Fellowship vs. Admissions Interview?

[antecedent]

Hi Everyone,

 

Is there much of a difference between fellowship and admissions interviews in terms of the kinds of questions they ask? I know that all of the funding at a specific program I'm interviewing with is tied to teaching, so I'm sure teaching experience will come up. Other than that, should I be expect the same questions about my research, future plans, fit with the program etc. or will they be asking other kinds of questions?

 

I know it's not possible to predict precisely what I'll be asked, but I'm trying to figure out if there's something specific that might show up in a Fellowship interview that wouldn't come up in an Admissions interview.

 

Thanks in advance!

[cultsoc]

I guess it depends on the field and school. I wasn't even aware that there are different tiers of interviews. In my program, all top applicants get interviewed at the same time. The department then nominates the top 2-3 admitted applicants for fellowships, while the rest get the standard full-funding package. 

 

My understanding is that most programs that interview follow a similar mo.

 

As for the second part of your question, my suggestion is to have one strategy for both interviews (if they are indeed different). You should be prepared to answer questions similar to:

 

Why linguistics?

Why our department?

What are your long-term goals?

 

Do your homework and learn as much about each program as you can. As always, the program websites are the best source of unique information pertaining to each program. Read some of the professors' recent papers. Be prepared to say things like, "I think this department is a good fit for me because ______________ (tie it to something you read on one of the faculty's papers, website, etc)."

 

In terms of teaching experience, you want to briefly explain what you did and how your experiences shaped your research interests, future goals, and pedagogical strategies you'd like to employ if given the opportunity to teach in years 2-5, for example.

 

Be prepared to talk in detail about your masters thesis or other research experience. Basically, know your shit. Most faculty members you interview with are not going to ask you theoretical or methodological questions pertaining to their own research or even the broader field. But they might ask you about those things as they pertain to your own research. This is where you get to show them that you know your shit, and take pride in it.

 

Generally speaking, the department knows that interviews are stressful so they won't throw you a curveball. Although, one or two people might push you a bit during the interview to see if you're the real deal. That's fine. They're most likely trying to see how enthusiastic you are. The one guy who did that to me during the interview weekend ended up being my advisor, haha, and he's the most awesome advisor ever.

 

Some general advice:

 

-Most people you meet at the interviews are chill and really want to get to know you.

 

-You've been invited because they obviously think you're kinda the shit, so don't try hard to impress anybody. Know your work, know what the department specializes in and what the faculty and grad students are up to, and enjoy the process.

 

-Don't be a jerk. There are always one or two douchebags at these events who think they're way better than the rest. Sadly for them, those guys almost always end up getting rejected. Once again, you're there because everyone thinks you're good enough to be there. Now they want to see whether you think they're a good fit for you. They also want to see what type of person you are. 

 

-So, don't act like an idiot. Don't pick theoretical fights with people, argue, act too competitive, or uptight. 

 

-Limit your alcohol if you go out to any social events. By all means, have a beer or two, just don't overdo it because of stress.

 

-Be cool and try to enjoy every moment. This is the most important point. 

 

-Respect the graduate students because, surprisingly, they have a say in who ends up in their department as well.

 

-Be prepared to talk to lots of folks, tell them the same research goals and experiences over and over again, and socialize. Recruitment weekend dinners are a great opportunity to relax and really get to know people. You are also the one interviewing the department, in a way. So, you should actively try to "recruit" the department as well to see if it, and the people in it, are a good fit for you.

 

Feel free to contact me if you have more questions. 

 

ps: if this is a skype interview or something, you can totally ignore everything I said, lol.

Edited January 5, 2014 by cultsoc

[antecedent]

Hey, thanks so much! That was a super useful response. It is in fact a skype interview, but most of your points are relative to interviewing generally, so that's great.

 

They admitted me without interviewing me first, so I'm trying to figure out if all the questions offered in other threads are relevant. Since posting the department sent me another email, so I have that to focus on now, which is great. I will post my experience here after the interview.

Edited January 7, 2014 by antecedent

[TakeruK]

In addition to the great advice above, you might get weird questions in a Fellowship interview depending on what kind of fellowship it is. That is, if the donors for the fellowship decided that it would be for some goal, they might have made it a requirement that the department ask certain scripted questions. For example, if the donors wanted to fund "leaders in the field" they might ask you a question like "Give us an example of how you have demonstrated leadership in the past" and so on. Or, you might get very strange scenarios. Also, the fellowship interviewers may be from way outside of your department if your fellowship is a university-wide one. On the other hand, admissions interviews will tend to be people in the department and thus are experts in your field.

So in terms of preparation, definitely research the fellowship you are interviewing for. If it's funded by an organization, research their mission statements and goals. Also, make sure you will be able to describe all academic parts of your past to a lay audience, especially your past, current and future research.

[antecedent]

Thanks TakeruK! That is super helpful. I'll be sure to think of my research from a lay or at least academic non-specialist perspective!

 

I'm in contact with a professor who isn't my POI about the interview, and he seems to be avoiding my question of "how much is the stipend?" Is this something I shouldn't be pushy about until after I know if I've been offered the fellowship or not? I think the fellowship adds a 'top up' to whatever stipend is included in the TA-ship, information about which is maddeningly vague on the website.

[TakeruK]

Thanks TakeruK! That is super helpful. I'll be sure to think of my research from a lay or at least academic non-specialist perspective!

