Hello! Just hoping to find someone with experience interviewing at NIU that might be able to share some preparation tips or general info about the process!
I interviewed there last year when I was an applicant and went there also for undergrad. Due to COVID-19, things may potentially be different but will give you an idea of what the day was like. Our interview day was sometime in the beginning of November, and roughly ~120 students were interviewed. There was only one interview day, and an additional one was made with little spots in case someone could absolutely not get there on the day they mainly conduct them. You walk in and they give you a folder with information about the program, then walk you into a classroom where they talk about the school and the program itself. They then take you to this large hallway that is like a hangout area, and you sit near the interview room you are assigned to (there were a lot of these rooms). You then have a specific time you will be interviewing, and it can be either a long or short wait. As you wait, current students in the program walk around and are your resources to ask them any questions you want. They also go around asking students who would like to go on a tour during their wait for the interview or after they have done it. Once your interview and tour are pretty much over, you are free to go for the day or stay around to ask more questions.
The interview itself had three people inside. One was part of the faculty and the other two were third-year students I believe. They take turns asking you questions essentially. I think the whole interview itself was 15-20 minutes. They did ask quite a bit of interview questions, maybe around 8-10. Some of the questions were typical ones you would get at any school and were easy, while others seemed to require more complex thought and situation based at times. Out of all the interviews I had, NIU's was the one where I had to ask a few times if I could take a moment to think of a response. I can't remember the more difficult questions anymore unfortunately because of how wordy they felt.
I felt like I did okay with the interview itself. The one thing that caught me off guard is when they asked me at the end to state in one sentence why they should admit me to their program. It mainly caught me off guard because I wasn't sure how to state it in one sentence exactly. With the application cycle the year before mine, they also had an essay portion apparently from what I heard. They did not do anything like that with us, but who knows if they changed it. As long as you practice the basic questions and get a feel for how to answer situational based ones, I think you should be fine. Definitely look into other types though because you will likely not have the same ones as last year.
The typical timeline last year was that the accepted students heard back either the beginning of December or sometime later in that month based on the thread last year. Students who were waitlisted didn't hear back until the either the start or mid-January. Not sure about rejected applicants. They didn't go too far down their waitlist because the cohort was already full (maybe 5-6 got off the waitlist, but will vary each cohort). I was waitlisted myself at #31. It was my top choice because the cost is cheap compared to a lot of programs and also because I attended there for undergrad. I attend a different school now, but would have accepted their offer if I did get off the waitlist.
Good luck!
