FemaleScienceProfessor (and others) on Grad Interviews

[repatriate]

FSP put up a post today on her blog about grad school interviews: http://science-professor.blogspot.com/2010/02/grad-interviews.html

Some of the choicest commentary so far:

--

When I meet with grad candidates, I don't grill them with aggressive questions. I want to see some degree of focus, but the student doesn't have to know exactly what they want to do for their thesis research. I want to be able to have a conversation about the research possibilities in my research group/department/university, and it's nice if the student asks a question now and then so the conversation isn't a monologue.

--

I find as a prof that runs a medium size lab at a R! university, I don't even glance at any application unless the student has 1)contacted me by email to set up a phone call (also included should be transcripts attached) and 2)called me and peaked my interest in them.

--

For our interviews, we started with a 10-minute/faculty member run through of the research programs in our department (we're a tiny department with a huge diversity of projects, so this was important to do). After that we had students sign up for 4 20-minute interviews with faculty. (The faculty had about 10 interviews each.) Lab tours of the various labs were run during the interview times, so that applicants with no interview in a particular schedule could either hang out or take a tour of a particular lab. We had more tour slots than applicants, so these were mostly one-on-one tours.

We ended the day with a wine tasting (a roughly monthly event in our department).

--

Many of our faculty are very interested in the students' prior research experience, so we expect them to be able to explain that coherently. We also like to see students who are engaged in science - they don't have to ask brilliant questions or know all the answers, but they should be interested.

--

I read your posts on GRE scores, etc., with a bleak eye. Many of us don't have the luxury to hold out for a student with good language skills and a basic grasp of algebra. We take what we can get.

--

Many biomedical sciences departments interview students jointly with other departments on campus. Because there are so many labs involved, there are literally hundreds of students interviewing every week for more than a month in the spring! [...] It's impossible for anybody to maintain the same enthusiasm for recruiting students after the 4th week in a row.

--

Since they're already admitted we mainly use this interview as a means of determining level of financial support. The small number of available fellowships and extra money will be given to the more impressive students. Nearly everybody will receive a teaching assistantship. Students that were either offensive (it's happened), obviously inept in person, or particularly undesirable for whatever reason aren't offered any financial support, and that's usually enough to keep them from coming.

--

It's all interesting information, but it really just confirms how different the experience will be for every department/applicant.

Edited February 4, 2010 by repatriate

[Pharcyde]

Thank you for posting!

[coyabean]

I'm sorry but I think you should be a bit forgiving of students if you are a prof and you write this:

--

I find as a prof that runs a medium size lab at a R! university, I don't even glance at any application unless the student has 1)contacted me by email to set up a phone call (also included should be transcripts attached) and 2)called me and peaked my interest in them.

Also included should be transcripts attached?

And, it's PIQUED!!!

I think this should be cross posted in forums just to make some of us feel better about minor issues in the statement and/or app. They are far from perfect, too.

[repatriate]

I'm sorry but I think you should be a bit forgiving of students if you are a prof and you write this:

--

I find as a prof that runs a medium size lab at a R! university, I don't even glance at any application unless the student has 1)contacted me by email to set up a phone call (also included should be transcripts attached) and 2)called me and peaked my interest in them.

Also included should be transcripts attached?

And, it's PIQUED!!!

I think this should be cross posted in forums just to make some of us feel better about minor issues in the statement and/or app. They are far from perfect, too.

It boggles the mind. The capriciousness of the subjective system ensures that there will occasionally be profs like this. But on the other hand, perhaps this is an effective way of ensuring personality fit (i.e., only those who are extremely savvy at having and exploiting connections may find out what this PI wants, and this PI wants only those who have and use such means in his lab)?

Edited February 4, 2010 by repatriate

[modernity]

It boggles the mind. The capriciousness of the subjective system ensures that there will occasionally be profs like this. But on the other hand, perhaps this is an effective way of ensuring personality fit (i.e., only those who are extremely savvy at having and exploiting connections may find out what this PI wants, and this PI wants only those who have and use such means in his lab)?

And how...are potential students supposed to know to do this? Even when we have these discussions on the board, and we've been talking within a specific discipline, there hasn't been a consensus on whether to call or not. Some mentors have said yes, others no... no one knows unless they know the specific professor at the school/adcomm that they're applying to. So I guess this is another luck of the draw item to add to the "crapshoot list". If this is something they absolutely want, they need to let us know.

[qazwerty]

And how...are potential students supposed to know to do this? Even when we have these discussions on the board, and we've been talking within a specific discipline, there hasn't been a consensus on whether to call or not. Some mentors have said yes, others no... no one knows unless they know the specific professor at the school/adcomm that they're applying to. So I guess this is another luck of the draw item to add to the "crapshoot list".  If this is something they absolutely want, they need to let us know.

