GCBrittany

My first-ever interview was awkward on all accounts. During my first conversation with the grad students I was staying with, we were talking about crisis line work and tricky cases. I mentioned that I had a suicidal consumer who smoked weed to relax, and I couldn't tell him to do it or not do it - who was I to say yes or no if it helped him. So I said to do what you need to do to take care of yourself. At this point, the grad students looked at each other so as to say "this candidate is talking about something risque". I guess it wasn't yet legalized medicinally here. Ironically, literature now suggests that alcohol is a risk factor for suicide and marijuana may be somewhat protective. Anyway, it gets worse. One girl who I stayed with had a pet rat, and it had a "medical emergency" at 2am and had to be taken to an emergency vet. My thought: "it's a f***ing rat". Finally, when things couldn't get any worse, I got stuck on an elevator for over 2 hours with 6 other applicants during a clinic tour. We missed most of the social reception that was the closing event to the interview (i.e., networking and sealing the deal). The fire department had to come and get us out. It was literally the worst interview experience ever. On top of that,  a couple current doctoral students I spoke to were a bit full of themselves. When I look back now, I just laugh. I wasn't supposed to go to this program, and nothing worked in my favor from the very beginning.

Not so much questions but three helpful strategies:
1) When I did some informal interviews earlier in the fall I found it incredibly helpful to chat with my interviewer's current Ph.D. students before the interview. Their students usually said something interesting about the program that I never would have known from the website (e.g. I found one research group spends all Friday afternoons together discussing papers and critiquing research ideas while another professor makes it a goal to co-author three papers with every student they take on over the course of the program). This information allowed me to ask the interviewer questions that showed I had really done my homework about the program and I think really impressed them.
2) I would second reading some of their recent papers that way you can explicitly link your research interests to their recent work. Just like any job interview you want to give them all the information they need instead of leaving it to them to connect the dots themselves (sometimes they don't see the connection that seems to obvious to you). Additionally you can ask them if they plan to continue in the same trajectory of ideas or if they are actually hoping to branch out into a new field, something you can't necessarily tell from their websites. Frequently at the end of research papers, at least in my field, there are further research suggestions so you can at a minimum ask to see which of those that are of interest to you that they anticipate working on in the future.
3) Ask any question that would help you answer the following two questions for yourself: will I enjoy living and working here AND will I be able to graduate from this school given the structure of the program. For example if you know you need a little babysitting make sure you are getting a program that has a strong cohort model where students move through the program together and you will have regular structured meetings with your advisors and cohort. Or if you absolutely love rock climbing and you will be super depressed without access to outdoors sports make sure there is a community for that. You can't survive on research alone so I think it is perfectly fine to ask about social aspects of the programs as well.
Good luck!!

re: @lpulicefarrow's  comment, the final approved version of the tax bill actually maintains graduate students' current status, so our tuition will not be taxed. (Source)
Some good questions to ask would be: 
What is your mentorship style?  What has been the career trajectory of graduates from the program/your past graduate students specifically? What are your authorship policies?  What qualities or experiences make a student successful in the program? In your lab?  What kinds of supports are available in the program/department/university for graduate students wanting to learn how to apply for funding? Any questions about the funding package that you may have, e.g., will you be provided with summer funding Any specific research-related questions about one of their papers you have read Contact information of current graduate students in the lab Some questions that were relevant for me, that may not be for you: 
For my Master's thesis and/or dissertation, will I be able to collect my own data or will I primarily be doing secondary data analysis? (many POIs already  had large longitudinal data sets) Are there opportunities to collaborate with other faculty members and/or graduate students? How about with faculty outside of the program/department?  
Keep in mind that interviews are all about information gathering. You want to get a good feel of the program and what your experience in it will be like just as much as they are wanting to get to know you and your strengths/weaknesses. It is always better to err on the side of caution and ask questions about things you may not even consider to be relevant at this point in time, because down the line you may have several programs to choose from and making the final decision will require you to look at those kinds of details.
Also, if you don't get enough time to ask all the questions you have, don't worry about it. You can always email your POI to set up a phone or Skype call to ask any lingering questions.

It might be worth it to ask about their plans for how to deal with the upcoming tax on tuition remission, and steps the university is taking to assist students with staying in school. 
I also check in about publications (as that's something super important to me) and about what my potential mentor's style for working with their students is. 

IMHO, a good way to approach this might be to ask follow-up questions about information that is available about the program online (or in print, or anywhere else you're getting your info). Asking for more detail or specifics about things you've already learned about the program seems to me like a good way to show that you've taken the initiative to do your research, while also getting more details about the things that pique your interest. 

@GCBrittany The match allows you to rank the schools you interviewed at once most of the interviews are completed at the end of March. I believe you enter the school's program you interviewed at and that's how you will create the rank order list. Both the students and the program create this rank order list which is then submitted in the middle of April. Therefore a school can not take away your ability to rank them since  you interviewed at them, prior to match day as no now knows how everyone was ranked until then.The point of the match is for the logarithm to the help the students as much as possible through these rankings even if you aren't in a school's top choice ranking. The logarithm needs all rankings of schools interviewed to do so. 

Sooo I just got a call from OSU!! I was so happy when I saw a call coming from Ohio lol. Let me know if any of you are also going down there for an interview, and maybe we can PM about it. I'm still in a state of shock! 

Looks like two more universities are trying to start up GC programs:
Dixie State Univ. in Utah: https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/dixie/jobs/1928178/assistant-professor-of-genetic-counseling-program-director
Kean Univ. in NJ: https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Kean-University-NJCSTM/jobs/Assistant-Professor-3c256001467d5eaf?q=genetic+counseling+assistant

Happy Dec 15 to those applying to programs with due dates today! 5 apps down for me, still a good handful to go. My bank account is starting to feel it -- thank goodness for extra hours at work! And shout out to those of you who had all your applications submitted like, last month lol. I salute you! I'll just keep telling myself that the later I wait to submit my applications, the less time I will have to stress until I hear back from the schools haha. Good luck everyone, and here's to staying motivated and sane!

Hey thanks this is an awesome alternative to a plain list. Love the visual!