suzieq Posted February 12, 2015 Posted February 12, 2015 Hi all, new here! I've had a couple of phone/in-person interviews, and I noticed that both times I was asked by professors about my other interviews. I can understand that they would be curious, but I wasn't expecting to be asked that and wasn't sure why it came up. I've never been asked by a hiring manager about other job interviews, for example. Any ideas about why they might be asking?
slowbrowin Posted February 12, 2015 Posted February 12, 2015 i think this is pretty normal. they just want an idea of what other options you might be considering. it's also a way to understand what your research interests are - so if you tell them a bunch of places and POIs that aren't all related in some sort of way, they might think you're unfocused or just applying to apply etc.
suzieq Posted February 12, 2015 Author Posted February 12, 2015 Thanks, that makes sense. I have two different interest areas, so I did get a follow-up question about why I applied to POIs who were so different.
mb712 Posted February 12, 2015 Posted February 12, 2015 While doing some lurking on here/other forums about funding, it also seems like programs are more willing to offer better stipends if you're also considering other places. I'm not sure a POI would be assigned the messenger duty on that though unless they happen to also be the grad program coordinator. Another possible reasoning for inquiring about your other offers/prospects.
student896 Posted February 12, 2015 Posted February 12, 2015 All of my interviewers asked where their school "ranked" with me and what other schools I was considering. No one asked if I had other offers directly, though.
Gvh Posted February 12, 2015 Posted February 12, 2015 I found this question pretty annoying. I mean, yes, I get why they are asking but it seems there isn't a right or wrong answer. For instance, if you have other offers, then it might bode well for you in that the program interviewing you may consider you to be competitive for other schools and -potentially- offer you a more competitive stipend (as an above poster mentioned). However, on the flip side, if you mention you are applying to many other places, this may taken negatively in that you are statistically less likely to accept an offer at their program. In another scenario, if you only have 1 interview, then you are faced with saying they are your only option..which may indicate you are not a strong applicant, etc.. Anybody else find themselves debating how to answer this?
grad_wannabe Posted February 12, 2015 Posted February 12, 2015 I found this question pretty annoying. I mean, yes, I get why they are asking but it seems there isn't a right or wrong answer. For instance, if you have other offers, then it might bode well for you in that the program interviewing you may consider you to be competitive for other schools and -potentially- offer you a more competitive stipend (as an above poster mentioned). However, on the flip side, if you mention you are applying to many other places, this may taken negatively in that you are statistically less likely to accept an offer at their program. In another scenario, if you only have 1 interview, then you are faced with saying they are your only option..which may indicate you are not a strong applicant, etc.. Anybody else find themselves debating how to answer this? Yes, I'm torn on how to answer this, for precisely the reasons that you stated. I had several unofficial meetings with POIs last fall, and they all asked where else I was applying. My answers were mostly met with "ooh that's a great program" and "why don't you check out [X], I think they're a good match for you." I was not met with any "that's an odd choice" responses, which I was worried about because I am a bit diversified in my interests, as you can see in my signature. I've only had one official interview, and they did not ask at all about my other applications. We did talk a bit, though, about how their program measures up against others in their field, so there was some subtle "jockeying" language going on.
citypsych Posted February 12, 2015 Posted February 12, 2015 I used to find these questions obnoxious, but now I understand better why they ask. If they ask where else you applied, they're trying to suss out two things. First, how focused you are in terms of interests. For example, applying to all clinical programs shows more focused interest in clinical than applying to clinical and social and developmental programs. Because subfields have very different approaches, it can be a little confusing when someone applies to several different types of programs. Second, whether you're actually a good fit. For example, applying to all research-oriented clinical programs shows interest in research, whereas applying to some research-oriented and some practice-oriented clinical programs does not. Also, some people just apply to all the programs in a geographical area, and those programs usually are VERY different from each other. If they ask where else you have interviews (or more directly how highly you're ranking them), they are trying to get a feel for how likely you are to accept an offer. It's not actually about program ego or whatever (most of the time ), but usually about funding issues. Many programs are allowed to extend a certain number of offers, but are not allowed to have a waitlist. If they don't get one of the named students, they just don't get a student. Add in the calculations necessary to determine which faculty get students, and you have a lot of strategic guessing happening. Faculty member A has a stronger candidate than Faculty member B, but Candidate B is more likely to accept an offer than Candidate A, etc. How to answer these questions? For the former, no need to be shy about giving them the names of a few of the other programs to which you applied. No need to give them all the names if you don't want to; pick the ones that are most consistent with how you are trying to present yourself as a fit. For the latter, again no need to tell them all of the names if you don't want to, but it's fine if you do. If they invited you to interview they already think you're a strong candidate, which means they won't be surprised that you have other interviews, but they also know that the numbers game is crazy, so they won't be alarmed if they are your only one. In some ways, the latter is easier for them, because they have a better sense of your likelihood of accepting their offer. I'm not sure I would tell any program where they are in your own ratings UNLESS they are actually your first choice, in which case you should absolutely tell them. It's not dating - it's okay to tell 'em you love 'em (appropriately, of course) on the first meeting . You can instead say that you are extremely enthusiastic about their program and you have decided to finish all of your interviews before ranking your preferences. doefficient, Gvh and attackonthedoctor 3
TheMercySeat Posted February 12, 2015 Posted February 12, 2015 Thank you, thank you, thank you for this!!! I HATE this question.
