IsleofBlue

The way I see it is just that the interviewer is curious if you have any concrete long term goals. I've had this question a couple of times as well and I've always answered that I have no real preference as of now and that I hope to find out through the process of obtaining my PhD. I don't think you should worry about one answer being better than the other. I've always asked POIs during interviews where their graduates end up going afterwards and they've spoken highly of both academic pathways as well as industrial ones

Woops, I somehow forgot to reply to your post.. in my head I totally did. Anyways, thanks for your response BiochemMom! You were partially right on the second part. The program I interviewed had 3 co-chairs and all students were interviewed by at least 2 of them. The program also consisted of 2 collaborating departments and really little profs in the one department conducted interviews; of course I had to select all professors of the department that played a smaller part in the interview process

Hi everyone, Long time lurker, first time poster here! I hope you don't mind me asking a question. I just received my schedule for the interviews and I was surprised to find that none of the 5 profs that I will be talking to are the ones that I have listed as the profs that I am most interested in -the school sent us a form before to list our top 5. Interestingly, one of my scheduled profs is a Professor Emeritus. Does this happen often? I don't mind a single bit to talk to these professors (they all do cool work), but I just can't get my head around the fact that all 5 of my listed profs are busy.