MidwesternAloha

I interviewed there.

I met a guy who didn't get his rejection letter from one school til August of that year. What a mess.

I think one of the reasons it's so hard to accept family culture in academia is because when a higher education institution invests in you (financially, via stipend), it's fair to expect that your coursework be your first priority. I think most people are distracted by kids- you love them, want to put them first. How can you help it? It's not a bad thing to do that!! But it puts universities in a compromising situation and both sides lose. My husband and I will probably start a family during grad school (as crazy as it sounds), and one program that isn't my #1 choice is sounding better and better because they have a paid maternity leave policy you can use twice in five years! I am sympathetic to mothers who take on grad school. More power to you!!

My perspective is this: if you find $100 on the ground, do you leave it there and hope find $1,000 down the street? No. You pick up the $100 and move along. Sometimes, you don't get that second chance, and then you've lost everything you could've had.

Can I vent? My husband is tired of listening to my story, lol. I applied to three schools. A reach (my #1) and two I reasonably thought I could get into. I got slapped with a big fat rejection from the #1 and I was sad but I moved on. I just spent a WEEK straight at interviews at both other institutions, having fun, getting excited, making lists of things I liked or disliked about each program. Tomorrow, one of those schools is making their decisions and I should hear from both by the end of the week. Awesome, right? Well, late on a Sunday night (yesterday) I receive an email from Old #1 saying some Professor/dept chair held onto my application and although she's in a different track from the one I applied, she wants to talk to me. *insert confused, befuddled, angsty meme here* Im a mess of emotions at the moment. Stress, mainly. Uncertainty (I'm a control freak, so this is hard for me). And what really gets me about this random email, I was able to get a phone appt/interview/idk what it is scheduled for tomorrow. I should mention this school hasn't had the big interview weekend, yet, either. So confused. Vent over. I feel better. Thanks for reading.

Hi, Gabe! I am curious about the importance of follow-up "thank you" emails to the faculty whom you met with during interviews. I would follow up any job interview with such a courtesy, but I almost feel like doing it after a grad school interview would be redundant. And professors are busy, right? Is it common practice to send these, and if so, do you need to write it cover letter style like you would for a job? Seems tedious, for 6+ interviewers at multiple schools.

The best answer is to be honest. You want to appear competitive ("Yes, I have interviews at these 3 or so other places") but also serious about THEIR program. If you say "nowhere else" they may wonder if you're being truthful or if you really aren't prepared for graduate school, but if you say, "oh, yes, I have interviews at Hopkins and Mayo and Sloan-Kettering and UC and Harvard," they may be put off by that and assume your devotions lie elsewhere. Gradcoms aren't stupid, they know you applied to more than one school. Your value is also highlighted by how much other schools want you, too. Just don't rattle off a thousand other schools.

Well, what I meant was that if you do the math, the average PhD stipend is somewhere in the ballpark of two people working for minimum wage. I'm not sure that stipends are negotiable, someone else may have better advice for that than me.

I live near Durham. I would never opt to live there if I had the choice. My colleagues who attended Duke have nothing good to say about the school other than they went because it had a good name. They had also spoken to me about feeling unprepared for writing and communication skills after obtaining their PhD's from Duke.

Living expenses do not double when you get married, in fact (you can even double check me if you don't believe me) they rarely go up by more than 30% of the cost of single living. So yes, graduate stipend are often sufficient to support a family and sometimes equate the sum of two individuals working full time for minimum wage. It can be done.

I definitely just interviewed at an unranked school that had students seated on the admissions committee and many professors had their senior graduate students interview prospective recruits earlier in the day, before meeting with the actual mentor.

Long story short (I'll give you the highlights) -Applied to a certain program at a school -Rejected from said program, with a note asking my permission to allow them to transfer it to a different track for possible review (I thought this to be a generic rejection alternative, but agreed) -No word for another month -Receive email from a faculty member asking for a list of times to speak on the phone regarding my research interests .... Is this an interview? Or a screening? Their recruitment weekend has not yet taken place. Any insight or interpretation would be appreciated

That's great advice! Thank you for the insight!

I disagree. They will see through a pretentious, lofty response. Just be honest. Nobody knows what they want to do the rest of their life. One of my interviewers even said that during my last interview- most of his students' goals change about halfway through, and that's okay.

I'm not really sure what you're asking, but interview days generally begin with a welcome from the program and then you're handed a little itinerary and you're in your way! When you arrive at the person's office, they usually start the conversation with "so tell me about yourself/why do you want to be here"

Depends on the school. Most will create a file for you upon receiving any application materials (including scores) but they may not HOLD them more than a certain period of time.

No. It just means yours may not have been reviewed yet. "Waitlisted" is an official status designation.

Surface.

Unfortunately, schools aren't going to fight that hard for you because they have tons of other people who would agree to be in your place, for less.

How were your interviews with the adcom? I'm preparing for a recruitment weekend (tomorrow thru Sat) that is 3 adcom interviews and 3 POI's. My last interview was all POI'S. How did you prepare?

I'm trying to make a spreadsheet with how much "available" money I would have with a stipend from different schools, and I discovered Florida has no state income tax (obviously, have to pay federal) I don't know how stipends differ from scholarships/taxable income, so I'm somewhat confused by the information on the dept. Of revenue websites.

Stick with the course. It will benefit you. Too many W's indicates a lack of commitment. One or two is normal. You want your strongest academic performance to be shown in your final coursework. Dropping a class because you don't "need" it isn't really a reason, in my book. You can always learn something.