"Feel free to ask me questions" -- POI

[Cosmos]

So I am interviewing at Penn at the beginning of February and I have been in touch with my POI. He has repeatedly told me that he would be happy to answer any questions I have for him. Like, repeatedly. I am starting to feel that I should have many questions for him!

I thought the whole point of the interview was to ask each other questions, so I was kind of saving all of mine for then. My POI put me in touch with his current graduate student and I am supposed to skype with him this week to get the inside scoop, so I really don't have anything to ask my POI right now... is that odd? Do most people have more questions at this point, questions that can't wait for the interview?

Anyone else have a similar experience?

[socihealth]

I had a POI say something similar and I didn't have that many questions for them either. I did go ahead and ask a few questions that I normally would have "saved" for the interview...things like how their lab is structured, specifics about the program structure, milestones in the program. I got great feed back from them and it has made me feel more confident about the upcoming interview. I think now at the interview rather than asking basic questions we can focus on research. I think just keeping the lines of communication open is what is most important. If you have no questions at all for them you could consider asking them about the upcoming interview (how will it be structured, who will you meet, is a campus tour involved). Ask the current students about research of course, but also asking them about student like, housing, and their reasons for selecting that program can be great starts too.

Hope this helps, and Im sure other people will have tips too!

[Cosmos]

Great, thanks socihealth!

[BlueCamel]

my POI at Northeastern encouraged me to do the same thing, and I think you should definitely try to email the POI at least once or twice. One thing I did was asking for copies of most recent journal articles (in press articles) and asked about her current research projects.