Staying with current student during interview

[ITISRED]

I was invited to interview at my favorite program. This is my second invitation and they do things very differently. One is having me make my own travel arrangements and stay with a graduate student while the other is arranging everything for me including a nice hotel.

Is it normal to stay with a current student? It makes me a little uncomfortable and seems unprofessional in comparison to the other school.

[rising_star]

It's fairly common to ask visiting students to stay with a grad student. Think about it. You're going to be spending a lot of time with these folks if you get in and decide to enroll at that institution so it behooves you to get to know some of them now. It also gives you a chance to ask questions more informally, better understand the housing options available, etc. Try to view it as an opportunity, rather than thinking about it as unprofessional.

[.letmeinplz//]

  On 1/4/2017 at 5:32 PM, rising_star said:

It's fairly common to ask visiting students to stay with a grad student. Think about it. You're going to be spending a lot of time with these folks if you get in and decide to enroll at that institution so it behooves you to get to know some of them now. It also gives you a chance to ask questions more informally, better understand the housing options available, etc. Try to view it as an opportunity, rather than thinking about it as unprofessional.

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Perhaps you'll get more candid answers once you are away from the student's adviser so you can get a more honest view of the program rather than what is crafted to recruit students.

[Eigen]

  On 1/4/2017 at 2:12 PM, ITISRED said:

I was invited to interview at my favorite program. This is my second invitation and they do things very differently. One is having me make my own travel arrangements and stay with a graduate student while the other is arranging everything for me including a nice hotel.

Is it normal to stay with a current student? It makes me a little uncomfortable and seems unprofessional in comparison to the other school.

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It's not uncommon to stay with a current student, for sure. Although when I was in grad school, we pushed for a school-wide move towards not doing it, as some programs were putting huge pressure on current students to house visitors past what was healthy.  

Travel arrangements and paying for them can vary hugely between types of schools (public, private) and the state of a public school. 

It's the same for faculty interviews or traveling as an invited speaker. Some state schools have rules preventing them from making any arrangements or paying up front, some will do it all for you through a school travel agent. 

[ITISRED]

Thank you everyone! You're all right. The more I think about it, the more I see the benefit of it. I guess I was so surprised because the school that is having me arrange everything myself and stay with a current student is an ivy league and the other one is a state school. I just expected the ivy league to be the more formal of the two and I'm glad to see that that may not actually be the case.

I guess the only down side to staying with a current student is that I'm sure they'll be evaluating me the entire time! Although, I guess I'll get to evaluate them as well.

[TakeruK]

  On 1/4/2017 at 5:45 PM, Eigen said:

It's not uncommon to stay with a current student, for sure. Although when I was in grad school, we pushed for a school-wide move towards not doing it, as some programs were putting huge pressure on current students to house visitors past what was healthy.  

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This is exactly how I feel about it too. 

  On 1/4/2017 at 8:56 PM, ITISRED said:

Thank you everyone! You're all right. The more I think about it, the more I see the benefit of it. I guess I was so surprised because the school that is having me arrange everything myself and stay with a current student is an ivy league and the other one is a state school. I just expected the ivy league to be the more formal of the two and I'm glad to see that that may not actually be the case.

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My personal experience and impression is that private/Ivy-league schools seem to build this almost cult-like (to use a negative connotation) or big-family (to use a positive one) environment where students are generally more expected and sometimes more willing to help out in this way. (Note: I chose both positive and negative connotation analogies since there are benefits and drawbacks and I'm not really sure what the balance is lol). One explanation is that private schools may pay their students more, or provide other good benefits that asking this of a student in return isn't as much of an "ask" as it would be if they were barely paying their students.

Also, another thing I've been thinking about is that all the places where the visit is with a student have been in very low cost of living cities, where the grad students have very large and spacious apartments or even own their own houses (the examples I'm thinking of include both public and private schools). My current school (private school in high cost of living area) put us in hotels. So, the reason might also be to show how nice you could afford to live as a student, especially if the town/city itself might not rank highly on most people's lists.

[Extra Espresso]

  On 1/5/2017 at 4:31 AM, TakeruK said:

Also, another thing I've been thinking about is that all the places where the visit is with a student have been in very low cost of living cities, where the grad students have very large and spacious apartments or even own their own houses (the examples I'm thinking of include both public and private schools). My current school (private school in high cost of living area) put us in hotels. So, the reason might also be to show how nice you could afford to live as a student, especially if the town/city itself might not rank highly on most people's lists.

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I had two interviews where we had the option of staying the night with the current student. One of them was in a city with a fairly low cost-of-living comparatively, and it really helped me get a feel for what it would be like to live there as a graduate student. The other was in a very high cost-of-living city, and seeing what the graduate student life was like there was one of the reasons I decided I was not interested in the school. I agree that showing you how you can live as a graduate student may be one of their goals, but it definitely can backfire if the city is expensive!