University Interview Prep Checklist: The Week Before

How to use this list

The days count down to the interview. Day 7 is a week out; Day 0 is the morning you press start. If you have more than a week, spread Days 7 to 4 out and keep Days 3 to 0 as they are, because the last three days are about the setup and the nerves, and those do not benefit from more time. If you have less than a week, skip to the 48-hour section. Every day has a first item that matters more than the rest; if you can only do one thing that day, do that one. Notice that most of the ticks are runs, not reading. Most advice about this interview, ours included, is about what to do and how, and it matters, but the part you cannot skip is reps: each timed answer comes out a little better than the one before, and by Day 2 that is the whole difference between you and the student who read every guide and recorded nothing.

Two assumptions. First, the interview is recorded and timed with no interviewer, which is the format for every Ontario supp app video and most BC ones; the video interview questions guide describes it if you have not seen one. Second, you already know your program’s prep and answer timers. If not, they are in the timer guide, and finding them is the first tick below.

Day 7: know the format, bank the stories

• ☐ Find your program’s exact format: number of questions, video or written, prep time and answer time for each, and whether it must be done in one sitting. Write it on a card.
• ☐ Confirm the deadline and the window: the date, the time zone, and whether the invite expires earlier than the program deadline.
• ☐ List six stories out loud, one each for leadership, teamwork, resilience, initiative, conflict and a failure. Titles only, on the same card.
• ☐ For each story, name the number in the result: a mark, a head count, money, a date met. A story with no number gets replaced.
• ☐ Read the guide to the STAR method once, for the shape. Do not write anything down from it.

If the six stories will not come, the no-extracurriculars guide is for exactly that evening. AcceptMe’s Story Bank does this day as a conversation: the coach interviews you out loud about one competency at a time and drafts an outline from what you said, so the story is in your words before you ever tell it on a clock. Leadership, Teamwork and Resilience are free.

Day 6: program research and the one question you know is coming

• ☐ Read the program’s own page for its interview or supp app, start to finish, and note any competency it names (Schulich lists five; Ivey says leadership).
• ☐ Write two sentences, in your own voice, on why this program rather than the same degree elsewhere. Say them out loud, not off the page.
• ☐ If the program pre-shares a question (Rotman, Waterloo Engineering), prepare that one fully, on a timer, and tell nobody else’s answer to it.
• ☐ Prepare the 60-second “tell me about yourself” using the tell me about yourself guide. It is the most likely opener on every platform.
• ☐ Tell all six stories against a phone timer set to your answer clock. Not recorded. Just to hear where the clock falls.

Day 5: the first timed runs

• ☐ Three unseen questions, on camera, on your program’s exact prep and answer timers, one take each. Not questions you chose. Not questions you read this morning.
• ☐ Read each transcript, not the video. Find the sentence with the result. If it is missing, that is your fix for tomorrow.
• ☐ Mark where the situation ended and the action began. If it is past halfway, the setup is too long.
• ☐ Pick one fix. Write it on the card. One.

This is the day the practice guide is about, and it is the day most students skip because the first runs are painful. They are supposed to be. The pain is the format being learned. AcceptMe’s two free runs cover today; from tomorrow you need more.

Day 4: more runs, one fix each

• ☐ Four unseen questions, same timers, same camera, one take. Apply yesterday’s fix and nothing else.
• ☐ In the transcripts, count the filler: um, like, so basically, restarted sentences. Note the number; you will compare it on Day 2.
• ☐ Check whether one story appeared twice across the four answers. If it did, retire it for tomorrow.
• ☐ Check the last sentence of each answer. If it is “I learned that teamwork is important,” replace it with what you would do differently.
• ☐ Pick tomorrow’s one fix.

Day 3: the setup, tested for real

• ☐ Decide the laptop, the room, the desk and the time of day. Write them on the card. The real one happens there and then.
• ☐ Lens at eye level on a stack of books. Light in front, window not behind. Take a webcam photo and check both eyes are visible.
• ☐ Background: plain wall or bookshelf, nothing with words, nothing that moves.
• ☐ Audio: record 30 seconds in the room and listen back on earbuds. Hum, echo, fan, traffic: find and fix.
• ☐ Chrome, plugged in, every extension off, every other app closed. Wired internet if you have it; if not, know where the router is.
• ☐ Run the platform’s own practice questions once, on this setup, for the interface and the audio only.
• ☐ Choose the shirt. Plain, solid, not the colour of the wall. Hang it up.

