Two Schools, Same Interview Day. HELP!

[toopsychedout]

Hi all! 

I am happy to say that I received two interview offers for Clinical Psychology PhD programs. I have a bit of a dilemma, however, as they both have the same interview day and both are expected to be all day long. Does anyone know how to handle this situation? There is one school that I favor more than the other, however, I would hate to give up the interview day for the second one. Is there a protocol for handling this situation? 

 

Thank you all!

[spring2000]

Have you confirmed/accepted either of them? If not, I would ask the #2 program if they could reschedule

[toopsychedout]

9 minutes ago, spring2000 said:

Have you confirmed/accepted either of them? If not, I would ask the #2 program if they could reschedule

Yes I have. The first one I confirmed back in December and the 2nd one (this is one of my top choices) occurred over the phone so I nervously accepted without realizing that it was on the same day as the other one. 

[spring2000]

7 minutes ago, toopsychedout said:

Yes I have. The first one I confirmed back in December and the 2nd one (this is one of my top choices) occurred over the phone so I nervously accepted without realizing that it was on the same day as the other one. 

Okay then I would probably contact the 2nd one and ask them to reschedule since that one was scheduled last. Also, congrats on the interviews!

[SocDevMum]

14 hours ago, toopsychedout said:

Yes I have. The first one I confirmed back in December and the 2nd one (this is one of my top choices) occurred over the phone so I nervously accepted without realizing that it was on the same day as the other one. 

Best bet is to call the Graduate Director at the second school, and let them know there is a schedule conflict that you missed during your initial call.  They understand full well that many candidates have multiple offers on the table for interviews, and most programs are willing to be flexible and reschedule. If they're not, that tells you something about the program and you can think about if you really want to be part of that environment. Congrats on the interviews! 

[forensicpsychstu]

I actually recently had a conversation about this with my advisor. She let me know that unfortunately, with how interview days are run, it is unlikely that they will set up a whole new one just for you. However, you should decide to accept the interview offer based on which school you would be more likely to attend if accepted. It would still be worth to reach out to the other school just to see if there is a possibility that they have an alternate interview day, but from what I've been told I would not count on that being an option. 

[Regression2theMean]

I had a similar situation during my application cycle (2 in person interview invites for the same weekend at opposite ends of the country). At the time, I contacted the program that scheduled their interview weekend second and explained the conflict. They were really nice about it and allowed me to reschedule. They ended up having about 5 of us with conflicts so we had a mini interview weekend with us 5. 

I suggest just being transparent with the program that scheduled second. I agree with the other poster that said it might be meaningful if a program isn’t willing to be flexible. 

Best of luck!