peachypie

Pretty bad form to cancel an interview especially the way you played it out. An alternate weekend for a school is going to very likely the same "feel" as the first weekend interview; especially since there are usually more than one applicant there. Stick to what you promised to school A (think how awful you'd feel and respond if school A decided to cancel you for another applicant they thought they liked better after they told you to come!). Inquire about an alternate weekend for school B.

You would never be able to determine the fit of a lab from a 30-45 minute interview. PIs and labs are much more complex than that. That is your naivete showing. I'm not being antagonistic but this same exact question has come up a multitude of times in this thread alone. I'm surprised we are still getting posts about it, just kind of like the clothes stuff. All of that is just evidence that people are focusing on the wrong things when going through this process. You are a grown adult and you are about to be a graduate student. You clearly are smart enough to figure out how to talk to your POIs, you actually had the answer all along by saying...meeting/talking with profs during your visit. Maybe during a social or poster session, lunches and dinners or happy hours is your time to go and introduce yourself. Instead you said that this scheduling was possibly due to "getting the leftovers". You had a negative approach about it, regardless of what you say now. Again, I will emphasize....interviews should be about what school/program is best for you. Not individual PIs. Do not fall into the *very frequent* trap that you go to a school to work with someone you have in mind. It VERY frequently doesn't work out the way you anticipate. When or IF that were to happen you will have wanted to pick a program that even if a PI or lab does not work out will still give you very good training and is a school and program you feel supports you and fits your lifestyle as well as your academic approach. Again and again and again....do not pick a school based on a lab. That is putting the cart before the horse.

So all of your other interviews have 100% of your interviews with potential POIs? is that what I'm hearing. so like you have 4-8 POIs at each university and you've managed to get scheduled with all of them? They do their absolute best but things come up. Umbrella programs most certainly may operate differently than smaller,individual program interviews. If this is throwing you off of BU then I'd suggest you don't interview with them. I have said it before, and will now say it again. Do not go to a school with the intent on working with one specific person. This often doesn't work out. Things happen: faculty move, faculty lose funding, faculty take 2 students the year before you instead of one. It sets you up for failure. What you should do at an interview is look at the personality of the students and faculty and general feel to make sure its a good fit for you as a person. Are you a type A person but everyone around is you super passive? Probably not going to be a good fit. Also people rotate through their previous POI and realize they would hate working for them. Finding a good fit in a lab to be successful is way more about the relationship and personality of your lab and you and a lot less about the research being "interesting" or "your favorite". We say this every year to grad students and they come in thinking that its all about the research. Well its not. So you never know what your potential profs will be like once you work with them. Try to be a bit more open-minded and see the bigger picture here. If you feel that BU has screwed up in this regard: cancel it and move on.

Thursday night: casual (sweater/nice shirt and either khakis or like even nice jeans) interview day/any day you are meeting or around faculty: business casual. NO JEANS. Saturday/Sunday: any time with just grad students can be more comfortable and should reflect what you are doing? Walking campus tour? Casual/comfortable, going out to bars or going to a sporting event/music can be casual. Just be reasonable.

doesn't really work like that. you aren't interviewing to work with specific people, you are interviewing to enter the graduate school. Many people do not get all of their interviews with people in their field as often faculty on admissions committee need to interview students. Also it is a matter of availability of faculty those days, not all faculty are around or free. This has come up time and time again in this sub and people need to stop acting like an interview at a school is all about finding their next advisor, that is not the point of this. Its great if you get to meet with someone you are interested in but by NO means should your interview schedule give you an idea of where you'll work or what dibs you or some other students got.

pretty unnecessary, if you need to explain your work you should be able to simplify it down to a general summary with the ability to go deeper if they ask. Having a ppt is way more than expected and almost would look like you aren't at ease talking about your research in conversation without the help of aids.

I understand you are from a different field so I'm guessing that is why there may be some differences. In the biological sciences often acceptances are offered following an in person interview. People who do not interview (at least that I know of and of course there can be rare exceptions) are not offered admissions. Skype interviews are reserved to international applicants unable to attend interview weekend and extenuating circumstances (i.e. blizzards that shut down travel and cause an applicant to miss an official interview without any chance for rescheduling). I was working a full time job when I interviewed and took time off, everyone at my job understood this was how it worked and although I missed work (often wed-friday) I often came in on Sunday if I got back by then to start work for the week so everything didn't end. People also interview when they are still undergrads, missing class and having to make up exams or labs. It is part of the field, for you to say we are all tone deaf in our response may be a reflection of the differences between a biomedical/biolgoical science graduate interview and a classical archaeology graduate interview; to which I say I would expect more humility for a subject you have no experience in.

