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I was wondering if anyone had any advice about interviews. Specifically, I'm prepared for questions about my research, reasons for graduate study and aspirations, but will there be technical questions? I'm having trouble finding chemistry-specific advice on this. Thanks for any and all responses!

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I had pretty much 0 technical questions except for some very basic stuff when I was explaining my research.  Basically things I should know very well right off the bat.  HOWEVER, I have heard from fellow interviewees that were at the same interviews as myself that did have some fairly technical questions.  For whatever reason they also tended to be still in undergrad.  They may not have had as much research to discuss so the profs decided to get more technical with them?  Other stories include interviews turning down a path to make the applicant uncomfortable if they sensed you were full of shit.  

I honestly had 0 of these interactions, all my interviews were really normal.

I will say this, if you go in and you clearly know your stuff, they back off right away.  its kind of like the GRE where the first few minutes/questions will determine where the interview goes.  If they see any reason to suspect that you are not confident in what you are saying, are intimidated or scared they'll hone in on that.  (this being some profs not all, and typically the ones your buddy will warn you about ahead of time.... i.e. "this guy can be a real ball buster").  My advice is know what you know, admit what you don't and keep it at that.  PIs hate BS, so don't blow smoke if you can't back it up.  

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Other stories include interviews turning down a path to make the applicant uncomfortable if they sensed you were full of shit.

O_O Any specific examples of this?

Does anyone has experience in / advice for group interviews? I'm gonna have one in 3 weeks, and I'm not sure what they mean by a "group interview" - is it me & a group of PI's talking, or a group of interviewees speaking with a particular PI at once?

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I had one on the 31st-two PIs on the phone (I assume the two PIs on the adcom for my sub-discipline), was about 10 minutes with questions seemingly preprepared and fairly standard-my work, why grad school, stuff like that, all in all not too bad

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I also had a phone interview with two PIs the other day. Took about 15 minutes. All questions were regarding my research and my incentive for going to graduate school, and nothing very specific. I think they were looking to get a broad insight into what motivates me and were I want to go with my work. 

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29th of December via email, although I think they also sometimes call people.

 

Did you do an early application? Looking at last year's results, it seems like most people heard back in late January. Congratulations regardless, Scripps is a dream school. 

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Did you do an early application? Looking at last year's results, it seems like most people heard back in late January. Congratulations regardless, Scripps is a dream school. 

No, I didn't apply early. I don't think they'll notify people about interviews in late January this year, because their first interview date is Feb 12th and they require that you book flight plans a month in advance. Maybe it's just because scheduling things pushed their interview date earlier than last year, so they had to notify early? Just guessing. And thanks!

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Regarding the Scripps interview, has anyone heard how many students they accept after the interview process?

This is verbatim from a friend who was accepted last year but chose not to attend: "By interview, Scripps really means sanity check. Just don't be a dick, and you will most likely be accepted." If someone more familiar with the interviews can confirm, that would be great. Edited by ghostar
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Regarding the Scripps interview, has anyone heard how many students they accept after the interview process? 

 

Also curious about this. Just got invited to interview at Scripps, along with one of my friends. I feel like Scripps will be more likely to ask technical questions than other schools... I feel like I should brush up on my o-chem.

You guys gonna do the CA or FL campus? Both?

 

I had a skype interview with Purdue, and they actually did ask me somewhat technical questions about my research/publications. I wasn't really expecting it, and hadn't prepared for it, but I think I did fine. They were pretty soft-ball questions, more to see if I was bullshitting than anything else I think. They also asked me what I was interested in researching, why I listed POI's, about my current research. Was pretty laid-back, and I got to ask plenty of questions myself. Total interview time lasted about 40 minutes.