Every item above is expanded in the setup guide, including the honest answer to whether how you look is scored (it is not; whether you can be heard is).

Day 2: the dress rehearsal

• ☐ A full run: the same number of questions the program asks in one sitting, on the real laptop, in the real room, at the real time of day, in the shirt. Unseen questions, exact timers, one take each.
• ☐ Read the transcripts. Compare the filler count with Day 4. Confirm every answer reached a result.
• ☐ Check the clock: did you land with five to ten seconds in hand, or get cut off, or finish at half? Adjust the setup length, not the result.
• ☐ Write the sticky note: at most six words, the titles of your stories, stuck beside the lens at eye level. Nothing on the desk.
• ☐ Tell the household the date and time. Ask for the door closed and the Wi-Fi to yourself for an hour.

Day 1: the night before

• ☐ No new stories. No new questions. No practice runs after dinner.
• ☐ Say the six story titles out loud once, with the number in each result. That is the entire revision.
• ☐ Laptop charged and plugged in, phone charged and put somewhere else, water glass filled and placed out of frame.
• ☐ Reread the card: format, timers, deadline, room, time. Nothing else.
• ☐ Bed at a normal time. A tired face is forgiven; a tired story is not.

Day 0: the morning of

• ☐ Eat. Shower. Shirt. Do not check the mirror after that.
• ☐ Ten-minute pre-flight: plugged in, one tab, extensions off, lens at eye level, light in front, background clear, door closed, note by the lens.
• ☐ Platform practice question once, for audio and framing only. Then read the Assessment Details slide for the number of questions and the timers, and confirm it matches your card.
• ☐ Three slow breaths. Press start.
• ☐ If you stumble, keep going. If the clock runs out, let it. If question one goes badly, trim the setup on question two and forget question one.
• ☐ Submitted. Screenshot the confirmation. Close the laptop. Go outside.

If you only have 48 hours

Cut the plan to the items that change the recording. In order:

1. Hour one: find the format and the timers (Day 7, first two items). Everything else depends on them.
2. Hour two: six story titles, each with a number in the result, said out loud. Skip the reading.
3. Rest of today: six unseen questions on the exact timers, on camera, one take. Read the transcripts. Fix the one thing that appears most, which is almost always the missing result.
4. Tomorrow morning: the setup (Day 3, all items) in the real room, then the dress rehearsal (Day 2, first three items).
5. Tomorrow afternoon: nothing. The night-before list, then sleep.
6. The day: Day 0 as written.

Forty-eight hours is enough to get from “never done a timed answer” to “landed six with a result.” It is not enough to build stories you do not have, so if a competency is genuinely empty, pick the nearest story you do have and be honest in one sentence about the fit.

What not to do this week

Do not write scripts. A written answer is 300 words, which is over the clock on almost every program, and it gets read, and reading is visible. Waterloo says so in its own interview advice. Titles on a card, never sentences.

Do not cram new stories after Day 5. A story banked on Day 1 is the one you will fumble on Day 0, because it has never been told on a clock. Six stories told ten times beat twelve told once.

Do not practice with retakes. If your practice tool lets you re-record, turn that off. The real one is one take, and practicing with a bail-out trains you to bail.

Do not spend Day 3 on your face. The setup day is about whether you can be heard and seen, which takes an hour. It is not about your hair, which is not on the rubric.

Do not read a question list the morning of. It fills your head with thirty half-answers and makes the prep window a search instead of a choice. The card has six titles. That is the list.

Do not let a parent sit in. During practice, a parent as the audience for a timed run is useful. During the real one, a person in the room changes your eye line and your voice, and some platforms treat a second person as an integrity issue. Door closed, alone.

Where to go from here

The three guides this list leans on are the practice guide, which explains why Days 5, 4 and 2 are built the way they are and what to read for in a transcript, the setup guide for Day 3 in full, and the STAR method guide for the shape of every story on the card. If your invite is from Kira, the Kira Talent interview practice guide covers what the platform monitors and why retakes are the program’s call. If a parent is running this list with you, how to help your child prepare for a university interview sets out the three things that help and the three that hurt, and if your transcripts are full of um and like, the stop-saying-um drill fits into Days 5 to 2. For the timed runs on Days 5, 4 and 2, AcceptMe’s custom interviews give you an unseen question on your program’s exact prep window and answer clock, one take, and the transcript with the coach’s notes, so the ticking is done by the tool and the reading is done for you.