hdclark

Add me to the list of those rejected from Queen's. I'm heartbroken as this was my first choice  I interviewed in January, attended the open house this past weekend, and had a super positive reception from my professor and several other members of the program. My application was even promoted to acceptance by my professor based off of my credentials and work experience, but because I'm an American and there are super strict rules on international students in Ontario, there was no funding available for me. Just when I thought I could escape the turbulence of the US and move on to a sexuality research haven...

Add me to the list of those rejected from Queen's. I'm heartbroken as this was my first choice  I interviewed in January, attended the open house this past weekend, and had a super positive reception from my professor and several other members of the program. My application was even promoted to acceptance by my professor based off of my credentials and work experience, but because I'm an American and there are super strict rules on international students in Ontario, there was no funding available for me. Just when I thought I could escape the turbulence of the US and move on to a sexuality research haven...

Add me to the list of those rejected from Queen's. I'm heartbroken as this was my first choice  I interviewed in January, attended the open house this past weekend, and had a super positive reception from my professor and several other members of the program. My application was even promoted to acceptance by my professor based off of my credentials and work experience, but because I'm an American and there are super strict rules on international students in Ontario, there was no funding available for me. Just when I thought I could escape the turbulence of the US and move on to a sexuality research haven...

AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH (*cries tears of joy*)
School: Simon Fraser University
Concentration: Clinical Psychology (Neuropsychology)
Type: MA/PhD
Date of acceptance: informal acceptance - Feb 12, 2019
Notified by: Personal e-mail from POI

Woah!! Unexpected timing! AHHHH
School: Simon Fraser University
Concentration: Clinical Child Psychology 
Type: MA
Date of acceptance: informal acceptance - Feb 11, 2019
Notified by: Personal e-mail from POI
 

From my personal experience (Canadian schools), it depends on when the committee meets. For example, one school took 1.5 weeks to get back to me since I was interviewed early, and the committee didn't meet until a week later. Whereas another school I was interviewed on Wednesday, and by Friday I was given a heads-up by my POI to look out for my offer on Monday (as that's when the committee meets).
So my piece of advice is, if you do get an interview, ask them about the selection process after the interviews (e.g., "what is the selection process like after the interviews?". If you can, see if they can give you a date for when the committee meets. It's much easier to gauge the timeline that way.  Good luck

I emailed my POI from the interview I had last week at UN-Lincoln. She responded and apologized for the delay and cited the polar vortex-- but she said I am IN!! This is my first acceptance and I am over the moon!

UUGHHHHH! I am dying over here with waiting ? ... just needed to share. 

I met students (and applicants!) with nose (dots and more bull-ring like), lip, and tongue rings, at multiple interviews last week. They looked awesome and the faculty didn’t care. I’d say do you!

Congrats on  the interview, I'm sorry it didn't go as you hoped. I think you could write in your thank you that you didn't feel quite yourself and ended up being more nervous than you anticipated. Maybe you could say you thought more about x idea or question and feel like it is better articulated by saying x. But I think it's something to really think through and send a thoughtful follow-up to show the strengths that maybe you didn't get to fully display. We are all human, and hopefully your PI realizes how stressful this whole thing is! But! That being said, are you someone who doesn't  give yourself the benefit of the doubt/ is quick to be self-critical? Maybe it wasn't as awkward as you thought  and your PI didn't think twice about any of it and was actually impressed by you! I think try as hard as possible to be objective about what you said/didn't say, and what you would say to someone else in your position. Do you have a mentor or anyone like that who would be a good sounding board? Good luck!! 

Just spoke to the Queens Graduate Program Administrator - she said formal invitations for the open house will be going out within the next two weeks. Hold tight!

Take care of yourself. It's awesome you have an interview. Remember, you are also there to "interview" them as well. You might be working closely with some of them for quite some time. Drink enough water (helps with tiredness) and take breaks outside if you can to clear your head. If you can, try to enjoy the interview as well.  You can do this! ?

Unless you know otherwise, your POI could be taking 2 people and they could be your future lab mate. No matter what, they're your future colleague and it's a good opportunity to make a contact at your same level interested in the same sorts of things. 

School: Northwestern (Feinberg School of Medicine)
Type: PhD
Date of invite: January 30th, 2019
Type of invite: Email from Director of Graduate Studies with POIs cc'd
 Interview date(s): 3/4 (in person)
GUYS MY HEART RATE IS CRAZY RN I WAS LOSING HOPE AND APPLYING TO JOBS (which I'll still do as plan b) BUT CAN'T BELIEVE IT AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
 

Nice to know I'm not alone in my misery lol, hardest wait thus far--sigh. 

thanks everyone! I actually ended up hearing from them yesterday and it was fantastic news!

I heard from my POI the second week of January, their program interview date is 2/15/18. Not sure if all invitations have gone out, but that would be my guess at this point.

So I have interviews in February, and honestly I have absolutely no idea what to do to prepare. I'm definitely in that (super healthy) headspace of "this task is so daunting that the best way to solve it is to never ever think about it until it goes away or I die". It's so frustrating because we've all work so hard to get here, and now I'm having this complete mental block. Has anyone else had this problem?
How did you guys go about starting to prep? I know I need to break things down into small manageable tasks but the question is - which step first? 

just got some information regarding Queen's: The committee has discussed the shortlisted applicants and will be sending out invitations for the open house.. i'm guessing sometime next week?

Interviewed with some PI's at SFU this week... WOW WHAT A GREAT SCHOOL AND GREAT PEOPLE. You Canadians sure know how to do excellent research and how to be excellent humans  Just thought I'd drop by with some praise and positivity in these stressful times! 

ANOTHER DAY ANOTHER 1000 PEEKS AT MY EMAIL

School: Columbia University, Teacher's College
Program: Counseling Psychology PhD
Type of Invite: Email from director of Clinical Training inviting me for a virtual interview day
Interview Date(s): February 7

I called the department on Wednesday and was told that interview invites have already gone out.

I just got back from my first interview and my advice is to learn as much as you can about your PI's work. Get a feel of their publication history by reading abstracts going back in their career and read a few of their papers (3-5) related to their current work. This is not a research project and no one will grill you on their current research - in fact, I found that my PI and the lab members were very excited to tell me about their work and having questions about the work that they were doing was not frowned upon. Be honest when you are not familiar with a topic they are speaking about - most are totally happy to explain it to you or point you to resources to learn more - but acting like you know will make you look phony.
Basically, know what you are interested in and want to talk about beforehand through your research, but be ready to learn a lot. Some of the research you will learn about is likely unpublished or starting up in the future and you won't know about it until you get there. Soak it all in, try to imagine how you could see yourself participating, and get excited about discussing it with top-notch researchers - they will definitely notice your enthusiasm.
At the end of the day, the faculty only bring in people for interview that they believe can do the work. The interview is to evaluate how well you will fit in with everyone there. So, don't worry about knowing everything heading in - this will come with time - and just try to learn as much as you can and be enthusiastic about the possibility of working in lab that is doing key research in your topic of interest!

It's hard for me to tell. The email is address to me instead of "Dear applicant" and has my POI's name in the body of the email, but the rest seemed like standardized information.