dual Award English, Dual Award Maths, Separate Sciences (she had the cheshire-parseltongue voice on again, complimenting how good of me it is to follow Da Vinci's footsteps of studying Art & Sciences), Geography, ICT - complete, Cambridge iGCSE Computing.. at this point she stopped me because she had ran out of writing space after Dual Award Maths - so she finally asked me in total how many subjects I was studying for. When I replied with '16', she immediately had a shock of horror on her face, yet managing to blurt out 'How do you sleep, eat and have any spare time?' I simply laughed. Apparently the average student at this particular college has 3 GCSES. That was when I was in shock. 

All in all, it was a really good informal interview, she placed me with a conditional offer due to restrictions and guidelines for the course application, but then again she did say that rules are meant to be broken and she'd give me an A-Level grade by simply looking through my sketchbook. Hmm.. 

I had a really pleasant experience today and I feel really bad inside because I did simply apply to this college as a back up application.. because I am honestly really scared that I won't hit the jackpot to continue studying at my current High School.

Now, I feel obliged to write her a card in August (when the results are out) that I wouldn't be attending the college..