Advise needed: How to respond to POI

[PhDchallenger]

I've received a formal invitation for an interview weekend thing which is a great news because I didn't see myself doing any good this cycle.

My POI then sent me a personal email basically congratulating me for reaching this point and asking if i had any questions or inquiries prior to the scheduled interview weekend.

Should my reply be simple and not overdo it by trying to ask smart ass questions? I guess I'm nervous I don't want to mess up my chances *fingers crossed*

 

[01sonal]

First of all, congratulations! In my opinion it's worse to try to make up questions just for the sake of having them than it is to be honest and say you don't have any questions at this point.

I was in a similar position last application cycle, and I just told the professor that I did have questions but would rather wait to discuss them in person rather than over email.

Of course, if you do genuinely have questions then you should ask them, if you want to. I didn't want to because I didn't have too many questions and didn't want to run the risk of not having enough questions to ask during the actual interview as a result of having asked some beforehand. 

Another option would be to ask a logistical question about the interview weekend, or to ask for contact information of their current grad students (if you do this you probably will have to then email the grad student and introduce yourself/ask them a few questions so again it doesn't look like you were asking just for the sake of asking).