HaveNotDecidedDisplayName

Okay, so here's a little update on how things are going since my last post. I heard back from my first choice faculty from FSU last week and we did a Skype interview on Monday. It was around 1 hour, and we talked a lot of about theoretical stuff. He said he would let me know either way (if I will be invited to campus for a formal interview on Feb 9th) by the end of the week, which is now. I still have not heard from him. I heard back from my first choice faculty from UCSB this week and we did a Skype interview on Thursday. It lasted for 20 mins and half of it was me trying to make this interview longer by asking about funding. I only gave a very general description of my research interests, and she didn't talk about hers at all. She said she would still need to talk to a couple more people on Friday and Saturday, and she will be able to let me know about the on-site interview on Feb 1 by the end of the weekend. It's Saturday night and I have not heard back. I heard from my third choice faculty from UCSB and we are going to do a Skype interview on the 27th. He said it won't last longer than 15-20 mins so I am picturing it to go like the interview I had with the other UCSB professor. I was kind of surprised because two different professors I applied to work with at the same university reached out to me separately. Their labs actually have weekly meetings together and I was told that the department does a lot of co-mentoring of grad students, so it's not like "You are my student and you get to work with me and me only." But it was still a little strange.

I am turning 24 in a week. This is my first time applying and I hope I get in. I can't do any more gap years.

I'm interested in romantic relationships and I'm applying to like 13 different schools: University of California Los Angeles University of California Berkeley Carnegie Mellon University UC Irvine CUNY Graduate Center & Brooklyn College University of California Santa Barbara University of Rochester University of Pittsburgh Florida State University University of Maryland University of California San Diego University of California Davis Chinese University of Hong Kong Do you guys shy away from assistant professors? Since, you know, they are so new and not so established in their career?