Accepted but not sure I can attend Prospectives Weekend...

[ciistai]

Hi! So I've just been accepted to a program and invited to the Prospectives "Weekend" in late February that includes two weekdays (Thursday and Friday). I'm not sure I can make it though - it's just a week after I go to a four-day Recruitment "Weekend"/ Interview for another program (which has not made final decisions yet) and I cannot really take further time off. What do I do in this case?? Do I just explain? Say I'm willing to come on an actual weekend on on Friday/ Saturday at best? Offer to speak with them via Skype? I don't want to sound rude at all or like I'm not taking the offer seriously, but I have a finite number of days I can take off, and I need to save as many as possible for a few weeks of fieldwork in June (which is directly related to my applications and my field).

[random_grad]

43 minutes ago, ciistai said:

I cannot really take further time off

if it's not for financial reasons but due to the potential ire of your boss, just call in sick. that's what I did for one of my campus visits when I saw it would be impossible to get time off. doing a proper campus visit is a fantastic life experience you don't wanna miss.

[TakeruK]

I agree that if you are seriously considering this school, it's a good idea to visit! I find that the visits were the most helpful towards making my decision. A graduate program is a long time, and to me, it was well worth the extra effort required to attend.

Calling in sick is a very common thing to do to attend these visits. It's also common outside of academia---this is how people attend interviews for other jobs when you are already currently in a job. 

I also think it's important to come on the weekday, not an actual weekend. You want to see how the school/department operates on a regular day. There will be no (or very few) people around on a weekend and you'll miss the chance to meet with lots of people.

However, there are some potential compromises that can hopefully meet both the needs of your current job and making the best decision for yourself in the future:

1. Ask to move it to another Thursday/Friday....if it was early or mid-March, would it be easier to take time off?
2. Compromise and come for a Friday+Saturday instead?

[ciistai]

It's not really about the ire of my boss - I work in a university academic office so they're really supportive. It's that I have a finite number of vacation days and sick days in my contract, and they accumulate per month. For every 15 days I work I accumulate 1.5 sick days and 1 vacation day. So I don't have a ton on hand, and I just had to book two for a really important interview (I mean, it's basically my top choice) the weekend before this prospective weekend. It will have a financial impact in the long run because it means that in the summer when I take vacation time from this job, which I need to pay my bills, to do archaeological fieldwork, I will be unpaid for a week... 

I could call in sick - just that I can't call in sick for every school's weekend as they'll get suspicious. I'd say this school where I've been accepted is my 4th choice out of 7 so I think it might be worth it just in case. I'm shocked to hear it's so common, as I would get in a lot of trouble if they find out I'm not actually sick on my sick day... 

[rising_star]

Have you considered taking one unpaid personal day and one sick day? 

[TakeruK]

2 hours ago, ciistai said:

It's not really about the ire of my boss - I work in a university academic office so they're really supportive. It's that I have a finite number of vacation days and sick days in my contract, and they accumulate per month. For every 15 days I work I accumulate 1.5 sick days and 1 vacation day. So I don't have a ton on hand, and I just had to book two for a really important interview (I mean, it's basically my top choice) the weekend before this prospective weekend. It will have a financial impact in the long run because it means that in the summer when I take vacation time from this job, which I need to pay my bills, to do archaeological fieldwork, I will be unpaid for a week... 

I could call in sick - just that I can't call in sick for every school's weekend as they'll get suspicious. I'd say this school where I've been accepted is my 4th choice out of 7 so I think it might be worth it just in case. I'm shocked to hear it's so common, as I would get in a lot of trouble if they find out I'm not actually sick on my sick day... 

Ah okay, I wasn't sure if it was a super structured job format like that or not. If unpaid personal days are not allowed (in my experience, at jobs like this, these are also limited) then you might have no choice but to call in sick. I think the laws and rules vary a lot from place to place but while yes, you would get in trouble if they found out you weren't sick, it would also be very difficult for them to find out. Some places have laws that prevent them from asking for doctor's notes for example (and not all sickness requires visit to the doctor!). Just don't mention it to anyone, not on facebook, not to coworkers, etc. 

Also I agree that it's not feasible to do this for all schools! Even if you had unlimited sick days, visiting 7 schools would be a lot of time and energy! I only visited my top 3 choices so I think if you prioritize your top schools for visiting, you should be able to do it within the vacation day and sick days. I agree that there is financial impact though, and I wish schools would think about this more when scheduling visits (especially that 4-day visit school, what are they thinking??). Ultimately, I feel it's worth the lost pay in order to make a decision that would affect you for up to 5-7 (or more!) years!

[rising_star]

@TakeruK, the 4-day visit may be because they want to make sure everyone has a full day on campus. Depending on where people are coming from, Thursday may be largely a travel day where they're hoping everyone will get in by lunch or early afternoon and activities don't really start until 2 or 3pm. I definitely went on visits like that and appreciated having the full day to meet faculty, get campus tours, see the facilities, etc., rather than having it all crammed into the same day that I arrived.

[TakeruK]

Oh okay, I thought 4-day means 4 (week)days of scheduled activities. If you are counting travel day and weekends then yeah, most of my trip were 4 days too (arrive Wednesday, full event days Thursday & Friday, return home Saturday (sometimes a few fun activities in the city on Saturday for those who are around).

[emmm]

Students have had to arrive late or leave early for my current program's visit days. Generally, by the time they reach the point of being invited, they are considered strong applicants (my program interviews on-site before formally extending offers), so they try to work around and accommodate the prospective students' schedules whenever possible (even providing rides to/from airport). So, perhaps you could attend for an abbreviated visit, if that would be easier to manage?