Recruitment Weekend

[HistoryHopeful2010]

One of the schools to which I applied invited me to a recruitment weekend next month. The invitation stated that I was on the shortlist of applicants. What should I expect from one of these weekends? Is this an interview, or is it more of a social/information event?

What should I do to prepare for this weekend?

[LifeIsGood]

I don't have an answer to your question, but I'm sure someone else here does. Would you mind sharing which school it is?

[HistoryHopeful2010]

It was Penn State.

[StrangeLight]

there may be informal interviews or group interviews (you and 5 other hopefuls with 3 or 4 profs all together) and there will almost definitely be some social gathering for you to mill around and schmooze. some profs and some students will take this process very seriously, others will talk to you about sports. neither type of conversation is an indication of how seriously they are considering you. don't try to overanalyze the conversations you have with anyone.

in my experience, it's better to have a dialogue with professors about your interests rather than reciting your CV and SOP. easier said than done, but they know your resume, that's why you're there. this is the opportunity to promote yourself as a serious scholar with an academic curiosity.

1) dress appropriately. not too formal (unless you rock a suit on the regular) but band t-shirts and and neon green pumas aren't first-impression attire, even though they kick ass.

2) think about your own research carefully before heading in. assemble a little bibliography of the relevant stuff you've already read and other stuff you'd like to read moving forward. rehearse a 1-2 sentence idea of what your research is. when someone outside your subfield asks you what you do, you want to sound clear and concise. you don't need to write any of this down, just have it in your mind. odds are once you talk to someone that is in your subfield, they'll ask "have you read ____?" and you at least want to know of the scholar they're talking about.

one really useful (but time-consuming) way to do that is to compile a spreadsheet of all profs that do something really close to what you do (i.e. 19th century labour history and immigration in the northeast). where do they teach, what are their research interests, and if you've read any of their work, those titles. you don't need to memorize that, but when someone says "do you know justin wolfe?" you can say, "oh yeah, he's at tulane, studying race and the nation-state in nineteenth century nicaragua." that's all you need but i've found it goes a long way any time you talk with a professor about your work.

3) consider making copies of your CV and SOP and carrying them with you (if you have a purse or a satchel or something). odds are no one will ask to see it, but it's better to have those on hand in case someone does want to take a peak.

4) research penn state. have questions prepared for them. this is really important, although i'm not totally sure why. i just know that a lot of people conducting interviews complain that the interviewee didn't ask any questions. ask about speaker series, where the grad students hang out, what sort of departmental events or workshops they do, that sort of stuff. even if you know the answers to these questions, ask them anyway.

[BumblebeePlan]

It was Penn State.

See you there!