Interview with faculty that I'm not interested in

[ITISRED]

I'm interviewing at my top program in a month. I was told yesterday that I will interview with all 17 faculty members (in one day!). The faculty will be paired, so I'll only actually have 8-9 30 minute interviews. I'm really interested in working with one of them and have been in frequent contact with him. 3 or 4 others look good too, but the rest do research that bores me. I'm trying to go through everyone's website and read all I can about each person, but this seems like a bad strategy.

How should I prep for an interview with faculty members that I'm not interested in working with?

[Eigen]

You should at least read the websites/interests of everyone. 

For the faculty you're interested in, I would suggest reading selected (or a lot) of papers that are relatively recent as well. 

Don't tell them their research bores you. To be perfectly honest, I'd worry on moving away from this mindset entirely. It's not good to feel that any research outside your area "bores" you. Even if you're not explicit about it, it will come across and you will not make a good impression. In my honest opinion, you should be able to be interested enough about nearly any research in your field, broadly defined, to have a 30 minute conversation with someone on it. 

Part of being an academic, and being part of the larger academic community is respect and interest for research that is not your own. 

[ITISRED]

Thank you for the advice @Eigen.

The program is in biology which means it includes research from a few fields. I'm interested in ecology, so it's hard to get excited about reading about neuroscience and cancer research. I can chat about it no problem, but it's hard to motivate myself to get into the nitty gritty of it all.

[TakeruK]

As @Eigen said, grad school is potentially an entry into the world of academia, and this is not a world where people should only care about their direct research interests. A scholar and good colleague will be able to have intelligent discussions with all of their colleagues on their topic of research. 

However, this doesn't mean you need to care deeply about every topic and you don't need to get to the nitty gritty. But surface level interest is important and you should strive to find the parts of their work that interest you.

It also sounds like you are applying to a multi-disciplinary program (or at least a biology program covering a wide range of topics) while you are mostly interested in ecology parts of it only. I would say that being only interested in ecology and not neuroscience/cancer would mean that you're not really a good fit for such a wide department and if you show this, it will reflect poorly on you. I personally enjoy being in a multidisciplinary program and I enjoy the ability to walk down the hall and have chats about research way different than my dissertation topic!

[DBear]

This reminds me of the first job I interviewed for (non-academic). I met with over 10 people all from different departments, performing different functions within the company. Although most of the departments had nothing to do with me and I wouldn't be working in or with them, it was still necessary to show that I was suited to the organization's overall goals and culture - aspects that cross disciplinary boundaries. I imagine that in the course of your career, you'll be faced with this type of situation again. So like @TakeruK said, it's important to be able to show at least a minimal amount of interest and knowledge even in topics you may not ever work on because, I think, it shows that you care about the organization as a whole and if needed, you can contribute in fields that may not be in your comfort zone. Also, it's important to learn how to discuss your interests with someone that may not be in your specific research area - more often than not, whether it's submitting papers for publication, applying for a job or a grant, giving conference presentations, you won't be preaching to the choir. So yeah, the interviewers whom you're not all that thrilled about may be thinking the exact same thing about you. So in addition to preparing to express interest in them, you'll need to be able to discuss your plans in a way that can keep them from falling asleep. 

This isn't easy, even as a grad student, department dinners were always full of people trying to show interest / gain interest in stuff that's unrelated. Like me, trying to explain my research on race relations to a person researching Renaissance tragedies while also trying to be polite and show sincere interest about that person's research on Hamlet and other stuff.... So yeah, as long as we're in academia, this will be a recurring situation.