TenaciousBushLeaper Posted February 13, 2015 Posted February 13, 2015 3 faculty from my university recently had a talk about this in a sort of informal course where graduate students, RA's, lab managers, and faculty speak on topics in academia. One of those topics was (about two weeks ago) on graduate school admissions. All 3 of them had the same reasoning for why they ask students about other programs they've applied to. It really came down to "are you going to come here?", that's what they want to know when they ask you this question, this is a type of gauge, they want to weight the odds of you accepting an offer at their program when their program might have to compete with school X suzieq 1
suzieq Posted February 13, 2015 Author Posted February 13, 2015 It really came down to "are you going to come here?", that's what they want to know when they ask you this question, this is a type of gauge, they want to weight the odds of you accepting an offer at their program when their program might have to compete with school X Thanks all! I really wish there was a way to reciprocate the question to get a gauge on whether we're going to get in!
TenaciousBushLeaper Posted February 13, 2015 Posted February 13, 2015 Thanks all! I really wish there was a way to reciprocate the question to get a gauge on whether we're going to get in! Well, I don't know if it helps but the same faculty said that it was also fair game for you (the potential graduate student) to ask them about their current funding, how many people they have working on current projects going on in their labs, and if they need people on a particular project. These questions may help?
EastCoasting Posted February 13, 2015 Posted February 13, 2015 For those worried about admitting that they didn't interview elsewhere--2/3 of our incoming students this year admitted that they were not interviewing elsewhere, and they were still accepted into our highly ranked program.
FantasticalDevPsych Posted February 13, 2015 Posted February 13, 2015 That's encouraging EastCoasting! I just said I've only heard positively so far from one school (the one I was at)...
psych face Posted February 13, 2015 Posted February 13, 2015 I found this question pretty annoying. I mean, yes, I get why they are asking but it seems there isn't a right or wrong answer. For instance, if you have other offers, then it might bode well for you in that the program interviewing you may consider you to be competitive for other schools and -potentially- offer you a more competitive stipend (as an above poster mentioned). However, on the flip side, if you mention you are applying to many other places, this may taken negatively in that you are statistically less likely to accept an offer at their program. In another scenario, if you only have 1 interview, then you are faced with saying they are your only option..which may indicate you are not a strong applicant, etc.. Anybody else find themselves debating how to answer this? I had a similar question and it made me a little uncomfortable but I think I spontaneously redirected the question pretty well by talking about what their program was offering me, etc. It must have worked pretty well because they liked my answer and didn't bring it back up. It felt like they were digging for some sort of gauge of what I thought about them, and that was totally annoying. But, not totally unexpected. I mean, I expected annoying questions. So I guess I was prepared for that. It was the most shenanigan-ish question I got, so that's pretty good.
tha1ne Posted February 16, 2015 Posted February 16, 2015 I'm not sure I would tell any program where they are in your own ratings UNLESS they are actually your first choice, in which case you should absolutely tell them. It's not dating - it's okay to tell 'em you love 'em (appropriately, of course) on the first meeting . You can instead say that you are extremely enthusiastic about their program and you have decided to finish all of your interviews before ranking your preferences. I don't know about you, but I always say 'I love you' on the first date....which I guess explains why I'm still single D: psych face 1
psych face Posted February 17, 2015 Posted February 17, 2015 I don't know about you, but I always say 'I love you' on the first date....which I guess explains why I'm still single D: ROFL... Interviewer: So tell me about yourself. Me: I love you. Interviewer:
Generis Posted February 17, 2015 Posted February 17, 2015 My policy has been to just be honest and up front, and let me say it's definitely saved me some trouble. My first acceptance my POI asked were I had interviewed, etc. if I was willing to share, and I pretty much gave them my list, including "I'll be at college X two weekends from now." As fate would have it, during the interview at college X, I ran into that first school POI giving a talk on campus that day. They already knew I'd be there, so it saved me a lot of awkwardness and feeling like I was sneaking around by just being honest.
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