About interviews

[raul.carmo]

Hey all,

As an international applicant with little experience in the American graduate admissions world, I would like to know what to expect from an skype interview with a POI. I would like to be more prepared but I am not sure whether they will talk about their research experience, my credentials, my goals as a grad student, my personal life, general chemistry (lol) or even a mix of everything. What are the topics professors are usually more interested in these interviews?

[Ashok@513]

5 hours ago, raul.carmo said:

Hey all,

As an international applicant with little experience in the American graduate admissions world, I would like to know what to expect from an skype interview with a POI. I would like to be more prepared but I am not sure whether they will talk about their research experience, my credentials, my goals as a grad student, my personal life, general chemistry (lol) or even a mix of everything. What are the topics professors are usually more interested in these interviews?

I had an interview with one of the professors from Purdue. The format is pretty simple they ask us about the research background in details and what you accomplished with the research. Finally they mainly concentrate on communication skills for teaching. It lasted 15 min. 

[raul.carmo]

3 minutes ago, Ashok@513 said:

I had an interview with one of the professors from Purdue. The format is pretty simple they ask us about the research background in details and what you accomplished with the research. Finally they mainly concentrate on communication skills for teaching. It lasted 15 min. 

Nice! Are you a domestic or international applicant? 

[Ashok@513]

7 hours ago, raul.carmo said:

Nice! Are you a domestic or international applicant? 

I’m an international but did my masters in chemistry in United States 

[Flyera]

On 1/10/2018 at 4:51 PM, Ashok@513 said:

I had an interview with one of the professors from Purdue. The format is pretty simple they ask us about the research background in details and what you accomplished with the research. Finally they mainly concentrate on communication skills for teaching. It lasted 15 min. 

Was your interview part of a visit after you had been accepted? I'm not really sure what to expect during the visit weekend interviews, and if those are different than an interview as part of the admissions process.

[Eigen]

It's more of a school by school thing. 

Some do pre-acceptance interviews, some post-acceptance, and some do visit weekend where everyone comes at once. 

Generally, I'd say chemistry interviews bias to more of a "last check" before they accept you. When I was in grad school, my department planned to accept everyone that interviewed unless something was glaringly wrong during the interview. Like the guy that spent the whole weekend dissing all of the faculty members research. 

[Ashok@513]

On 1/12/2018 at 8:15 AM, Flyera said:

Was your interview part of a visit after you had been accepted? I'm not really sure what to expect during the visit weekend interviews, and if those are different than an interview as part of the admissions process.

No this is different it’s just a Skype interview one of the criteria for admission process.