<p>I am currently applying to Ph.D. programs in biomedical engineering. I have a few questions about the general process and would greatly appreciate responses to any of them.
Without further ado:</p>
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<li><p>Do you need to interview? If so, do most applicants get them or only people who are very likely to be admitted?</p></li>
<li><p>How important is contacting/knowing professors before applying? Also, what is considered "contact?" Is it having a strong relationship or just exchanging a few emails?</p></li>
<li><p>I've heard that GPA and GREs are typically used only to weed out weak candidates. Is this true? Also, do people who clear the "first hurdle" have a strong chance of being admitted?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Thanks in advance for all responses and I apologize if these are stupid questions.</p>
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<li><p>Interviewing is definitely a part of the application process. I’ve never heard of anyone who has gotten into grad/professional school w/o interviewing. Nobody is accepted into something like a PhD program based on what he/she says just on paper. Someone correct me if I am wrong about this.</p></li>
<li><p>For PhD programs, I’ve been told that while it is certainly advantageous to contact profs, it is not essential. You have to do lab rotation for your first year anyway, so that is when you truly know which lab you want to stay in. Profs have very limited pull to get ppl into the university, and even if they did have pull, they would not waste it on someone they may have talked to a couple of times via email.</p></li>
<li><p>I’m not sure, but this weed-out process certainly sounds reasonable enough.</p></li>
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<p>Graduate admissions are much more holistic and qualitative than undergraduate admissions. Lots and lots of applicants, relatively speaking, have great GPA and GRE scores. Thus, the sorting process relies much more heavily on qualitative factors such as research experience, particularized topical interests, academic recommendation letters, etc.</p>
<p>This is something that entirely depends upon field. Within my engineering field I only know of one school that interviews prior to admitting. The rest accept, then pay for you to come out and interview with professors.</p>
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<p>One of the biggest factors for graduate admission is fit into the program. Do you seem like you’d actually want to go there? Are you well prepared for the classes you’ll be taking? Are there any professors with funding taking on students in whatever subfield you’re interested in?</p>
<p>That’s interesting. I’ve never heard of that for an interview process. Can you tell us what engineering field you are in that recruits like that?</p>
<p>Happened for me in materials engineering, my friends in physics, MechE, Aero, Chemical, EE, computer engineering, CS, etc. Generally from what I’ve seen it’s only the bio-related fields that’ll do interviews prior to admission. In my experience bio professors seem to always be less cash strapped than their engineering peers. Not sure if NIH grants are more generous or plentiful.</p>
<p>RacinReaver’s experience has been the same as mine. I’ve only seen a prevalence of interviews in bio fields. I don’t know about liberal arts and other sciences, but for engineering interviews are less common.</p>
<p>As a professor who has run the graduate admissions office for my university and still does admissions in the physics department, i can confirm that the interview usually happens after they have decided that you meed the standards for admission. Sometimes programs will interview applicants before making Assistantship offers but other programs make the offers and then use the interview and visit to help convince the students to accept their offer. It pretty much depends on the selectivity of the program.</p>