Interviews!

[hamster09]

i heard from some others that the attire is business casual. would that be the same if you are interviewing at public university or an ivy?

[captiv8ed]

Thanks for asking this! On the other thread, I had said I am wearing a suit. That is only for an Ivy. The other schools, I am planning to wear a dress. But is a suit too much even for an Ivy?

[acup313]

I may be different because I am interested in a Business PhD, but I would never go with Business Casual for an interview. I will definitely be wearing a suit to all of my interviews.

[JohnBom]

Thanks for asking this! On the other thread, I had said I am wearing a suit. That is only for an Ivy. The other schools, I am planning to wear a dress. But is a suit too much even for an Ivy?

I visited most of the departments I am applying to and I am quite certain that business casual will be most appropriate. I think a suit would give off an air of livelessness in a sociology department. You certainly don't want to be wearing a suit if the person interviewing you has a t-shirt on. That said, I don't think it's ever appropriate to be dressed down compared to the professor. I would say really nice business casual is the safest bet.

I had another only marginally question for you - Do sociology departments typically interview? I was looking at different websites and it seems to me like only one out of the nine that I applied to might.

I may be different because I am interested in a Business PhD, but I would never go with Business Casual for an interview. I will definitely be wearing a suit to all of my interviews.

It's a totally different game for professional schools. I think a suit is your only option there.

[socialpsych]

It's a totally different game for professional schools. I think a suit is your only option there.

As a successful business school applicant, I disagree. If you are female, there are definitely other options. I don't think a single woman at either of the business schools at which I interviewed last year (except for me!) was wearing a traditional suit. That said, you certainly wouldn't go wrong with a suit, but don't imagine that it is the only option. Of course, you should pay attention to whatever instructions the school sends (and most will say something about attire, in my experience) -- and again, if you are male, probably a different story.

Here is a clothing tip that may be obvious to you guys, but it wasn't obvious to me: how nicely you are expected to dress seems to covary with how competitive the visit situation is. If you are already in and just visiting, business casual is definitely fine, but the more people the school has invited per offer, the more formally you should dress. I visited two schools that explicitly specified "business casual, no suits please" -- one where the visiting prospective students had already been accepted, and one where they were there to interview -- and despite the identical instructions, the attire was noticeably different.

[acup313]

Cool. Thanks for the advice, I thought things might be different than I imagined.

[hamster09]

im in the sciences and so far i have heard that business casual is fine. i think if you were a suit that might put you a bit out of place since i have rarely seen any science professors in a suit. i guess business casual is ok for the ivies too if you are in sciences? yes or no? anyone? im from CA and my professors are the khaki kind of guys and button ups for most women.

[jacib]

On 12/23/2009 at 2:41 PM, hamster09 said:

im in the sciences and so far i have heard that business casual is fine. i think if you were a suit that might put you a bit out of place since i have rarely seen any science professors in a suit. i guess business casual is ok for the ivies too if you are in sciences? yes or no? anyone? im from CA and my professors are the khaki kind of guys and button ups for most women.

I agree with Hampster's standard, which someone else had said on the other board: go with whatever professors wear in that field (unless you're applying for a professional school). In Political Science, many of my professors wore suits. That did not happen in any of the other social sciences (anthropologists were particularly wacky, some of them), but even there I don't think business casual would be out of place... but perhaps a suit would. But for men, khakis or slacks and a well-ironed, monochrome button-down shirt I imagine would be acceptable anywhere, with or without a tie (I remember very few professors wearing sports coats, and even few wearing ties, except for my political science professors... though one of my polisci professors wore black tapered jeans and was balding in this adorable way that made it seem like he listed to bands like Television and the Smiths in the 80s, but had grown old).

On another note: people have this idea that the "Ivies" are an entirely different world, but they aren't. A Harvard interview, a Brown interview, a Stanford interview, a Chicago interview, a Berkeley interview, a Mich interview, a WashU in the same field will all be more or less the same, I'd imagine.... in many ways, in many fields, Chicago is more conservative than say Brown or UPenn would be, and Berkeley and Mich are two examples of public schools which have numerous programs which are certainly more prestigious than many Ivy league programs in the same field. Yale sociology, for example, is a decent program [i'm applying and I'd be happy to go there], but it's small, and much lower ranked and lower key. In the USNWR sociology top ten, there are two ivies, three other prestigious private universities, and five public universities. The Ivy league, it should be remembered, is technically only a sport league, and it officially was founded relatively recently, in 1954... Brown's endowment is smaller than Vanderbilt's, Chicago's, Rice's, WashU's, Duke's, Northwestern's, and Notre Dame's, just to name a few. While there might be some differences in funding structure, teaching responsibilities, and time to degree depending on whether a school is public or private, a school's "Ivy-status" has no inherent effect on any outcomes, except perhaps that the Ivy name encourages more applicants (but not necessarily any higher number of good applicants). I wonder how many of you who grew up without academic parents can name all the Ivies, or off-hand even say how many of them there are... why? Because it's really not an important distinction. Especially for graduate school.

[captiv8ed]

On 12/23/2009 at 12:01 PM, Astronautka said:

I had another only marginally question for you - Do sociology departments typically interview? I was looking at different websites and it seems to me like only one out of the nine that I applied to might.

That would be the best! I have no idea. For one school, I got in touch with the dean and he invited me to coffee to talk about the program. It isn't a formal interview. I had told my mentor about it and that is when she brought up the wearing of the suit. I told her specifically I would look sharp but not wear a suit for that one and she agreed but thought I should wear a suit for others. Which made me think there would be others. But we are at a liberal arts school, so we don't really know how the app process works.

For me it isn't that I think the schools are better, but I am just concerned that they have different standards of dress. I have lived on both coasts and I know that in general, people dress and act differently in the northeast than they do in the south or west. I don't think the people there are different or the education is better, but if they expect a different dress code to interviews, I want to oblige.

[jacib]

That would be the best! I have no idea. For one school, I got in touch with the dean and he invited me to coffee to talk about the program. It isn't a formal interview. I had told my mentor about it and that is when she brought up the wearing of the suit. I told her specifically I would look sharp but not wear a suit for that one and she agreed but thought I should wear a suit for others. Which made me think there would be others. But we are at a liberal arts school, so we don't really know how the app process works.

For me it isn't that I think the schools are better, but I am just concerned that they have different standards of dress. I have lived on both coasts and I know that in general, people dress and act differently in the northeast than they do in the south or west. I don't think the people there are different or the education is better, but if they expect a different dress code to interviews, I want to oblige.

Man re-reading my posts I come off as really bitchy and know-it-all-y.