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I had a skype interview with Purdue, and they actually did ask me somewhat technical questions about my research/publications. I wasn't really expecting it, and hadn't prepared for it, but I think I did fine. They were pretty soft-ball questions, more to see if I was bullshitting than anything else I think. They also asked me what I was interested in researching, why I listed POI's, about my current research. Was pretty laid-back, and I got to ask plenty of questions myself. Total interview time lasted about 40 minutes.

What were the soft-ball questions like, may I ask? Any specific examples?

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What were the soft-ball questions like, may I ask? Any specific examples?

 

Sure, they were very relevant to the topic of my publications. This research involved characterization of enzyme activity by phylogenetic and bioinformatic means, but also involved lab work. We determined active site residues and mutated those residues to change substrate specificity in the enzyme. PI asked how we determined the active site residues, how we mutated the residues, and what the new substrate specificity was (I didn't know the answer to this question, and said so. This work was done a couple years ago, and I wasn't involved in that portion). They also asked about my current organic synthesis project, how many steps, complexity, the applications to my overall greater project (synthesizing an unnatural amino acid for use in nucleic acid binding peptides).

 

So technical - not too much. Specific and relevant to my research, yes. Presumably, most of us here will know what our own research was about. 

Edited by doyouevenchop
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Sure, they were very relevant to the topic of my publications. This research involved characterization of enzyme activity by phylogenetic and bioinformatic means, but also involved lab work. We determined active site residues and mutated those residues to change substrate specificity in the enzyme. PI asked how we determined the active site residues, how we mutated the residues, and what the new substrate specificity was (I didn't know the answer to this question, and said so. This work was done a couple years ago, and I wasn't involved in that portion). They also asked about my current organic synthesis project, how many steps, complexity, the applications to my overall greater project (synthesizing an unnatural amino acid for use in nucleic acid binding peptides).

 

So technical - not too much. Specific and relevant to my research, yes. Presumably, most of us here will know what our own research was about.

Got it - thanks a lot!

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This is verbatim from a friend who was accepted last year but chose not to attend: "By interview, Scripps really means sanity check. Just don't be a dick, and you will most likely be accepted." If someone more familiar with the interviews can confirm, that would be great.

That's good to hear.  Hopefully that is how it works!

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Also curious about this. Just got invited to interview at Scripps, along with one of my friends. I feel like Scripps will be more likely to ask technical questions than other schools... I feel like I should brush up on my o-chem.

You guys gonna do the CA or FL campus? Both?

 

 I'm definitely going to FL campus, but I'm not sure about CA yet.  What are you planning on doing?

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I'm definitely going to FL campus, but I'm not sure about CA yet. What are you planning on doing?

I was planning on CA, but there are some really cool faculty at the FL campus, so I'm not sure

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To add to this, what kind of questions are you guys planning on asking the faculty at each school?

Things like their advising philosophy (I find this very important for fit), recent challenges in their research & future directions, background of grad students coming in (like their undergrad research experience), opportunities for collaboration, things they find to be most unique about their grad program.

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Things like their advising philosophy (I find this very important for fit), recent challenges in their research & future directions, background of grad students coming in (like their undergrad research experience), opportunities for collaboration, things they find to be most unique about their grad program.

 

I agree with all of these (especially the first two) and will also mention asking about where alumni end up after graduating as well - I think that's a big one. I've also asked about time-to-graduation and completion rates at a school.

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I agree with all of these (especially the first two) and will also mention asking about where alumni end up after graduating as well - I think that's a big one. I've also asked about time-to-graduation and completion rates at a school.

And also, FUNDING STATUS. Can't leave this one out.

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Regarding the Scripps interview, has anyone heard how many students they accept after the interview process? 

Just in case you (or anyone else) are still wondering about this: I spoke to one of the profs at Scripps FL on the phone and he told me (unprompted!) that they almost never reject someone after interview.

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Just in case you (or anyone else) are still wondering about this: I spoke to one of the profs at Scripps FL on the phone and he told me (unprompted!) that they almost never reject someone after interview.

That's awesome! Thanks! Are you visiting the FL campus?

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