eklavya

the meeting with faculty is one faculty at a time, and not all at once. and it'll be about your background, research interests, future plans and so on. the faculty will also explain their research, funding situation, etc. however, my advice to you is that search the forums. there are bazillions of threads created on this topic. you will gather a lot of information from those threads than from few people answering to your thread. my interview weekend is coming up as well, and have been going through all the 'interview prep' threads in this site. good luck on the interview!

idea master

hell bells

Slightly different opinion here. In my field (plant breeding and molecular genetics), most students get their MS before moving on to PhD. Furthermore, students are expected (required, in several schools) to make some sort of contact with POIs. Yet, applicants are invited for interviews before offering funding and admission. This, as you mentioned in your post, is for the purpose of matching students and profs with similar research interests. Meeting people in person, taking tour of the lab and facilities, getting to know the to-be cohort of grad students, etc are all beneficial for both student and prof on the long run. Another reason for in-person interview is for recruiting top students. If one school likes a student and wants that student to attend their program, chances are, that student is also liked and wanted by another good program to attend their program. So, schools invited students for interviews to show them that they are better than other schools. But yes, you are right. Virtually all lifescience programs invite students for interviews. It is hard to segregate programs into inviting and not-inviting groups as it seems most programs invite students these days. Mostly research-based programs tend to send out interview offers than others (eg, skill-developing programs, teaching programs, etc).

pen name

stinky odor

i had the EXACT feeling till i got my two offers in last week of December. as unbearable and distressing the waiting period is, the sweeter the good news will be!! just wait it out, you all will get in. it's all karma man

let's put this is the 'movies/tv' thread we have in the 'waiting it out' forum! good luck with the waiting! as for me, my classes (last sem) have started, so that'll hopefully provide some remedy. and am writing up another paper. so yeah, some stress off of the mind but still, waiting is no fun. dude, looking at the results section, it appears that lots of neuro programs have started sending out invites. i wish you all best! and yeah, south park rocks. progressively, randy marsh is on track to be my idol. THEY TOOK OUR JOBS! hehe

x men

off air

from my experience, it does help. not tremendously, but the profs, when come across your app materials, will be like 'oh, i know this kid'. and that's about it. you at least have some advantage above others in a sense that you are pseudo-familiar with the profs and vv. good luck!

c'mon, admit it - you're an addict too! like me!!

low fuel

blue planet

check your mailbox - just sent you a message

white elephant

trapper keeper

killer bee

horse shoes

the questions are scattered evenly among the mathematical areas, so you can expect to see a nice mix of each type. as far as i know, too wordy questions aren't asked. if you have gone through all sorts of practice problems, you can expect the same.

$235 for transcripts? how on earth? i paid 14$ to send transcripts to 7 schools! my total cost including the app fees and GRE reporting was slightly under 700$. i took GRE about 2 years ago, so that isn't added in my total expense.

not that i haven't thought of this, but the guilt-laden thought of 'what if i don't get in because i crossed the line by looking at the places wayyyy ahead of time' has kept me checked. life here is always around 10F. cold is fine with me.. it's the snow i hate the most. and i can't get over the feeling of how am i going to survive for next 3-4 years in miserable weather conditions in the midwest... ugh! this is like a time travel man - you've worked out to the finest details and bravo, you found all the Sarah Connors before landing on earth! my newest level of obsession: checking wisc-madison status page every 5 minutes - this is the only school i care about at the moment!

irish beer

'lets make paper boats out of their applications and see how long it takes to reach their home town' nauseated by the new, huge application pile, one adcomm member looks to others, and says cartman style 'screw you guys, i'm going home!'.

what a misfortune! i really feel for you. those people should be ashamed for their downgrading and inhumane act. is the department not willing to settle this by negotiations? i mean, it's clearly their fault that this tragedy has happened! i hope things can be worked out here. but if things don't look, i still hope you will be able to pick pieces up and move on. but man, what a terrible thing to have happened! on another thought, probably getting a lawyer and suing them is the next best move.