Do you know any schools which interviews the candidates before the admission?

[TheBunny]

In other majors, I saw that many departments (psychology, sometimes sociology) are interviewing the prospective students before admitting them to the Ph.D. program. In political science, is this a common practice? Have you ever been interviewed before by an admission officer or by your POI?

[Dwar]

Within my personal research about schools i've only ever found one school that clearly stated that they did in fact have an official interview process. Northeastern said that they send out interview requests to their top candidates, and invite them to their Boston campus for the interview and a sort of meet and greet. Im not sure if they have this on their website. I had emailed their program about a time-frame to hear back about applications, so that's how I found out. 

[deutsch1997bw]

I was interviewed by the admissions committee at UW-Madison last cycle. 

[CarefreeWritingsontheWall]

To my knowledge Emory, OSU and GWU all have forms of interviews for shortlisted candidates in political science (at least this was the case when I applied 3 years ago). They either interview over the phone or skype (Emory or OSU), or by flying out their shortlist (GWU). After that, they send out their offers. When I talked to GWU faculty about this approach, they said it was their way of seeing prospective students before most schools have sent out offers let alone had admission days, while evaluating who fit best with their program before making final offers. That said, I have heard of people being waitlisted at all three without an interview, and in some cases getting offers when acceptances were low in a given year. 

[eggsalad14]

For OSU, it seems like interviews are at the discretion of individual faculty members. That is, a number are admitted at the regular admit time (so not off some unofficial waitlist). 

[sandmoon]

23 hours ago, deutsch1997bw said:

I was interviewed by the admissions committee at UW-Madison last cycle. 

Do you mind sharing roughly when that interview was? Sorry I'm super anxious hehe

[dot1325]

I got an email today about a phone interview with UW-Madison. I think it went out to the comparative politics group so they may be sending out emails for the other subfields later on!

[sandmoon]

3 hours ago, dot1325 said:

I got an email today about a phone interview with UW-Madison. I think it went out to the comparative politics group so they may be sending out emails for the other subfields later on!

Congrats! That's definitely a good sign! Applied to Madison but didn't get an interview

[dot1325]

11 hours ago, sandmoon said:

Congrats! That's definitely a good sign! Applied to Madison but didn't get an interview

Thank you! And ahh, I'm sorry! I think it's totally possible they don't interview everyone they end up admitting, or that they do multiple rounds of interviews.

[deutsch1997bw]

18 hours ago, sandmoon said:

Do you mind sharing roughly when that interview was? Sorry I'm super anxious hehe

January 12, I believe.

Edited January 11, 2019 by deutsch1997bw

[sandmoon]

3 hours ago, dot1325 said:

Thank you! And ahh, I'm sorry! I think it's totally possible they don't interview everyone they end up admitting, or that they do multiple rounds of interviews.

Fingers crossed! Madison is high on my list because there are two people there whose work I have followed very closely. Best of luck to you!

[xsasoihwerln]

Can anyone be more specific about how do we make of interviews? My understanding is that humanities departments (including political science) are cautious about interviewing candidates than hard science fields. In my personal research of schools, almost all schools don't specify that they have an interview process, and many explicitly say they don't do interviews. 
But at the same time, I know a couple of schools do interview interested candidates (except that they don't mention it on the website). One of the schools told me that it doesn't "systematically interview" candidates, but it's up to the faculty members to do that. So can we say not all admitted applicants are interviewed? If so, what kind of admitted applicants are not interviewed?
Thanks guys and really appreciate your thoughts and comments

[eggsalad14]

10 minutes ago, xsasoihwerln said:

Can anyone be more specific about how do we make of interviews? My understanding is that humanities departments (including political science) are cautious about interviewing candidates than hard science fields. In my personal research of schools, almost all schools don't specify that they have an interview process, and many explicitly say they don't do interviews. 
But at the same time, I know a couple of schools do interview interested candidates (except that they don't mention it on the website). One of the schools told me that it doesn't "systematically interview" candidates, but it's up to the faculty members to do that. So can we say not all admitted applicants are interviewed? If so, what kind of admitted applicants are not interviewed?
Thanks guys and really appreciate your thoughts and comments

First off, I think most political scientists will take some offense to you calling the field humanities instead of social science. We use the scientific method, we use quantitative methods of analysis, our research gets funded by the NSF. 

That said, if a school does interview but not systematically, the kind of student that gets admitted without an interview is one (or more) of the following

1. So good that they're sure an interview would be useless

2. The faculty member assigned to potentially interviewing doesn't want to/have time to interview

3. In rare cases, might have originally been a border reject case but the school has low yield, and gets a spot despite not being in the original accept pile 

4. If interviews are used to learn more about candidates, the faculty member decides they know all they need to know about the candidate (I've heard of places only interviewing international students because their undergrad careers are harder to decipher)

[xsasoihwerln]

2 hours ago, eggsalad14 said:

First off, I think most political scientists will take some offense to you calling the field humanities instead of social science. We use the scientific method, we use quantitative methods of analysis, our research gets funded by the NSF. 