 

I'm in contact with a professor who isn't my POI about the interview, and he seems to be avoiding my question of "how much is the stipend?" Is this something I shouldn't be pushy about until after I know if I've been offered the fellowship or not? I think the fellowship adds a 'top up' to whatever stipend is included in the TA-ship, information about which is maddeningly vague on the website.

 

Personally, I would avoid questions like "how much is the stipend?" until you already have the offer, unless you are in a lucky position where you are getting so many interview requests that you cannot do all of them, and thus you would like to do a bit of triage before you interview, or if there is a good chance that the answer is something so unexpected that you would not even want to spend time/energy on the interview (and thus could save both the school and yourself some time). The reasons why I would delay the question is that

 

1) Grad school stipends may vary a bit, but generally you would know if the program would be funded or not (but there's still a big difference between e.g. at $20k/year stipend and a $30k/year stipend, which tends to be the range for places in my field). However, I think this is something that you might wait until you have all your offers laid out before you compare School A with Stipend X vs. School B with Stipend Y etc. So, even though I don't think it should be considered "tacky" to ask about stipends early on, some people might view it this way and I don't think the additional information you get by knowing the information now (instead of along with your letter of offer) is worth the potential of looking bad while decisions are still being made.

 

2) You might not even get a useful answer even if you press them to give as much information as they know. The actual numbers may depend on who gets accepted and which fellowships go where. They might not know how much money they have towards paying TAs next year, or whether or not a current student will leave/graduate/fail/get a fellowship and free up a TA spot, or hold onto a TA spot etc. So, they might just be hesitant to say any number since they probably know what the minimum will be, but it might be low and they don't want you (probably one of their higher up picks since you are interviewing for a fellowship) to hear this lowball number and hurt their chances of recruiting you. On the other hand, they can't really officially say any number larger than the minimum possible, because they don't want to commit to a higher number--what if something changes and they can't offer you that anymore. It would look bad to go back on their word.

 

So, I think it's best to just hang tight and see what their final offer will be. Although knowing the information earlier would be nice, I think since you don't/can't make a decision about schools until you get an offer from them, it is appropriate for them to wait until they write up the offer before they tell you the stipend. However, I think it would very appropriate to get the stipend amount in writing before you accept any offers though! The right time to be pushy, in my opinion, is when it's your turn to make the decision!

[antecedent]

Wow, thanks again for your comprehensive answer! I totally agree with what you said. This is the first time in two rounds of applications that I've even been offered an interview so I am so new to the process and so unsure of what is good practice to ask and what it is good to wait on. 

 

When I asked about the stipend I worded it vaguely enough that he could comfortably answer the question without having to do any serious gymanstics, and he gave a suitably vague answer. I'll just wait and see if I get it and go from there.

 

Fingers crossed!

[TakeruK]

Great I think depending on how the actual interview goes, it might be okay to ask about the stipend near the end of the interview itself, especially since they will often ask you if you have any questions about the program and what it's like etc. If you want, you could also word it like "what are typical stipends" etc. or "how often are students funded?" (even if you know the answer), then it's not about you and not a promise they are making to you, but it can tell you some information about what to expect. Maybe this was what you meant by asking vaguely already though. I'd play it by ear and use your intuition to decide what kind of questions to ask during the interview! Good luck

[fuzzylogician]

Do let us know how the interview went -- I am curious! 

 

In case it's still relevant, for the "do you have any questions for us" portion of the interview, you should do some basic preparation by going on the school's website and doing some reading. Remember that you want to make your interviewers feel good about themselves and their school. So don't ask about anything that will not lead to a positive answer or a way for them brag about their program. This is *not* the time to ask actual information-seeking questions, you can do that after you are admitted. So - if you ask about cross-departmental collaborations, make sure they have them. If you ask about graduation rate, make sure they don't have problems with students who are there forever or a high drop-out rate. If you ask about teaching opportunities, make sure it's a school that emphasizes teaching. Same for placement, courses, potential intra-departmental collaboration opportunities, certificate programs, or whatnot. Do NOT ask whether X and Y get along, if X is retiring soon, about recent changes to the curriculum, or any other gossip or potential troubles. You might step on someone's sore spot. 

[antecedent]

Hi guys/gals!

 

Thanks for the suggestions fuzzylogician! I hope I will have another interview before this cycle is over, so I'll undoubtedly be returning to the advice here.

 

That being said, I think I prepared too much detail oriented materials for the interview. The first question was something like "We've read your SOP, can you please tell us some more about your interests?" and that caught me off guard a bit, so my response was quite unfocused and I think not entirely relevant to the department I was interviewing with. Rookie mistake! Somehow I figured since they had my entire application they wouldn't be asking me broad questions. WRONG. In any case, even making that stupid error straight out of the gate gave us an opportunity to have a frank discussion about some other aspects of my education and background that I think in the end reflected well on me, so that's good.

 

Otherwise the questions were pretty much what I expected, along the lines of "Why this department?" "Who are you interested in working with?" and then some really specifc questions that I don't think were planned and just came up as we were talking, about theories, department preferences, and geography ("Why are you in Vancouver?"). It seemed like they were more trying to get the feel for me as a person/student/intellectual and less as a researcher/academic. There was lots of laughing, which was nice, but there were also some questions that seemed almost like trick questions. 

 

All in all, the interview was mostly pleasant, but also quite uncomfortable. I have no idea how it went on their end. I'll let you all know if I ended up getting a/the fellowship!