Post-interview thoughts/feelings

[Generic_Applicant]

Somewhere to vent or share about how you're feeling after an interview? 

[EveryDay]

Good idea.

I have only heard from one of my 4 places, and I interviewed there recently. I thought it went mostly well until I met with my POI. He seemed disappointed at the fact that I was lacking some technical courses, so I'm not feeling very hot about it. At this point I don't expect much from 2 of the other places, so I'm only hoping for Boston U now.

Pretty bad application season for me. I did better before I had publications and relevant experience. Oh well.

[Generic_Applicant]

On 16/01/2016 at 7:14 PM, EveryDay said:

Good idea.

I have only heard from one of my 4 places, and I interviewed there recently. I thought it went mostly well until I met with my POI. He seemed disappointed at the fact that I was lacking some technical courses, so I'm not feeling very hot about it. At this point I don't expect much from 2 of the other places, so I'm only hoping for Boston U now.

Pretty bad application season for me. I did better before I had publications and relevant experience. Oh well.

I'm in the same boat! Feel like one of my interviews could have gone much better especially when I was asked a specific question. 

But I also feel we are the hardest on ourselves, so I would be willing to bet you did better than you think  

[Timemachines]

21 minutes ago, Generic_Applicant said:

I'm in the same boat! Feel like one of my interviews could have gone much better especially when I was asked a specific question. 

But I also feel we are the hardest on ourselves, so I would be willing to bet you did better than you think  

I was going to say...first and foremost, give yourself the credit you deserve for landing an interview! That's fantastic in itself. 

[Generic_Applicant]

1 minute ago, Timemachines said:

I was going to say...first and foremost, give yourself the credit you deserve for landing an interview! That's fantastic in itself. 

Thanks! Yeah I'm pretty greatful! And right back at ya

[emhopefulme]

I had my interview with my POI a couple of days ago. I think it went well given the fact that she wrote in her reply to my thank you email that she "enjoyed the conversation" and then the next day, forwarded an email notification of a new journal article that is relevant to what we discussed during the interview and wrote that she thought I might be interested in the article. 

So I wrote back about what I think about the article but she didn't reply afterwards. Not too sure what to make out of it right now and wondering what are my chances of being accepted... 

 

Anyone with similar experience? 

[SeventhCircle]

On 1/29/2016 at 9:25 PM, emhopefulme said:

I had my interview with my POI a couple of days ago. I think it went well given the fact that she wrote in her reply to my thank you email that she "enjoyed the conversation" and then the next day, forwarded an email notification of a new journal article that is relevant to what we discussed during the interview and wrote that she thought I might be interested in the article. 

So I wrote back about what I think about the article but she didn't reply afterwards. Not too sure what to make out of it right now and wondering what are my chances of being accepted... 

 

Anyone with similar experience? 

I had the exact same experience, except after an informal interview a few months ago. I really wouldn't stress it or take the non-response personally. It's more likely that while the POI appreciated your comments on the article, they weren't keen on starting a back-and-forth dialogue via email when admission decisions are pending.

All in all, I think her taking the time to follow up on your conversation with more material is a good sign.

[emhopefulme]

@SeventhCircle alrighty. Thank you for the assurance and sharing. I'll guess I'll just wait in anticipation. Hopefully it'll be positive!  

[addictionz04]

Great thread to start. I just got off a phone interview today with my PI and it went over the allotted time which I thought was a good sign. However, my PI ended the conversation with telling me that I would get accepted somewhere and didn't give me a particular time frame to expect to hear back from the program.. Granted, the actual on-campus interview day is next week, but I couldn't make it so that's why I had a phone interview. Anyways, I thought the conversation went well until that point. Any thoughts though?

[emmm]

If admissions decisions are made by a committee, the person who interviewed you, even if he's your potential PI, probably doesn't have the "power" to just admit you. So, he can't make any promises. It sounds as though things went well, and he'll be submitting a favorable report/arguing for your acceptance. Just my opinion (of course). Best of luck!