That said, if a school does interview but not systematically, the kind of student that gets admitted without an interview is one (or more) of the following

1. So good that they're sure an interview would be useless

2. The faculty member assigned to potentially interviewing doesn't want to/have time to interview

3. In rare cases, might have originally been a border reject case but the school has low yield, and gets a spot despite not being in the original accept pile 

4. If interviews are used to learn more about candidates, the faculty member decides they know all they need to know about the candidate (I've heard of places only interviewing international students because their undergrad careers are harder to decipher)

Thanks for your reply and sorry for my misuse of words. I am also an applicant to the political science department and definitely don't mean to offend this field. It's just that I had this question for a some time and forgot to change the languege after reading an article yesterday on different perceptions between hard science and humanities departments in PhD interview. 

Edited January 15, 2019 by xsasoihwerln

[acmnny]

For those that had interviews with Madison today, how did it go? Any takeaways? What questions did they ask you? What did you ask them? Offers of admission during the interview? 

Congrats, btw! 

Edited January 15, 2019 by acmnny

[Dwar]

Ive read on here that OSU may be interviewing or sending out their interview requests around this time. Has anyone heard anything from them?

Ive been checking the results page religiously to see if anyone has posted updates on it. 

[dot1325]

On 1/15/2019 at 4:45 PM, acmnny said:

For those that had interviews with Madison today, how did it go? Any takeaways? What questions did they ask you? What did you ask them? Offers of admission during the interview? 

Congrats, btw! 

It was a pretty quick and informal interview with one of the members of the admissions committee. He asked why I wanted to pursue a PhD, a question specific to my SoP,  what challenges I foresee encountering in graduate school, and to talk about my favorite research project. I asked about academic development opportunities, the colloquia, and department culture. Hope that's helpful!! No offers of admission during the interview, but I got an email today that the department has recommended me for admission and I'll be getting notified by the grad school soon!!

[Dwar]

5 minutes ago, dot1325 said:

It was a pretty quick and informal interview with one of the members of the admissions committee. He asked why I wanted to pursue a PhD, a question specific to my SoP,  what challenges I foresee encountering in graduate school, and to talk about my favorite research project. I asked about academic development opportunities, the colloquia, and department culture. Hope that's helpful!! No offers of admission during the interview, but I got an email today that the department has recommended me for admission and I'll be getting notified by the grad school soon!!

Oh wow, thats great to know for any potential interviews in the future. And congratulations on the news!!!!

[eggsalad14]

53 minutes ago, Dwar said:

Ive read on here that OSU may be interviewing or sending out their interview requests around this time. Has anyone heard anything from them?

Ive been checking the results page religiously to see if anyone has posted updates on it. 

The Ohio State grad school director came on here and said that they're not going to have decisions until mid late February (I think). Probably no interview requests immediately soon. 

[Dwar]

3 minutes ago, eggsalad14 said:

The Ohio State grad school director came on here and said that they're not going to have decisions until mid late February (I think). Probably no interview requests immediately soon. 

I Believe you are misinformed. I understand the confusion though. When they first posted about dates I believe that they messed up the dates, they meant to say that decisions will come out in late Jan and funding will come out in late Feb. however they posted saying that decisions will come out in late Feb. they have since edited their answer and corrected it.

The OSU grad rep also said that they may be sending out interview requests this cycle, but that it was general dependent on the faculty member assigned to the applicant. And since those are generally before the admission decisions, in theory they would be reaching out to students around this time. 

Edited January 18, 2019 by Dwar

[eggsalad14]

19 minutes ago, Dwar said:

I Believe you are misinformed. I understand the confusion though. When they first posted about dates I believe that they messed up the dates, they meant to say that decisions will come out in late Jan and funding will come out in late Feb. however they posted saying that decisions will come out in late Feb. they have since edited their answer and corrected it.

The OSU grad rep also said that they may be sending out interview requests this cycle, but that it was general dependent on the faculty member assigned to the applicant. And since those are generally before the admission decisions, in theory they would be reaching out to students around this time. 

Oh cool, I didn't see that edit! Thanks for that. 

[Dwar]

10 minutes ago, eggsalad14 said:

Oh cool, I didn't see that edit! Thanks for that. 

Sure thing!!

[amyvt98]

I was just contacted by one of my schools for an interview. Someone on the admissions committee wants to talk this evening about my research interests and background. Any general advice on how to prepare? I'm fairly well-versed in my POI's research and have a good handle on how to talk about my research interests, but is there anything else that might come up? I'm trying not to panic, so any words of wisdom would be much appreciated!

[IcedCovfefe]

47 minutes ago, amyvt98 said:

I was just contacted by one of my schools for an interview. Someone on the admissions committee wants to talk this evening about my research interests and background. Any general advice on how to prepare? I'm fairly well-versed in my POI's research and have a good handle on how to talk about my research interests, but is there anything else that might come up? I'm trying not to panic, so any words of wisdom would be much appreciated!

I’m sure it varies by school and POI, but here’s my experience: I had an interview and it was very laid back.  POI was very excited about my writing sample and wanted to talk a bit about how I wrote that.  They talked generally about the program for a bit, and gave me an opportunity to ask questions.  I felt like it was less of an “interview” and more of the POI trying to get a feel for my interest/enthusiasm for the program before making an offer, as well as trying to “sell” the program to me a bit.  I was pretty nervous beforehand but it was really easy: we really just talked about things that I was interested in and knew well, so it wasn’t stressful at all.  Good luck, and remember that they’re trying to impress you just as much as you want to impress them. 

[amyvt98]

Thank you! That's very helpful and makes me feel lot less anxious. As a side note, I'm not generally a very anxious person, but this 8 week waiting process is tough!