What do you wish you'd asked your POI/professors/current students after admits?

[abed]

Hey everyone! I know it's still early in the admit season, but this is something I've been wondering about nonstop the past couple of days. After so much time competing to get into schools, the role reversal is catching me a little off guard. With visiting weekends coming up and opportunities to talk to professors and grad students on the phone, I'm wondering: what are good questions to be asking them? For current/recent grad students: what questions did you ask that were helpful? What do you wish that you had asked? Would also love to hear from other applicants, and of course professors if you're on here!

For context, I'm applying to Political Science PhD programs. Only heard back from one school so far, and I certainly don't want to be overconfident, but their visiting weekend is super early so I'm hoping to think through this early as well. Also hopefully this will be helpful to others who are picking between schools!

Edited February 2, 2016 by abed

[rising_star]

These are the first ones that come to mind. There's certainly more...

1) What support is there for students applying for external fellowships (e.g., NSF GRFP, NSF DDRI, SSRC, etc.)? Are there successful applicants within the department who are willing to share their materials?

2) Specific placement record and trajectory of recent alums of the department in general and your POI in particular.

3) Summer funding. Are there opportunities to teach a summer course as instructor of record? Is there summer funding available for preliminary fieldwork/data collection if your project requires that?

4) If needed for your work, what are the opportunities for language training? How common is this among PhD students?

5) What is the mix of MA and PhD students in courses in the department?

6) Are there any requirements to take courses outside of the department? If you're interested in courses outside the department, can you take them or are there restrictions on this?

6a) Can or should you have a committee member from outside the department involved in either your comps or your dissertation? If so, what's the protocol for doing this?

7) (Again, this is only if you're interested in this kind of thing.) What professional development training is there for teaching? Are there workshops, a graduate certificate, a 1-2 credit course, etc.?

8) More broadly, what professional development opportunities are there for graduate students?

9) How often and how closely do grad students get to interact with invited/colloquium speakers? Are there regular brown bag or colloquium talks in the department? Do people go to talks from outside the department?

10) Conferences. Is there funding available for travel and, if so, what are the requirements for getting it? Do students travel to regional conferences or only national ones? Do profs co-author presentations with students? Are there any conferences on campus where you can present your research?

That said, I wish I'd asked more about the department's culture/atmosphere. Some of this changes year to year as people graduate and a new cohort comes in but, it's still good to know what the overall department atmosphere is.

[abed]

Thanks so much, @rising_star! This is all really really helpful.