Tech is a really good engineering school and is well-respected in science and tech fields. I am not sure what area of evo bio you are interested in working on exactly. Could you go into what type of work you are interested in exactly (are you working big data with genomics etc) Also think of what you may want to do after graduate school, are you more interested in academia, industry, government? that may help us advise you. I believe all of those schools are great schools and internationally recognized so you can't go wrong but I believe knowing more information about you specifically can help to decide which of these schools aligns best with your future endeavors and type of work.

just so you know you may have accidentally wandered into the biology/life sciences applicant threads. I will say doing what you did will feel like nothing for you since you have already overcome a lot and matured a ton through your schooling. There are a lot of people who struggle in graduate school yet, namely those straight out of undergrad, since they have not endured obstacles and difficulty in academics up to this point and are used to the "undergrad" mentality of school. You sound like you have a good head on your shoulders. Best of luck!

And the understatement of the day award goes to you. Wait until you realize how many people master out.

Yeah this is definitely something that happens (faculty leaving). Webpages can be wildly out of date, as I believe you are realizing right now. Many times a professor moves and either the graduate school or their own personal webpages do not reflect their current appointment. This can lag from weeks to months to almost a year easily. This is another classic reason why you do not apply to a school to work with just one individual. Not saying you did, but this is the perfect situation that arises that leads to an unhappy student. I don't think you need to contact the professor. If he/she is no longer associated with Weill Cornell then it doesn't quite matter for your purposes in relation to your Weill Cornell interview. That is also something that if you chose to go to that school you can investigate further; however, it appears from what you've noted that this professor is no longer associated with Weill Cornell. I don't think professors think about potential graduate students they've never been in any communication with about regarding a transfer. People take jobs or leave jobs for a lot of reasons and they do not need to, nor should they be, expected to do so on an arbitrary timeline for something like this. They also for reasons of job security have no need to make this known to anyone that isn't on a need to know basis. Maybe had you contacted him ahead of time, if he was this important, you would have known many months ago about this. I would not ask the coordinator about for a few reasons. One it shouldn't matter. If you are interviewing there you should be interested in the school regardless of this one person being there or not. Don't let them realize that you are only interested in working with him. They may still interview you but they may not admit since they would guess you'd decline if the professor is not there. Also its not important, it happens. I had people in my SOP that were associated with the program when I applied that I later found out had left during those few months, it happens. Be professional about this. If you are not interested in this school because this one person isn't there maybe you should contact them and ask to withdraw your application and cancel your interview. If you are still interested in the school even though this person is no longer associated with the program then go ahead on the interview and drop any follow up questions about this one person.

It likely is a mixture of availability and position in the program (are they on the admission committee, do they run a core facility, are thew newer faculty...so many reasons really). The interviews are not solely to find specific labs, you should be well-rounded and able to talk to many different scientists. Also it has been said here before and is worth repeating. Don't go to a school with the intent on working with one person, you should have a few different PIs you are interested in, since many many times it does not work out the way you anticipate. interviews give you a chance to talk to PIs you may not have initially thought you were interested in but may be worth looking further into.

Not all interviews will be with everyone you want to work with. It sounds like you were asked for five and they set up interviews with 4. The one that is not on that list is likely not available to meet with you. I don't think the misspelling is an issue, generally program coordinators work for a specific department and know all the PIs anyway and one letter mixup is not going to confuse them to that level. I wouldn't be overly concerned about contacting again. You probably won't hear back about anything specific until closer to the interview date, the coordinator is probably fairly busy right now with setting up interview details and the current students of the program.

Yes that will be just fine.

I don't think when you submitted an application is going to have an impact on when you hear back. Generally unless its rolling admissions, of which UNC is not, they wait and review all of them at once.

