Is there any assumptions worth making about interviewers?

[mrh125]

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How diverse are interviewers and how open-minded are they? Are these the kind of interviews where you can say pretty much anything reasonable and they'll be okay with it if you rationalize it well? Would it be fair to view interviewers as an advocate of you seeing as often times they're the ones who have to convince the committee or the rest of the adcoms? Are there any assumptions that are helpful to make before interviews?

The way one handles an interview can really influenced by the answer to these questions.

 

[mrh125]

Bump

 

[Ismet]

I'm not sure what purpose "making assumptions" would serve. You should know by now that each school is slightly different in their admissions process. Interviewers are people like you and me. They have different backgrounds, different ideologies, different ages, etc. You can have a very conservative interviewer who asks hard-hitting questions, you can have an extremely laid back interviewer where anything goes, or anywhere in between. You can usually gauge how things are going as you go through the interview.

Not all schools have the interviewer sit on the admissions committee. At my school, interviewers just submit a report to the committee and unless they are also on the admissions committee, they do not attend committee meetings and therefore will never "advocate" on your behalf beyond the writeup they submit.