2015 Applicant Profiles and Admissions Results

[eeee1923]

I know this has undoubtedly been said before, but I tried to search for it and had trouble...

 

Does anyone have any advice on what to say in an email declining an interview invitation? Specifically, I'm declining the interview, but I'd like to ask if a Skype interview might be possible. I feel awkward and guilty because it will likely be clear that I'm prioritizing another school over them, but I still do like their program so I would love to get a Skype interview...but I also know they may just deny that request. 

 

Any help would be appreciated. I always obsess over what to say for these things. Thank you!

 

Thank them for their confidence in you, and explain that you have prior commitments on the proposed interview date and if it would be possible to schedule a Skype interview. Just be polite since you never know if the person who reads the email may encounter you later down the line at some academic function.

[expandyourmind]

Interview at Columbia Genetics and Development!

[ghostoverground]

Thank them for their confidence in you, and explain that you have prior commitments on the proposed interview date and if it would be possible to schedule a Skype interview. Just be polite since you never know if the person who reads the email may encounter you later down the line at some academic function.

Thank you!

 

And congrats, expandyourmind!

Edited December 29, 2014 by ghostoverground

[ballwera]

Got antsy and emailed the program director at Vandy. My file was reviewed during the first faculty meeting. I didn't make it for the 1st round of interviews . Apparently it will be brought back up for review again in late January when the pool is completed. Oh well, at least they didn't reject me/throw out the application?

Edited December 29, 2014 by ballwera

[ForScience!]

Got antsy and emailed the program director at Vandy. My file was reviewed during the first faculty meeting. I didn't make it for the 1st round of interviews . Apparently it will be brought back up for review again in late January when the pool is completed. Oh well, at least they didn't reject me/throw out the application?

 

Same.

[lab ratta-tat-tat]

@ Killer T, 

Let the person who emailed you or called you know you will need a translator. They do have them on campus.

In our program we have a student who was accepted into the program and she had a translator all through out her PhD. and he finished and did really well. This does not hurt your chances at all.

Good luck during your interviews! The interview process is the hardest, if you can make it to this point- smile, breathe, stay calm, and pull your self together, you are almost over the finish line!

Best of luck!

[wintermoon123]

Aww mannn. I have another one scheduled that weekend too. I was actually very excited about some of the faculty there: I might PM you about them though! Thanks!

Could you please tell me when you heard from penn state? Thanks!

[Ragneo]

Could you please tell me when you heard from penn state? Thanks!

 

I heard on Dec. 27th sometime at 6 AM in the morning!

[blinchik]

Is anyone else's interview scheduling a giant conflict? All of my schools have offered me one of the same 3 dates. It's scary that the ones that I have scheduled are competitive so there aren't great odds of getting in and I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of schools! Just stressing a little 

 

3 highly competitive programs have offered me the same weekend… I never thought that I would be in a position where I would have to decline interviews! It's such a pain that so many (competitive, especially!) programs do not have alternate weekends. I wish there could be some coordination between them, as if someone is invited to interview at one competitive program, it is not unlikely that another competitive program with the same weekend would take an interest in them as well.

[Meep_Meep]

Is anyone else's interview scheduling a giant conflict? All of my schools have offered me one of the same 3 dates. It's scary that the ones that I have scheduled are competitive so there aren't great odds of getting in and I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of schools! Just stressing a little 

 

3 highly competitive programs have offered me the same weekend… I never thought that I would be in a position where I would have to decline interviews! It's such a pain that so many (competitive, especially!) programs do not have alternate weekends. I wish there could be some coordination between them, as if someone is invited to interview at one competitive program, it is not unlikely that another competitive program with the same weekend would take an interest in them as well.

 

Ugh! I'm in the same situation, I'm so disappointed that some of my more competitive programs are only having 1 weekend and are not doing Skype interviews. I really hadn't expected this to happen 

Edited December 30, 2014 by swaye15

[ballwera]

I wish there could be some coordination between them, as if someone is invited to interview at one competitive program, it is not unlikely that another competitive program with the same weekend would take an interest in them as well.

 

I kind of wonder if they do it on purpose. It ensures that those attended the interview show a real interest in the program. 

[neverdecaf]

I kind of wonder if they do it on purpose. It ensures that those attended the interview show a real interest in the program. 

 

 

Ugh! I'm in the same situation, I'm so disappointed that some of my more competitive programs are only having 1 weekend and are not doing Skype interviews. I really hadn't expected this to happen 

 

 

3 highly competitive programs have offered me the same weekend… I never thought that I would be in a position where I would have to decline interviews! It's such a pain that so many (competitive, especially!) programs do not have alternate weekends. I wish there could be some coordination between them, as if someone is invited to interview at one competitive program, it is not unlikely that another competitive program with the same weekend would take an interest in them as well.

