What does this mean?

[carlsaganism]

Hi All,

I got an email saying that they are inviting about 10 applicants to visit campus. They also said they will pay for everything. What does this mean? They didnt say anything about acceptance

[rising_star]

If they didn't say that you're accepted, then you haven't been accepted. This sounds like an interview weekend where they're interviewing folks to determine who they want to offer admission to.

[GeoDUDE!]

That is pretty rare in EPS, to get an interview before acceptance, so I'd think as long as you don't do anything alarming you will get admission. 

[TakeruK]

I agree with GeoDUDE!---our field rarely does "strict" interviews prior to acceptance. I know that U Arizona Planetary Science (LPL) has started doing visits and interviews prior to acceptance (starting for Fall 2013, my visit year was the last one where they accepted prior to visit, apparently). From what I've heard, they are just a final check to make sure you are the same in person as you appear on paper. This is in contrast to a lot of other fields where the fraction of interviews accepted can be much lower. 

Unless this program is very small, it's unlikely that they are going to interview 10 and only take 5. You can look at the current grad students and figure out how many enter per year, on average (just divide the total number of students by 5 or 5.5 or something). If this number is larger than 5, then it's likely almost everyone interviewed will get an offer. 

[carlsaganism]

thanks for all your inputs!! by the way, i am from Burnaby Vancouver ^^

[GeoDUDE!]

Fwiw, what is very common in our field is accepted student vitists: where the department lobbys for your commitment to the program. This is pretty competitive, and if you have a very focused field, they probably know where you were also accepted (at least possible places). I'd go there expecting to learn a lot about the program: I think its important to remember that interviews are not just there for the department to find out about you, but for you to find out about the department. Ask good questions. Graduate students are more often measured by the questions they ask and not the things they can immediately answer. 

[TakeruK]

Cool! It's really interesting to me that there are a ton of Planetary Scientists from the Vancouver area  I also agree with GeoDUDE's perspective of these visits---they are almost more for you to find out about them than the other way around.

[Eigen]

3 hours ago, GeoDUDE! said:

Fwiw, what is very common in our field is accepted student vitists: where the department lobbys for your commitment to the program. This is pretty competitive, and if you have a very focused field, they probably know where you were also accepted (at least possible places). I'd go there expecting to learn a lot about the program: I think its important to remember that interviews are not just there for the department to find out about you, but for you to find out about the department. Ask good questions. Graduate students are more often measured by the questions they ask and not the things they can immediately answer. 

My program has recently switched to acceptances at/following the interviews. 

We've had some really bad experiences with applicants who looked great on paper, and were horrible to work with during when they visited- bad mouthed everyone, really bad attitudes, etc. 

It used to be a case of everyone was accepted, but monetary offers were made after the visit- really good candidates got fellowships, some really bad interviews got no assistantships at all- a soft rejection. But then we had a couple of students come even with no assistantship.... And that was awkward all around. So now everyone we invite will get an acceptance IF the interview visit doesn't go badly. 

[sjoh197]

Just wanted to say congrats on the interview invite... Hope all goes well

[carlsaganism]

thanks guys = )

[talkcherty2me]

While it's definitely a good sign , I wouldn't consider it an acceptance until they specifically tell you it is. I got flown out for an interview at one school and did not get in, and my undergrad earth sciences department does an interview weekend instead of an accepted students weekend (but they usually accept more people than they reject after this point)

[Usmivka]

On 1/24/2016 at 8:33 PM, Eigen said:

My program has recently switched to acceptances at/following the interviews. 

We've had some really bad experiences with applicants who looked great on paper, and were horrible to work with during when they visited- bad mouthed everyone, really bad attitudes, etc. 

I think this is a very smart approach for the department. While you want to take the best people based on some semi-objective process, it helps no one if someone is accepted and  comes that others in the department all want to avoid.

[Eigen]

19 minutes ago, Usmivka said:

I think this is a very smart approach for the department. While you want to take the best people based on some semi-objective process, it helps no one if someone is accepted and  comes that others in the department all want to avoid.

We had one prospective student who (I'm not kidding) spent the whole visit telling everyone why he was so much smarter/better than all of the grad students and faculty here. It did not (for some reason) endear him to anyone.

[GeoDUDE!]

53 minutes ago, Eigen said:

We had one prospective student who (I'm not kidding) spent the whole visit telling everyone why he was so much smarter/better than all of the grad students and faculty here. It did not (for some reason) endear him to anyone.

Yeah, it's a bit disconcerting that we do accepted student days: especially since we only get 10-15 new graduate students a year 1 bad apple can really hurt a incoming class. 

[Usmivka]

9 hours ago, Eigen said:

We had one prospective student who (I'm not kidding) spent the whole visit telling everyone why he was so much smarter/better than all of the grad students and faculty here. It did not (for some reason) endear him to anyone.

Hopefully he was strongly encouraged to go elsewhere so his genius could be better appreciated.