I'm not going to contribute anything that hasn't been already said but in all honesty I am wondering if you actually want to interview at this program or not. To me everything you've communicated is that something else is more important. There is no way that a new part time research job should rank higher than a PhD interview with a professor offering you multiple interview dates. Don't take this the wrong way but you have your priorities really messed up. I take it you want to get into the other department of the same school of the part time lab that you are hoping to do your PhD in. I hope you realize two things: 1. people in the same school talk so hopefully this doesn't mess you up when it comes to admission to that department and 2. I believe this interview is just a back up to your other more interested PhD placement. I'd be surprised if you were offered admission to this program at this point.

That is not a bad idea. Many programs that have local applicants still offer them hotel accommodations for the purposes you noted as well as if you are rooming with another applicant to help allow you to meet and bond with potential classmates.

I wouldn't contact the PIs externally I'd simply fill out the request and note who you are interested in meeting with. Some of those people will be chosen and some will be random people. Spoiler alert: you won't be meeting with solely people you are interested in working with no matter what you say or do. Just fill it out, as they asked, and see what comes up.

Could you be more specific? That is a really large general question to ask that is way too much to answer on a forum.

FFS....2 words and you managed to screw up one of them.

"I look forward to visiting your school/program in January. I was wondering how travel will be arranged for the visit prior to completing my survey." or something like that. The options for most places are: they book for you and you give them your information and they confirm before booking that these times/places work. OR that you book on your own and they reimburse you, in which case you may want to verify if there is a reimbursement limit since it is a big flight and it may exceed. I had only one program that I bought the ticket and then got reimbursed so before I purchased my ticket I verified if the prices I was seeing with an average dollar amount were ok. I have heard of some places capping it at 500 for airfare but that will be entirely dependent on the program. If they aren't paying for your travel at all I would strongly suggest debating if this program is of that much interest to you. It also doesn't sound good if they don't have the money to pay for applicants...could raise some eyebrows for potential applicants as to the health of the program and funding.

Disclaimer: this is my experience from interviewing and wanted to touch on these points. 1. Jeans were not considered OK for any of my interviews and no one wear them. At this point I say: wear at your own risk. The cost of a nice pair of jeans and a nice pair of regular standard pants is not going to be different if not at times less expensive than the jeans. No reason you can't for one day not wear jeans. 2. The truth is no one is really judging you for your outfit but more about how you act when you are trying to put your best foot forward. Believe it or not graduate schools take into account more than your scientific persona into question as an applicant. I have seen very qualified people get rejected from programs due to their personality and how they carry themselves. Don't seem confident? Can't look people in the eye when you talk? Showed up wearing a t-shirt and jeans? These are all things that may not get you on the reject side but as things add up could make their overall impression of you as less than stellar. Why risk it? Judging by this comment if you were to say that its not about what you wear then I challenge you to wear a tshirt with obscenties on it and see if you get admitted or maybe just like a bud light promo shirt? think that if a grad school rejects you for that its because "its not a school you want to go to anyway" or do you think it is maybe because you look unprofessional? As philosophically as you want to believe its not about what you are wearing it does have an impact when they are putting together a profile of who you are, often what you wear conveys what you are as a person (sorry thats the real world way). 3. No one does care what your bag/purse is unless it has something obscene on it. They however do not have a closet or place for you to stash your stuff. None of my interviews did. I had to carry stuff with me, just like I had to carry my coat and all that stuff with me. Why? Well because you all move around and you may start the morning having a breakfast and welcome and then leave for some interviews and then come back for a lunch in a totally different area. No one ever left anything behind because you didn't have a central place to go. Only bring with you what you are going to carry around. However you will be able to set these items down in the offices of PIs and on chairs at dinners/lunches. No one is going to be babysitting your stuff though. Many schools will provide you with a nice little tote/folder with your important materials upon check-in or at the very start of the visit. Many people just used that for the remainder of their trip or combined it with their own. yeah its true, you get swag from your interviews. I got pens, totes, water bottles, candy, fruit, granola bars, usbs, notepads, leather portfolios etc.

That should be fine just might be a bit cold for some of those interviews. Tights help but they don't protect you much from cold, wind, and snow.

I think those shoes will work just fine.

Do not email the programs as it is not necessary. I would suggest at this point you assume you have been rejected and begin applying for research jobs. The worst that happens is you get an invite last minute and have job interviews but if you get in then you can always leave the research job it is not like you are forced to stay there forever. Since the interviews are occurring in the next few weeks you'll likely not be already working before the final decisions are made thus it is really easy to decline a job if something were to change in the next few weeks.