Interview weekend - interviews with non-POIs?

[Cosmos]

Hi there,

I am attending an interview weekend this week and on my itinerary it says that I will have a 45 minute interview with my POI and three 30 minute interviews with other faculty in the department that do completely different research.

Has anyone had this experience before? I was just wondering if anyone knew how these non-POI interviews go... will we spend most of the time discussing their research or will they mostly just be asking me questions?

Thanks!

Cosmos

[CarlieE]

I'll be interviewed by half the faculty. In my field there are four sub-fields and in this school they are split into bio and cultural. I'll be interviewed by all the cultural anths - so... 8 interviews I believe?

I haven't done this before either but it seems like it will be a mix of both: your research and theirs.

[msafiri]

I had this happened when I went on grad school interviews and you'll have it happen on faculty job interviews too. Be prepared for them to talk about their research, ask questions about yours, and to ask you more general questions. You should at least read what they have online about their research and be prepared to ask a few questions about it, explain your research interests to a non-specialist, and maybe have some questions about the department or area more generally. Oh, and don't blow these people off. They may be on the adcom and/or could be future committee members. You'd be amazed at how different people's real work can be from what they've last posted on their website. (Example: full professor whose research has focused on fire history and fire ecology that now studies why national parks get degazetted and how this affects their ecology, but the latter interests isn't mentioned anywhere online.)

[grizzlygirl87]

I actually just returned from an interview where this occurred. As it turns out, the other non-POI interviewers were all members of the Graduate Student Advisory Committee (those who make the final decision on admittance!). It would probably be in your best interests to familiarize yourself a bit with their research and, of course, the program in general. While I found that they do give you an overview of what their specific research is, they tend to ask more questions about you.

I was typically asked questions like these:

1) What kind of research experience do you have?

2) What are your research interests?

3) Why did you choose your POI and this program?

4) What are your career goals?

5) Do you have any questions for me?

You will probably cover these same questions over and over again during your interview process, so it's helpful to have a list of questions prepared as well as a pretty good idea of what you want to say for each one of the above posed questions. And of course, you can alter your answers a bit to relate them more to the atmosphere of the interview. Just remember that everyone you interview with probably has some sort of say in your admissions decision, so be consistant!

Good luck!