The thing is, I doubt they ACTUALLY want this.  They'd be flooded with hundreds of emails from prospective students!  That professor sounds like she is deliberately trying to give people heart attacks, indigestion, and migraines by pretending that's what is required/wanted.

[repatriate]

And how...are potential students supposed to know to do this? Even when we have these discussions on the board, and we've been talking within a specific discipline, there hasn't been a consensus on whether to call or not. Some mentors have said yes, others no... no one knows unless they know the specific professor at the school/adcomm that they're applying to. So I guess this is another luck of the draw item to add to the "crapshoot list". If this is something they absolutely want, they need to let us know.

My point was that this rule may have the effect of weeding out most applicants, and that those applicants remaining may have specific qualities that the PI is seeking (e.g., connections to his/her close colleagues who can advise what s/he is looking for, boldness/assertiveness to request/initiate a phone call and send transcripts). If you're the sort of person who has more caution/reservedness when approaching faculty, you may not be what this PI wants.

Perhaps it would be nice if the system were more transparent. I'm not saying it's good that it's opaque, just trying to find a way to make this type of rule seem less unfair (by suggesting that it does have some sort of useful screening effect by selecting for particular traits that this person wants in his/her lab).

Edited February 5, 2010 by repatriate

[Katzenmusik]

It would be nice and save everyone time if faculty could include blurbs on their web site bios, like:

"I welcome emails from prospective graduate students who find that their scholarly interests align with my own. Please include a transcript and a very brief summary of what you hope to study."

OR

"Due to volume, I am unable to respond to prospective students' emails and calls."

That would give us a good indication of whether the prof is in favor of applicant contact or not.

[casey825]

And, it's PIQUED!!!

hahahaha This jumped out garishly at me too. Thank you for pointing this out!

[ScreamingHairyArmadillo]

It would be nice and save everyone time if faculty could include blurbs on their web site bios, like:

"I welcome emails from prospective graduate students who find that their scholarly interests align with my own. Please include a transcript and a very brief summary of what you hope to study."

OR

"Due to volume, I am unable to respond to prospective students' emails and calls."

That would give us a good indication of whether the prof is in favor of applicant contact or not.

I've run across both cases and have found it helpful except when faculty don't update their bios! One prof had listed that he was open to hearing from students but told me he had no room in his lab after I emailed him.

[mudlark]

And, it's PIQUED!!!

I was going to post the exact same thing!

[jacib]

Re: not looking at applications. A head of a lab is not necessarily on the adcomm, that is perhaps why she doesn't look at the applications unless specifically queried.

[meg]

Here's another comment from the blog:

"One year I literally chose a student at random (I put all the names of people applying to work with me in a hat). This student did really well and I saved so much time not looking over 10's of applicants files.

"I am a statistics prof and over years of research I discovered that the success of a student is independent of their portfolio. A random choice (to someone smart enough to get to the level of applying to work with me at my university) is just as good as pouring over every detail in someones application and choosing the "best" student."

Um, wow. Seriously? I guess the silver lining is that, had I been rejected by this professor and realized why, I may also have realized that I'd kind of lucked out. Nevertheless, I'd welcome feedback to buttress the spirit through this grueling process. Feel free to ridicule the author's use of the spelling "pouring".

[genotype]

And how...are potential students supposed to know to do this? Even when we have these discussions on the board, and we've been talking within a specific discipline, there hasn't been a consensus on whether to call or not. Some mentors have said yes, others no... no one knows unless they know the specific professor at the school/adcomm that they're applying to. So I guess this is another luck of the draw item to add to the "crapshoot list". If this is something they absolutely want, they need to let us know.

I would think that there are more professors who would get annoyed at a student attaching a whole bunch of stuff to an e-mail (i.e. transcripts, etc.), calling, etc. than there are profs who would enjoy this approach.

Also, the "peaked" thing really bothered me for some reason....

[coyabean]

I would think that there are more professors who would get annoyed at a student attaching a whole bunch of stuff to an e-mail (i.e. transcripts, etc.), calling, etc. than there are profs who would enjoy this approach.

Also, the "peaked" thing really bothered me for some reason....

Well, I think it's this amazing phenomenon I've witnessed wherein profs immediately forget what it is like to be a student. If they had not forgotten they would not demand perfection while displaying such imperfection.

[Katzenmusik]

I've run across both cases and have found it helpful except when faculty don't update their bios! One prof had listed that he was open to hearing from students but told me he had no room in his lab after I emailed him.

But presumably even that was a helpful result? He welcomed emails and took the time to write back, so you knew you shouldn't bother applying to work with him in that particular year.