[PinkFreud22]

1 hour ago, addictionz04 said:

Great thread to start. I just got off a phone interview today with my PI and it went over the allotted time which I thought was a good sign. However, my PI ended the conversation with telling me that I would get accepted somewhere and didn't give me a particular time frame to expect to hear back from the program.. Granted, the actual on-campus interview day is next week, but I couldn't make it so that's why I had a phone interview. Anyways, I thought the conversation went well until that point. Any thoughts though?

It sounds like you had a good conversation. Your POI might be holding back giving anything away because a) most programs admit by committee from my understanding and b)if interviews are next week they may want to wait until they interview the other candidates next week. Best of luck! 

[kingslayer]

If you send professors a thank you email for interviewing you and they don't respond, is that 1) bad, 2) good, or 3) expected/normal?

[Feanor]

I've had two interviews so far in this round of applications and both went very well, although I wasn't aware of that for the first one until I got an unofficial offer  It's easy to think they'll care as much as you about a certain thing you screwed up during the interview or about the fact you got nervous, but sometimes they saw it as just a minor detail and were happy with the other perks you showcased. 

Remind yourself that you're likely to be the most judgmental person about your own performance, so maybe it wasn't really that bad...don't read too much into it and just wait for the decisions - the fact you had an interview shows they were already interested.

[Love3]

4 hours ago, kingslayer said:

If you send professors a thank you email for interviewing you and they don't respond, is that 1) bad, 2) good, or 3) expected/normal?

I think it's definitely normal. 

[LMXtreme]

I screwed up.

I knew the question was going to be asked, but for some reason didn't prepare for it. I ended up fumbling and bumbling like an idiot. Always know the answer to "are you familiar with any of my other research?", folks.

Other than that, interview went well.

[vislabgirlx]

I attended my first interview weekend, and had a disappointing experience that has led me to remove this university from my list. I say disappointing because previously this program was my second choice, one that I would be very happy to be admitted to.

 Unfortunately, the interview weekend provided me with a deep understanding of what people mean when they talk about "departmental fit." I didn't really get it before; I just assumed that if a PI does research that I like and they seem nice enough personality-wise, then the university is a fit. Nope. It goes much further than that. 

[didion10]

10 minutes ago, vislabgirlx said:

I attended my first interview weekend, and had a disappointing experience that has led me to remove this university from my list. I say disappointing because previously this program was my second choice, one that I would be very happy to be admitted to.

 Unfortunately, the interview weekend provided me with a deep understanding of what people mean when they talk about "departmental fit." I didn't really get it before; I just assumed that if a PI does research that I like and they seem nice enough personality-wise, then the university is a fit. Nope. It goes much further than that. 

can you expand on this a bit? what exactly was it that made you feel it wasn't a fit? I've noticed a general air of superiority versus openness that lead me to change my rankings. interested as to what other people feel.

[CatLady4Lyfe]

19 minutes ago, didion10 said:

can you expand on this a bit? what exactly was it that made you feel it wasn't a fit? I've noticed a general air of superiority versus openness that lead me to change my rankings. interested as to what other people feel.

Yes, please do expand! I'll be attending my first interview weekend next week and although I feel very positive about all my interactions so far with faculty/students, I'm definitely curious as to what the in-person interactions will be like.

[vislabgirlx]

23 hours ago, didion10 said:

can you expand on this a bit? what exactly was it that made you feel it wasn't a fit? I've noticed a general air of superiority versus openness that lead me to change my rankings. interested as to what other people feel.

Well, my POI was definitely not a fit, for starters. My interactions with her led me to believe that she does not have much respect for other peoples' time. Also, I felt I was "one of many" applicants for her; she invited numerous candidates and did not know any of our names, we had to remind her. This contrasts my experiences with other POIs, where I am either the only applicant they are interviewing, or I am one of few, and the POI has a genuine interest in me as a person. 

And for the department as a whole, again, I got the "one of many" vibe. They invited a lot of people, and it was clear to me that the faculty members who I interviewed with had basically no idea of who I was. Again, this contrasts previous experiences where I could tell that the faculty had reviewed my application shortly before meeting me, and thus they had some general idea of who I am and what I do.  

