Compulsory in-person Interviews

[Cantamil]

Hello everyone,

I'm applying for phd's at the moment, and I was wondering if any of you has had problems with inflexible (although I would like to call them something worse) administration offices, specially regarding in-person interviews.

I live overseas and I cannot afford to spend 1000+ dollars on a trip to be interviewed. I'm pretty sure that some people may have trouble getting a visa for just the one day and, like me, would be excluded from doing the research they want to do in a specific university, not because they are not good enough, but because they have no money or they have been born in a country where visas are not easy to come by. I think the actitude of universities that behave in this way is quite discriminatory, more so considering they do pay the travel expenses of nationals (evidently, they pay those because it's cheaper, but it puts us internationals into more of a disadvantage).

What do you think about this and how have you dealt with it if at all? Emailing the department only got me a "that's your problem" answer and if I weren't so interested in working with one of the professors I would have already sent them packing with a curt email of my own. I really want to apply to this uni, but at the moment it seems less and less likely. That the only thing stopping me is that I wasn't born with some thousands under my arm to spend on trips makes me pretty sad at this world.

[cokohlik]

Would this university be willing to compromise with a Skype interview?

[Eigen]

For another option, if the university pays the travel expenses for domestic students, you could ask if they would pay a portion of your travel expenses- the same amount they would pay for a domestic student.

From my perspective, in-person interviews show quite a lot more about the candidate and their fit than skype/phone interviews, mostly due to the longer duration. If you come to a school for an interview, you meet more people, and interact with more people in more situations than you would in a phone interview. I think this is often especially important for international applicants, as a chance to see if the cultural differences and/or language barrier will be something that can be dealt with, or if it will cause problems.

[Cantamil]

No phone, videoconference or skype interviews. And I asked twice. This is quite a special snowflake university.

@Eigen If it were in my power, I'd prefer to have in person interviews myself because you get to see labs, talk to more people and meet other graduate students. In fact, English comprehension is better when you are talking face to face as you take cues from body language and reading lips also helps somewhat. The problem is that, even if they pay 200 out of the 1 thousand something the trip costs, I still can't afford it. I study on a scholarship and what I gain working goes to housing and food mostly.

[Eigen]

200 sounds a bit low for their cost... I was expecting more like 500-600, but it all depends on the school.

I think you might be getting a bit carried away calling them a "special snowflake" university, when in fact you're the one who is asking for special exceptions to be made.

[Cantamil]

Oxford University allows for skype/phone interviews. This university which doesn't, just sent me an email qualifying institutions that don't require in person interviews as "lesser universities". I do acknowledge that I've done something wrong; I'm going to review my university choices and I'll rectify my picks.

Edit: The special snowflake comment was a bit tongue in cheek, but I still believe that that kind of policy doesn't put all applicants in equal standing as it culls some of them depending on income or country of procedence (visa availability). But nobody said life is fair =)

Edited October 3, 2011 by Cantamil

[Eigen]

Just to point out, Oxford is also in a different country, and so probably wasn't what the university was referring to. In your field, at least in the US, interviews are standard practice, and so are face-to-face interviews.

I just think you're railing a bit hard against the school for having a policy and sticking to it. I realize you personally don't like the policy, but it's not a black mark on the school that they don't want to break the policy in order to make an exception.

I think your idea of going back and refining your choices by the institutions that meet your criteria for applications is a much more productive approach.

Edited October 3, 2011 by Eigen