General Reading Into This? Interesting Interview Question

[Question]

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Hey y'all, just wanted to get your thoughts on this question posed by an interview - he started off the interview by asking how many IIs I had got. I was incredibly taken aback. The school is not in the most desirable of locations. I told him my number, and he wrote something down.

Is this something to be... worried about? It's obviously completely out of my hands, and I wrote a thank you note explaining that this school is a top choice of mine, but I just thought it was an incredibly odd question. Maybe he was just making conversation but the fact that he wrote it down worries me.

— Experts please respond to this post —

 

[GoSpursGo]

Nothing you can do about this. I don't see why this is relevant information for them, but no reason for you to tie yourself in knots worrying about it

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Maybe you participated in one of the HPSA Situational Judgment Test workshops. That's similar to one of the scenarios I present.

Most students, a bit to my surprise, said they would tell the truth. When placed in context, that's not what many other "influencers" tell students to do. Some advisors get uncomfortable, but they aren't being interviewed. It's like Peter denying Christ three times as he was on trial...

I agree, it's not something you can control here. Your file may come across as being a real find, so an offer should go out to you (highest bidder/scholarship wins). Alternatively, if you only had their interview (to date), they could convince themselves to drag out an offer to you until late.

Granted, it's no surprise that people who get early interviews likely have other interviews pending. That will change once offers go out.

 

[Dral]

Don't read into this too much.

As an interviewer, I have a range of answers I like to hear to certain questions. I can categorize those generally into the first two categories of the following:

"That was a very excellent/cool/different response"
"That's pretty interesting"
"That's a run of the mill answer" (obviously, most people answer this way)
"That is not a great answer"
"That is missing the point of the question entirely"

Interviewees aren't likely too sure what type of answer I like. Especially since I know my usual co-interviewer likes to hear somewhat different answers than I.

First off, this could have just been a question asked out of curiosity. Maybe they just like to keep data for themselves related somehow to how many interviews people get. Thinking about a possible other point to the question: Maybe they wanted you to say "I'd rather not say". Maybe they wanted you to answer how you did. Maybe they wanted you to answer with "Enough to make me optimistic". Who knows?

 

[Goro]

What's done is done. Ruminating over this will do no good, so just let it go and then move on to the next interview.