So, I guess my general issue is that this particular school had no real interest in me as an individual/potential candidate. Maybe I have been spoiled by the other programs that have been really interested in me. But, at this particular interview weekend I just felt like one of many who could fill a slot, not like one person who they specifically feel is a good match for their program. 

For reference, this was at a very well-known, well-respected university that gets hundreds of applications, so maybe they feel less of a need to impress candidates to make them want to go there. 

[kingslayer]

24 minutes ago, vislabgirlx said:

For reference, this was at a very well-known, well-respected university that gets hundreds of applications, so maybe they feel less of a need to impress candidates to make them want to go there. 

This would be a really great research study, I think!

imho the thing with applying to a well-know/well-respected university rather than a lesser-known university is the fact that at the well-known one, they choose you, whereas at the lesser-known one, you choose them. I have no idea if that makes sense. I mean, most people will put up with a lot of things for the ability to say they went to an Ivy League rather than an ~unknown regional school. Maybe it puts them on a super high horse when it comes to choosing people.

I feel like for super popular schools, there is more of a chance of them viewing you like cattle rather than a person. After all, it's impossible to view hundreds of applications and treat each one holistically.

[artsy16]

My post interview thoughts....the all were actually conversations about random things, what gives? I mean, it's good that I wasn't nervous and that professors weren't shooting questions at me, but I barely talked about research with any of my POIs. We did end up talking about interesting things (sometimes tangentially related to research). So how are they picking applicants????

[Applicant 1746]

31 minutes ago, artsy16 said:

My post interview thoughts....the all were actually conversations about random things, what gives? I mean, it's good that I wasn't nervous and that professors weren't shooting questions at me, but I barely talked about research with any of my POIs. We did end up talking about interesting things (sometimes tangentially related to research). So how are they picking applicants????

I had a similar experience at my counseling psych Ph.D interview this past weekend! The questions were either more job-interview-like ("How do you handle conflict?") or interesting but kind of random ("What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of your generation?"). I got the sense that they were trying to put together a cohort that would be a good fit personality- and value-wise with the department (maybe they'd already determined that we were strong researchers when they invited us?), but I left wishing that I'd gotten to talk about research more, especially with my POI (who I only got to talk with for about 20 minutes).

[artsy16]

1 hour ago, Applicant 1746 said:

I had a similar experience at my counseling psych Ph.D interview this past weekend! The questions were either more job-interview-like ("How do you handle conflict?") or interesting but kind of random ("What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of your generation?"). I got the sense that they were trying to put together a cohort that would be a good fit personality- and value-wise with the department (maybe they'd already determined that we were strong researchers when they invited us?), but I left wishing that I'd gotten to talk about research more, especially with my POI (who I only got to talk with for about 20 minutes).

My feelings also. We'll just have to wait and see! One POI yesterday said explicitly, "we don't need to talk about your application, this is more of a confirmatory meeting". Which put me at ease, BUT STILL!! 

[cpctc1]

6 hours ago, artsy16 said:

My post interview thoughts....the all were actually conversations about random things, what gives? I mean, it's good that I wasn't nervous and that professors weren't shooting questions at me, but I barely talked about research with any of my POIs. We did end up talking about interesting things (sometimes tangentially related to research). So how are they picking applicants????

This was my experience at my first interview!! I had compiled a long list, probably excessively long, of questions to think about that might come up and while I was happy that my interviewers didn't fire questions at me, after I just kept thinking, "what did we even talk about?" I basically just had conversations, which was nice, but also made me wonder how they are picking applicants. I feel like I was only asked like two or three main questions and just talked about things that came up from there. 

Edited February 3, 2016 by cpctc1

[refreshingmyemail]

6 hours ago, Applicant 1746 said:

I had a similar experience at my counseling psych Ph.D interview this past weekend! The questions were either more job-interview-like ("How do you handle conflict?") or interesting but kind of random ("What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of your generation?"). I got the sense that they were trying to put together a cohort that would be a good fit personality- and value-wise with the department (maybe they'd already determined that we were strong researchers when they invited us?), but I left wishing that I'd gotten to talk about research more, especially with my POI (who I only got to talk with for about 20 minutes).

U Of o?