These beautiful girls shouldn’t come out of interviews sobbing, feeling degraded
Let me start off by saying that my daughter is in a wonderful seminary in Eretz Yisrael and is thriving. But as I reflect back on the application process for getting into seminary, I’d like to comment on the interview process.
Last year, when my daughter and her friends went to interviews, they returned from some of them feeling bad about themselves, inadequate, and at times, even in tears. The common theme that upset them were some of the questions they were asked, which were inappropriate, irrelevant, or focused on things entirely out of the control of a potential future seminary student, such as why an older sibling wasn’t yet married. Not only is that irrelevant, it’s likely to make a sibling feel worse about what can often be a complicated and difficult situation.
Other girls were asked questions like why their grandparents lived in certain places. Is that an appropriate question to pose to a 12th grader trying to get into seminary? Why is a girl being asked if her father was in kollel 20 or 30 or 40 years ago, when her parents first got married? Why are girls being asked what shuls their relatives daven in? Or even what seminary their older sister attended? Each girl is an individual and should be treated as such, evaluated on her own credentials.
Some interviews were cut very short, leaving girls with the feeling they weren’t given a fair opportunity to express themselves. Other girls felt they’d been criticized during the interviews.
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