Posted by: Launa ni February 1, 2010
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I agree with most tips above except wearing a business suit to your interview. First of all, no one wears a business suit to a graduate school interview. If you know you will be able to handle it well, do it, but know that no one else might be wearing a business suit. I interviewed at 6 schools, 4 of them in the top 10, and no one wore a suit. I also got to meet interviewees in other biomedical science programs in those schools, and I did not see a single interviewee wear a suit.
The program I am in ranks top 10 in the USNews and World Report ranking and we typically interview twice as many students as we offer acceptance to. About 60% of those offered choose to come here. Also, based on my experience going on interviews and being involved in student recruitment in my department for the past 3 years, I can attest to you that ranking in the US News and World Report doesn't relate proportionally to competitiveness of admission. A program ranked 9th may be significantly more competitive than a program ranked 5th. Many factors, including location and reputation for graduate training affect competitiveness. So, I'd suggest paying close attention to whether you might be a good fit and whether the program seems to do well at training graduate students. Some top-ranked schools have shitty reputation for graduate student training and you may have a hard time if you decide to go there. So, an important thing to try to get a sense of during your interviews is whether the graduate students seem happy. If you have any particular faculty in mind, try to find out whether the person has a good track record of training students. Some faculty do top-notch research but are a-holes when it comes to dealing with people in their lab. Remember, you are 'interviewing' the school, the faculty, and the program as much as they are interviewing you, so spend some time and effort getting a sense of what it is going to be like being a student there. As much as it may sound tempting, I do NOT recommend going to any
program solely based on US news ranking (or any other ranking for that
matter).
Good luck!
The program I am in ranks top 10 in the USNews and World Report ranking and we typically interview twice as many students as we offer acceptance to. About 60% of those offered choose to come here. Also, based on my experience going on interviews and being involved in student recruitment in my department for the past 3 years, I can attest to you that ranking in the US News and World Report doesn't relate proportionally to competitiveness of admission. A program ranked 9th may be significantly more competitive than a program ranked 5th. Many factors, including location and reputation for graduate training affect competitiveness. So, I'd suggest paying close attention to whether you might be a good fit and whether the program seems to do well at training graduate students. Some top-ranked schools have shitty reputation for graduate student training and you may have a hard time if you decide to go there. So, an important thing to try to get a sense of during your interviews is whether the graduate students seem happy. If you have any particular faculty in mind, try to find out whether the person has a good track record of training students. Some faculty do top-notch research but are a-holes when it comes to dealing with people in their lab. Remember, you are 'interviewing' the school, the faculty, and the program as much as they are interviewing you, so spend some time and effort getting a sense of what it is going to be like being a student there. As much as it may sound tempting, I do NOT recommend going to any
program solely based on US news ranking (or any other ranking for that
matter).
Good luck!