<p>For women, sweaters/button-down shirts and skirts/khakis/slacks are totally fine. No need for anybody, male or female, to wear a suit. virions has it right: wear what makes you feel like a confident professional, and be aware that you will be doing a lot of walking. (Also be aware that most faculty members really do not give a crap. They will be wearing whatever they normally wear for a day at the lab.)</p>
<p>Essentially, the interview is a conversation about research between you and a faculty member (who may be someone with whom you’re interested in rotating /doing your thesis work). You will talk about your previous research, then the PI will talk about his/her work. You should be able to speak confidently and engagingly about your own work, with appropriate amounts of technical detail for the person who’s interviewing you. You should be able to listen actively to his/her work, and ask interesting questions. You don’t need to have memorized (or read) previous papers from the lab, but if that helps you formulate your questions, more power to you. </p>
<p>Overall, interview weekends are a lot of fun, and are about recruitment as much as they’re about interviewing. I even found the interviews themselves to be a lot of fun – I mean, come on, you get to talk with smart people about science.</p>
<p>Do admissions committees take into account where you get your undergrad degree from? Obviously if someone got a degree from Harvard it would look better than from the average state school. But say for example applicants from the University of Florida versus the University of Central Florida or Florida State University. UF is a much better school than the other 2, but do admissions know that and does it matter to them is my question?</p>
<p>Absolutely! But unless you’re in high school, there’s nothing you can do about that. No point in getting worried about something you can’t change.</p>
<p>I just don’t get how they can know the differences between ~2300 different 4 year public universities…</p>
<p>And how do they look at applications? Do multiple people look at each application, is there a point system, does 1 person look at it for 5 minutes and say “this person looks good, send him/her an invite to interview”?, do admissions sit at a round table and talk pros/cons of each person? I’m sure it varies from college to college but what is the general procedure?</p>
<p>Well All finished applications YAY!! But here are some quick stats
Undergrad: Small Liberal arts Univ in MD
GPA Sci/overall 3.75/3.6
GRE ~50% for both Q and V :-/ (Not that these scores carry much weight)
Research Experience: 2 Years at USAMRIID
3 Years at home institution
NSF-REU at UNC-Chapel Hill
NSF-REU at Miami University
Intern at small Biotech company</p>
<p>Schools Applied:
Rockefeller
Harvard-Virology
UCSF
UC-B
UCLA
Wash U
Washington
Cold Spring Harbor
Emory
Ohio State</p>
<p>Do any past applicants have advice on how to deal with conflicting interview dates? I’ve called one of the schools with a conflicting date asking if they have any other options, and they told me no. I’m nervous about asking the other school if they have another date because they’ve already invited me to interview and I don’t want to seem disinterested or ungrateful by doing so…once they book your flight, is it too late to change anything?</p>
<p>Rofl I just have one right now but after I found out the date for that one I realized it was a conflict for another school I’m really interested in -_- Too bad that school hasn’t started looking at applications yet.</p>
<p>You should try to contact the school you got a interview, especially if they have multiple interview dates. How many school did you apply? If you applied to many schools (and even if you don’t), you may have to drop some schools to be able to attend the ones you really want to go.</p>
<p>I just received my second interview offer today, and had a similar problem (luckily this school has multiple interview dates). I ended up plotting tentative interview weekends in google calendar for the schools that list their weekends, and trying to estimate other programs based on last year’s dates. It is difficult because you want to attend your top choices on the earlier weekends, but some schools only have a single interview date and some over lap and some you just have no idea when the dates are.</p>
<p>In any case, from what I understood from one of the coordinators I spoke with, they don’t begin booking flights until 3 weeks out from the interview, so it seems like there is some room to move around, especially if schools have multiple interview weekends. If you went through the entire application process, you definitely want to attend the interview weekends. So, it definitely makes it worth talking with the coordinator to see if there is any possibility of switching dates.</p>
<p>Question: So I work 9 hours/day and am not at home during business hours. For those schools who called applicants to inform them that they’ll be getting an email invitation - what happens if you’re not home?? Which is most likely what will happen…</p>
<p>elysia–I wouldn’t think it would be rude to ask for another date. I would definitely be gracious on the phone/email, but you want every opportunity to make an informed decision about your graduate school. Ask if there is any possibility–and let us know how it goes…</p>
<p>Denizen–I missed one of the calls. They leave a message, informing you they are extending you an interview with phone number to call back.</p>
<p>–Voicemail at home would be ideal for this…</p>
<p>So I incorrectly listed the department of my letters of rec writers. I wrote that they are in cellular and molecular biology department but that is the name of a graduate program. they are in the cell biology department. How bad is this? [no snark please]. Same thing in my SOP and CV. Should I email them?</p>
<p>Not rude at all. You got an interview offer from Yale Pharmacology, right?. Don’t they have only one interview date?</p>
<p>@FiveBoro89</p>
<p>I don’t have a clue what damages (if any) it might cause to your application, but you should contact the programs right away. If your professors did’t submitted their letters yet, some online application allow you to correct/include informations. I hope everything will be fine!</p>
<p>Does anyone know the methodology of how admissions look at applications? Do multiple people look at each application, is there a point system, does 1 person look at it for 5 minutes and say “this person looks good, send him/her an invite to interview”?, do admissions sit at a round table and talk pros/cons of each person? I’m sure it varies from college to college but what is the general procedure?</p>
<p>It’s probably different for each school and department. </p>
<p>At my undergrad univ. department where i do research, applications reviewed by a team of professors and grad students. Apps are placed in piles and each person takes turns reading each, leaving comments such as “2 strong LORS, 1 weak” etc. Then I don’t know what happens…</p>