Rockefeller Ph.D students and interviews

[dizope]

Hello,

Is there any Rockefeller Ph.D student or interviewee who can talk about what kind of questions they ask during interviews? I Want to do a long preparation if I got an interview because I am not fluent in english.

 

Thanks

[DRMF]

Generally interview questions/format can vary quite a lot between interviewers even within the same school. I didn't interview at Rockefeller myself but I haven't heard of anything special that they do there. So it'd be wise to prepare for it as you would any PhD interview: know your past projects well, know how to describe what you want to study and show reasonable knowledge/understanding, and once you have the names of your interviewers, briefly look up their research interests.

Types of questions I / someone I know got asked at various schools:

- Describe what you've done before (some will follow up with "what's the point/the big picture/hypothesis" and/or experimental detail questions)

- Why are you interested in this specific field? Why do a PhD?

- Interviewer describes what they do in their lab or some interesting problem, and then asks for your opinion on a particular issue. Usu there's no wrong answer, just show your thought process. Example: "I recently heard a talk by a guy who specializes in XXX technique/experimental approach. Do you think it's actually useful to do this?" Or, "we were doing this and got this puzzling result - what would you do next?"

- What would you do when you get stuck / seem to not succeed at a project (this one seems odd to me but I actually got asked this twice)

- Some ask exam-like questions e.g. "how does this pathway work" "do you know the XX effect/theory", usu stuff related to your past work or their current research focus (I never got this question though)

- Some of them just get excited and go on and on about their own research. In that case just listen and occasionally interrupt with a few intelligent/relevant questions.

[dizope]

Thank you, That will be helpful for me.

[largeTantigen]

To add to this, know how to draw your research on the board if asked. Be able to draw any molecules, reactions, schema, pathways, etc. 

[rsathya70]

On 12/19/2019 at 4:47 AM, dizope said:

Hello,

Is there any Rockefeller Ph.D student or interviewee who can talk about what kind of questions they ask during interviews? I Want to do a long preparation if I got an interview because I am not fluent in english.

 

Thanks

How did your interview go with Rockefeller? All the best!

[dizope]

Lol, I do not have an interview yet, as you see I say If...