I'm not a mean person, but the impression that one might get in their initial few interactions with me is "competent but unempathetic". So it's going to take me a fair bit of effort to develop rapport with the faculty members of the programs that I will be visiting (I dread the dinners more than I did the GREs). But that's all right--I feel reasonably mentally prepared for this.
But what about the current graduate students? Will their opinions of my character have some kind of influence on the selection process? I know that at some departments, graduate students have a say in whether candidates for faculty positions are hired or not. Is there some similar tradition in graduate admissions? I assume I will be spending a fair amount of time with the graduate students, but I would like to avoid having to play the role of "the amicable undergraduate," because I probably already know more about the discipline than most of them, in addition to having more life experience. I would like to be my usual myself, which is, I guess, "competent but unempathetic".
I know I sound like Ebenezer Scrooge, but I just wanted to get some feel of what the people on this forum think about this.