Curious questioner

Thanks, DRMF. This was a while ago, but I went ahead and asked about Skype interviews and was invited to visit at a different time. Thanks, again!

Congratulations on being accepted to both, and being able to make the choice. Assuming you have no strong connections to / feelings about either, I would definitely say NCSU. When you apply for a job, nobody really cares about the ranking of the program or the university, as long as the school has an acceptable reputation. Employers want to know if you can do the job they are hiring you to do. Ask yourself how many years you want to be saddled with student debt. It has become a crisis for many college graduates. You can go to the very fine NCSU program and pay for the entire program with less $ than the cost of one year at Duke. Let that soak in. Are you interested in buying a home in the future? In having expendable income for vacations, etc.? Going into debt for purposes of prestige of a program makes literally no sense. Just my two cents, so no haters, please.

This is the "interview us/we interview you" kind of function (not a post-acceptance visit). I still want to be considered for admission, but am slammed and going to the three-day affair is going to add tremendous stress to a real crunch time. Is it looked down on to ask to do Skype interviews instead? The visit was supposed to be the end of this week (Thursday night through Saturday), so I would think the hotel could still be cancelled at no cost to the university. Thanks in advance for any thoughts/real world experience (like if you did this, but still got accepted to the university, etc,). (Apologies if a similar topic is already posted. Maybe it's the language I used in the "search", but I didn't find anything exactly like this. Feel free to direct me. But be gentle. I'm already completely stressed out! ? )

Hi. I applied to PhD programs based on my belief I would graduate with my Master's degree in May 2019. I have been accepted to start one PhD program (with an assistantship) in the fall 2019 and anticipate hearing from 3 other programs soon. However, I now fear that I won't hit the thesis/defense deadlines at my university to graduate in May and my graduation will be delayed until August 1. Assuming that goes as planned, I will graduate before the orientation and enrollment dates in mid-August for the fall 2019 program. I know I ultimately will need to notify the program that I accept, to tell them of this change, but, does anybody know if a delayed graduation date (which would still be before orientation/enrollment for fall 2019) is likely to change my acceptance (or assistantship!) in the program(s)? I'm freaked out about this, so thanks for any thoughts or similar experiences.