Simple Question about Yale

[Sparky]

I suspect that, in some cases (not all!), the negative reactions have as much to do the fact that interviews are being required by Higher Authorities as any actual concerns about the interviews themselves. The article natsteel linked mentions the opposition of the chair of the religion dept. Yeah, um, some subfields of Yale's religion program do interview, and have for a very long time. Not all of them, but some.

My own school interviews for many humanities departments. As I understand it, what it actually helps is yield rates. Retention/graduation rate has more to do with whether or not life circumstances intervene for students later on.

[pudewen]

Maybe I'm just very progressive or have had the chance to understand my friends' experiences in science PhD programs intimately, there are just some aspects that I think would be quite good for history programs. I am beginning to hear, from such friends and in retrospect from historians, that your adviser and the people you work with are very important to your success. I have a friend or two in literature programs who are absolutely struggling with their dissertations because they have such lousy relationships with their committees and they just seem so alone. History students are essentially with their advisers for a long haul. I cannot imagine being miserable with an adviser for more than 4 years and not have a lot of alternatives in the department. I've "interviewed" my potential advisers just as much as they've "interviewing" me.

But you get to "interview" your potential adviser after you're admitted - so adding an interview prior to the decision being made doesn't provide applicants with any particular advantage.

Personally, I don't think its especially objectionable to have an interview (I do think it adds to the stress for applicants, though, which is a mild negative consequence) but I also don't see any evidence that it has any relation to differentials in degree time between science and humanities students or whatever it is that Yale thinks its addressing. If departments don't want to do interviews, without any compelling evidence that its beneficial (you could, say, compare humanities departments nationwide on the basis of whether they interview or not and see if there is any difference in result in outcomes. Don't scientists believe in having data?), I don't see why they should be forced to by the graduate school.