School invited me for visit, but I'm abroad

[Ilikekitties]

Is it acceptable to decline a visit if I'm abroad? Just wondering. They even have an app where you can get up to $500 to visit, but that would not cover a one-way ticket for me.

[phyanth]

Congrats! Where at, if I may ask? 

I would explain the situation to the dept, and ask if there’s any way to get additional funding to come visit. Also be sure to express that you are still interested in the school! If it involves interviews, then I would ask if you could do something alternative, like Skype.

[Ilikekitties]

12 minutes ago, phyanth said:

Congrats! Where at, if I may ask? 

I would explain the situation to the dept, and ask if there’s any way to get additional funding to come visit. Also be sure to express that you are still interested in the school! If it involves interviews, then I would ask if you could do something alternative, like Skype.

The dept. knows that I’m abroad. It would also be difficult for me to leave my job and fly across the world for just a few days. I’d also need to pay for lodging and food. I wouldn’t be able to make it work for an open house visit that every applicant is invited to. It’s at Mississippi State. Flight delays are likely so I’d probably spend 2 days getting to the US and I’d get just a day with the department. Plus a round trip ticket would probably cost $2000.

Edited January 7, 2018 by GameofLoans16

[AP]

Of course you can say no. 

[TakeruK]

Yeah, it should be fine to say that you're very interested but you cannot visit due to currently living and working abroad since it would cost a lot more than $500. Many schools that offer a set amount like this do not expect international students or domestic students living abroad to visit. 

Do you already have an admission offer or is this an interview/visit? If it's the latter, then you should say that you can be available to interview via Skype or something. Even if it's a post-admissions visit, you could also ask to Skype with some profs and students and do a virtual visit. This shows interest and also ensures you get the info you need and you don't miss out on a visit.

[Ilikekitties]

19 hours ago, TakeruK said:

Yeah, it should be fine to say that you're very interested but you cannot visit due to currently living and working abroad since it would cost a lot more than $500. Many schools that offer a set amount like this do not expect international students or domestic students living abroad to visit. 

Do you already have an admission offer or is this an interview/visit? If it's the latter, then you should say that you can be available to interview via Skype or something. Even if it's a post-admissions visit, you could also ask to Skype with some profs and students and do a virtual visit. This shows interest and also ensures you get the info you need and you don't miss out on a visit.

It’s just a visit, no interview or admission offer 

Edited January 8, 2018 by GameofLoans16

[TakeruK]

On 1/8/2018 at 6:17 AM, GameofLoans16 said:

It’s just a visit, no interview or admission offer 

Oh then probably best to ask if you can get some of the information normally found through in-person meetings via a Skype chat instead or something.

[cabbysaurus]

I'm in a similar situation - I got invited to an open house for a school I'd really like to go to, but already have an international trip planned at that time. I am worried that declining the visit will result in me getting a rejection from the school. Does anyone have any thoughts or tips on this? Am I just being overly paranoid?

[TakeruK]

On 1/12/2018 at 8:38 AM, cabbysaurus said:

I'm in a similar situation - I got invited to an open house for a school I'd really like to go to, but already have an international trip planned at that time. I am worried that declining the visit will result in me getting a rejection from the school. Does anyone have any thoughts or tips on this? Am I just being overly paranoid?

I think this is something that depends on each program, so it's hard to give a general answer. My field only invites people after acceptances. However, in my opinion, these visits are part of the application process and applicants should avoid scheduling non-necessary travel or absences during this time. It's one thing if people have work commitments or are already out of the country. I don't know the purpose of your trip and you probably cannot change it now anyways, but I might wonder how serious/interested a candidate is if they just choose not to attend the open house. 

That said, if you can reschedule the open house for you then that should be no problem at all.

[Ilikekitties]

I’m scheduling a Skype session with one of the profs in lieu of attending the visit day. I have no idea what to say! I don’t know what questions I should ask since a lot of the general info can be found on the website.

[TakeruK]

3 hours ago, GameofLoans16 said:

I’m scheduling a Skype session with one of the profs in lieu of attending the visit day. I have no idea what to say! I don’t know what questions I should ask since a lot of the general info can be found on the website.

I think there are three categories of good questions to ask during visit days. The first is for specifics of the general things you find on the website and/or that particular prof's opinion/advice on things where you have decisions. For example, the website may say something like students are allowed to have co-advisors outside of the department, and you can ask something like "what fraction of students do this?". Or, it may say something like you take X electives---you can ask what electives they recommend, how many students normally take etc. Of course, only ask questions that are relevant to your situation (i.e. if you aren't interested in an outside advisor then don't ask about that). You can also ask about specific outcomes from their own students, e.g. "has any of your students gone into industry" etc. is one question I have asked. In general, most academics enjoy being asked about their opinion!

The second category is questions about the future. When I met with department chairs or similar positions, I would ask questions like, "Do you plan on expanding the faculty [i.e. hiring more] in the next 5 years?" If they say yes, or only replacing retiring faculty, I'd usually ask if the general department strategy is to pick a small number of areas of expertise and hire around those, or if they are thinking of building more breadth in their expertise. Through talking to my own departments and on visits, I found that most schools either choose some areas of expertise and do targeted hires, or they have a policy of "let's hire the best people we can recruit" and then department expertise hinges around who they are.

If you're meeting with individual profs, you can also ask similar questions but about their own body of research. Are they thinking of going in different directions? etc.

Finally, the last category is for people who you are considering working with. You can ask things like how they view the student-advisor relationship. Might be too vague to ask that directly, but you can ask things about important aspects such as what are their expectations from you as their student? What is their advising style---i.e. do they typically want students to follow a detailed plan of research? or do they have the student mostly direct their research topics, or some mixture? Are their students funded through grants or mostly through TAing? etc.