Interview weekend vs Visiting weekend

[DarwinAG]

I was hoping someone would be able to help me understand the distinction between the two. Are they the same event but with different names? Or does a visiting weekend imply that you have an implict offer?

 

 

[LuckyCat]

An interview weekend is intended to evaluate candidates (and also for candidates to assess program fit on their end) prior to an offer of admission. Recruitment/visiting weekends typically occur after an admission offer is made. The latter tend to be more relaxed and informal in nature.

[psychgurl]

My program does a Visiting Weekend. Candidates do get evaluated at that point, and offers are not extended to a few of them. There are exceptions to the rule that visiting weekend implies that you are accepted.

[watson]

Interview weekend usually means they are definitely inviting more people to visit than they will be extending offers to--most programs are moving to this model.

 

Visiting weekend means that you will still be evaluated, but is usually a bit less formal--here they may be willing to offer to all the invitees but reserve the right to not offer until they've met you and determined you're not a complete mismatch (as a person) for the program.  Sometimes they consider everyone at least now on the waitlist but may make staggered offers to the most wanted candidates first.

 

Visiting weekend is really only a pure 'preview day' if you have already been told explicitly that you are accepted into the program before the visit.  I remember this being the case at OSU when I applied--I got a call offering me admission and simultaneously asking me to come to visiting weekend.

[PsychGirl1]

PsychYe- yep. Although they will probably invite less (like, say, 3-4 per spot) than other programs (which can invite over 10 per spot).

Edited January 27, 2013 by PsychGirl1

[stefanka]

10 per spot? Don't most schools accept about 10-15 people? Inviting 100 people seems a bit crazy. 3-4 also seems quite high. That could mean 60 people. How many people are invited to most interview weekends, anyway?

[PsychGirl1]

It really depends on the school, the program, and the PI. One program I applied to gets 700+ applicants, and they have the equivalent of four interview sessions that you can get invited to. They are probably bringing in about 50-60+ people and will take about 10, sometimes less. Another interview weekend, there is only about 7 of us for a handful of spots (it's a track within the bigger program) and apparently they sometimes do a second interview weekend depending how the first one goes. So that's 7-14 people for about 3-4 spots (which some years may be as few as 2, depending on funding and applicants). 10 per spot is definitely the extreme end of the spectrum but I'm sure some of the larger Clinical Psych PhD programs get close to there, depending how many offers they end up extending and how popular the PIs are. I know some people who had around 10 interviews in previous cycles and only got 1 offer. I also know that in one of the labs I've been in with a popular PI, we've had 12ish people interview with him, spread out over 2 interview days, and he takes 1 per year. That being said, smaller Psych programs with more specialized research (like social psych, quant psych) probably accepts a significantly higher percentage of their invites.

 

That being said, I wouldn't WORRY- I just wouldn't take this as "you're in". Your odds are already quite good, even at the extreme end of 1 out of 10. But be well-prepared and practice, and don't take the interview as a formality. If you made it to the interview, then your GRE scores are fine (they generally exclude people based on GRE scores first).

[GingerbreadLatte]

PsychYe- yep. Although they will probably invite less (like, say, 3-4 per spot) than other programs (which can invite over 10 per spot).

 

 

10 per spot? Don't most schools accept about 10-15 people? Inviting 100 people seems a bit crazy. 3-4 also seems quite high. That could mean 60 people. How many people are invited to most interview weekends, anyway?

 

 

One of my interview offers said upfront that "most" invitees will be accepted.

 

Another school, from what I have heard, will accept around half.

 

Just two data points for you.

Edited January 27, 2013 by GingerbreadLatte

[watson]

10 per spot? Don't most schools accept about 10-15 people? Inviting 100 people seems a bit crazy. 3-4 also seems quite high. That could mean 60 people. How many people are invited to most interview weekends, anyway?

We usually want an incoming cohort in social of about 2-4, so we invite usually 8-12 people for interviews.  10-15 is a really big incoming class but might be more common at a large state school?  My entire cohort for the department (social + cog + neuro + clinical) was 10, my cohort in social was 4.

[watson]

even if they are paying for the entire trip?

Every interview I went to paid for the entire trip, only 1 place had actually accepted us ahead of time.  We tend to accept about 1/2 the people we invite out for interviews but we always fully pay for everyone's flights/meals/hotel/taxis

[GingerbreadLatte]

are the grad students that you stay with just general students from the dept. you're applying to or is it usually a grad student of your POI?

 

In my case, he will be a general student from the same area. But I don't have a POI anyway.

[PsychGirl1]

Mine are both- a few are in the lab and a few aren't. Also my interview today has me interviewing with a grad student in their lab and someone not in their lab. Having someone not in there lab is nice because you get to hear about the other aspects of the program- social community, social life, the area of the school, how generally happy people are in the program, and general pros/cons that aren't specific to your POI.

 

Also, there's a bit more pressure if they are in the same lab, so while you might found out more useful information, their opinion of you will likely be considered more when your POI is considering who to extend an offer to. (I didn't know this until my lab went through it last year).

[PsychGirl1]

Thank you! I think it went well. They invite 60+ people to their interview days, though, so we'll see how it goes!!

[PsychGirl1]

Their incoming class ranges from 9-13 in past years, not sure how many offers they extend.

[stefanka]

I'm curious if anyone knows about how many offers are rejected, on average, at most schools. So if an incoming class is 10, how many offers did they make? Around 15? I know this is a silly question, but I'm truly curious if any grad students know the numbers of what happened at in their departments in past years.  

[GingerbreadLatte]

^

 

Some data from recent years:

 

http://web.psych.washington.edu/graduate/files/Brochure12.pdf [Warning: PDF]

37 accepted, 21 enrolled (57% yield)

 

http://www.virginia.edu/psychology/graduate/faq.html#ad12

32 accepted, 17 enrolled (53%)

 

http://www.psych.ucla.edu/graduate/prospective-students/clinical-student-data

17 accepted, 12 enrolled (71%)

 

http://gradschool.unc.edu/admissions/stats.html

31 accepted, 18 enrolled (58%)

 

These are just a few schools that I knew published their yield statistics. I don't know if these numbers are representative, but it seems your intuition is at least in the ballpark.

Edited January 29, 2013 by GingerbreadLatte

[stefanka]

Thank you!!! That's exactly what I was curious about. The yield statistics are much smaller than I thought they'd be! I thought they'd be circling more around 70-80%

Edited January 29, 2013 by stefanka

[PsychGirl1]

I wonder how many students are driving those statistics... I imagine that the top students get multiple offers at many schools, therefore rejecting a lot of schools, whereas a good number of students might only get one offer. Somebody needs to do some statistics magic and figure this all out for us :-)