I really wish they would have coordinated better too! Or at least be more receptive to independent or skype interviews. It crossed my mind that they might not coordinate because at least the people who show up will be really interested, but this has resulted in me not being able to attend interviews I'm really interested in! I was hoping to use interviews as a tool to make decisions, but now we have to decide our preferences before we even interview!

[peachypie]

I kind of wonder if they do it on purpose. It ensures that those attended the interview show a real interest in the program. 

I honestly would not think that.  They actually try to plan to not compete with schools they are known competitors for this reason.  It is more about the schedule/timeline that application cycles take and the semester break as well as the april 15th deadline.  

[ilovelab]

3 highly competitive programs have offered me the same weekend… I never thought that I would be in a position where I would have to decline interviews! It's such a pain that so many (competitive, especially!) programs do not have alternate weekends. I wish there could be some coordination between them, as if someone is invited to interview at one competitive program, it is not unlikely that another competitive program with the same weekend would take an interest in them as well.

 We'll that's impossible to do. There's like 10-12 weekends they can have interviews. Besides, why would they want to coordinate with each other?

[expandyourmind]

I assume that Stanford and Rockefeller are waiting until after the New Year to send back invites?

Also I'm still hopefully for Princeton@Biology, Harvard MCO, and Harvard SysBio but haven't heart anything back. Anyone have any info regarding their invites? 

 

At this point most of my January/February is filled up with interviews already.... 

[ghostoverground]

I assume that Stanford and Rockefeller are waiting until after the New Year to send back invites?

Also I'm still hopefully for Princeton@Biology, Harvard MCO, and Harvard SysBio but haven't heart anything back. Anyone have any info regarding their invites? 

 

At this point most of my January/February is filled up with interviews already.... 

 

According to their website, Stanford will send out interview invitations during the week of Jan. 5, and their "only" interview session is March 4-8.

 

At least they have a later interview weekend (not February)... I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do if I get invitations in January for February weekends that I already have booked--don't these schools know that some of their direct competition notify us a full month earlier? 

[person5811]

I assume that Stanford and Rockefeller are waiting until after the New Year to send back invites?

Also I'm still hopefully for Princeton@Biology, Harvard MCO, and Harvard SysBio but haven't heart anything back. Anyone have any info regarding their invites? 

 

At this point most of my January/February is filled up with interviews already.... 

I'm pretty sure Rockefeller makes announcements after Stanford (~Jan 8th) and from the results page their interview weekends should be either Feb 26th or Mar4th.

Also, I'm not sure if they do more than one wave of interview invites, but I personally know that people have gotten invites from Princeton Bio, Harvard MCO (interview dates ~Jan28 or Feb 4th) and Harvard SysBio (interview dates: Jan23rd or Jan 30th) already. 

Hope that helps!

[blinchik]

On 12/30/2014 at 3:23 PM, ilovelab said:

 We'll that's impossible to do. There's like 10-12 weekends they can have interviews. Besides, why would they want to coordinate with each other?

 

I understand that there are only a certain number of weekends that are available - one would just hope that a very competitive, top program that is strong in one area would be aware of when their competitors' weekends would be. I have spoken with admissions committee members/directors of admissions at multiple programs due to multiple interview scheduling conflicts, and I was told that they actually are aware of when other competitors have their weekends as well (some of the time, not all of the time and I'm obviously not speaking for all programs).

 

I would hope that they would coordinate with one another out of empathy for the student - at this stage, no one is holding a single acceptance, and declining interviews means fewer possible acceptances. Also, it is logical for them to coordinate so that, for instance, a student isn't missing UW Seattle's interview because WashU decided to schedule their interview for the same weekend, and notified the applicant several days prior, with the applicant accepting before they were aware of the conflict, since interview dates are not always published in time. When that happens, the program potentially loses out on an applicant they were (presumably) very interested in.

[wintermoon123]

I heard on Dec. 27th sometime at 6 AM in the morning!

Thank you! 

I hope I will hear them from soon! 

 

All the best on your interviews! 

[tito balisimo]

On 12/30/2014 at 8:58 PM, blinchik said:

I understand that there are only a certain number of weekends that are available - one would just hope that a very competitive, top program that is strong in one area would be aware of when their competitors' weekends would be. I have spoken with admissions committee members/directors of admissions at multiple programs due to multiple interview scheduling conflicts, and I was told that they actually are aware of when other competitors have their weekends as well (some of the time, not all of the time and I'm obviously not speaking for all programs).

 

I would hope that they would coordinate with one another out of empathy for the student - at this stage, no one is holding a single acceptance, and declining interviews means fewer possible acceptances. Also, it is logical for them to coordinate so that, for instance, a student isn't missing UW Seattle's interview because WashU decided to schedule their interview for the same weekend, and notified the applicant several days prior, with the applicant accepting before they were aware of the conflict, since interview dates are not always published in time. When that happens, the program potentially loses out on an applicant they were (presumably) very interested in.

Just like we are "fishing" for the best opportunities, and trying to get multiple invites, the schools are employing the same strategies to get the best and most applicants. They know that some people they invite have no real intention of accepting admissions if the student gets multiple admissions offers. They are trying to coordinate probably at least 40 people to interview with many faculty at different times. Think about how complex it is if they invite 20-40 people and they have to set time schedules for different faculty based on the applicants, who may not even accept an admissions offer after all the resources were allocated to the BEST students. Not only that, but you want them to coordinate these times with OTHER schools. I don't think that is really fair on their behalf, even though it is affecting me currently.

 

This is a game of cat and mouse, and its not so easy to have separate days for different applicants because they have to get those 5 or so professors who you wish to interview with. Think about this, each faculty member that you wish to interview with needs to get paid, you get a hotel and food, and possibly a plane ride over, and its 2-3 days long. Its extremely expensive and time consuming to make accommodations for one applicant because each applicant is so different and each faculty they will interview with must take time out of their day to interview you, and you may not even want to end up going there because you have 7 or 8 other schools you want to interview with. Now imagine doing this for each student that wants to change the schedule... It is unfortunate we can't attend each single invitation, but this in my opinion is first world problems. We are really fortunate we have interviews to begin with and if you have options to the best schools you should feel blessed!

[blinchik]

@Ted Binsky, I do not disagree with any of your points and am certainly becoming aware of the complexity of graduate school admissions (though it is worth noting that it is, of course, the program's decision to fly everyone out, pay for expenses, host students for a weekend, etc). I simply wonder why competitive programs, presumably with adequate funding, cannot offer alternate weekends, as many less competitive programs do. I also commented on how not offering an alternate interview date in fact can hurt the program, as in my case and in many other applicants' cases, the decision to accept an interview offer was made before even knowing about an alternate offer, since dates are often not publicized enough in advance. If you read my previous comment, you'll find that I have never indicated that I am ungrateful about having multiple interview offers lined up - as I mentioned before, it's simply difficult to make these decisions with no guarantee that you'll be accepted into any program.

[gliaful]

I simply wonder why competitive programs, presumably with adequate funding, cannot offer alternate weekends, as many less competitive programs do.

Yeah, I don't know either. I've speculated that competitive programs know that they're desirable, so they are probably less inclined to (pay the big airfare/hotel bucks to) accommodate applicants with more than one weekend -- an "if you really want us, you'll show up on this date" sort of attitude.

 

Maybe it won't necessarily hurt the program...what if competitive programs send out more invites (than otherwise expected) to match a historical, predicted 75% (or whatever %) RSVP rate?

[Ragneo]

Thank you! 

I hope I will hear them from soon! 

 

All the best on your interviews! 

 

I also sent in my application maybe two weeks early if that helps ease any worry! I hope you get the interview, Penn State is a good program!  (Sadly both of their weekends for me are already booked, so that dashes any chances of us meeting, haha).

[Vene]

Yeah, I don't know either. I've speculated that competitive programs know that they're desirable, so they are probably less inclined to (pay the big airfare/hotel bucks to) accommodate applicants with more than one weekend -- an "if you really want us, you'll show up on this date" sort of attitude.

I think this may be the case. A university like Harvard or Stanford knows they're one of the best universities in the nation (and world) and so can actually be really picky with prospective students and still get stellar students interested in attending. It really is better for them to force students to pick Stanford or Harvard (sticking with the example, I don't know when they actually interview) and interview at just one instead of coordinating with other top universities and see the student with a plethora of choices. They would much rather bring in interviewees who have a higher chance of accepting.

 

On the other hand, middle prestige universities may know they're good, but also do realize they will never win out if they have to compete with the top. Somebody may really like the University of Maryland, but is highly unlikely to select them over a schedule conflict with Harvard. Maryland has to hope that they can either charm that student into their program regardless (which does mean being accommodating) or that said student just doesn't click with the faculty at Harvard and is rejected.

[tito balisimo]

I think this may be the case. A university like Harvard or Stanford knows they're one of the best universities in the nation (and world) and so can actually be really picky with prospective students and still get stellar students interested in attending. It really is better for them to force students to pick Stanford or Harvard (sticking with the example, I don't know when they actually interview) and interview at just one instead of coordinating with other top universities and see the student with a plethora of choices. They would much rather bring in interviewees who have a higher chance of accepting.

 

On the other hand, middle prestige universities may know they're good, but also do realize they will never win out if they have to compete with the top. Somebody may really like the University of Maryland, but is highly unlikely to select them over a schedule conflict with Harvard. Maryland has to hope that they can either charm that student into their program regardless (which does mean being accommodating) or that said student just doesn't click with the faculty at Harvard and is rejected.

^ this