Interviewing for Grad School
It’s grad school application season. By now, in late January, you are probably starting to hear back from universities and have interviews being set up. It’s a very exciting time! Your hard work is beginning to pay off, and that is super rewarding.. However, you know you’re not done yet. You have to prepare for interviews! These grad school interviews are right around the corner, and I want to share some tips that helped me prepare for them. As a disclaimer, I'm not involved in any graduate admissions committee. These tips are centered around the faculty interviews and are not meant to belittle the time spent with the current grad students (but that could be a whole blog on its own). These are also derived from my experiences with in-person interviews a month before COVID-19 hit.
1.Know your science
At this point in your career as a scientist you should be able to have a conversation about your work - whether it’s your undergrad research, biotech job, or lab tech experience, etc. This is when you will be judged on your ability to communicate about your niche science to someone outside of your research circle. I didn’t practice this with the intention of using it during phd interviews, but the month leading up to interviews was filled with me presenting to my lab group and practicing an upcoming talk. I’m very convinced that this all helped get me comfortable recapping my science. This is possibly overkill, but if you have a couple slides to add visuals to your research, it can help the faculty follow along and be impressed that you had material prepped. Because I had been practicing for a talk, I had some slides ready and it came in handy for one of my interviews. Finally, try not to be nervous. The faculty members will be looking forward to chatting with you and learning about the awesome things you’ve done in the recent past!
2. Know the faculty who you are scheduled to meet
Before you begin your interviews, you will be given an itinerary that should contain the names of the faculty you will be meeting with. When you get this information will vary between programs, but typically a week prior is common. Once you know who you’ll meet, google their lab pages. Read their research summaries, download papers and read them (or at least the abstracts), and take down some notes so you can reference them the day of and help you remember in case you get nervous. You don’t need to become an expert in the faculty member’s field but at very least you should have a broad understanding of what they study.
3. Don’t lie
What I mean by ‘don’t lie’ is that you shouldn’t pretend to know things if you don’t. For example, if you’re discussing your interviewer's research and something comes up that you are unfamiliar with, ask! Don’t just nod along like you know it all. Also this seems obvious, but don’t lie about your research experience or project details. It’s ok if you don’t know the answer to a very specific question that relates to your research. I remember being asked the size of the protein that I mentioned and since I never worked with the protein itself, I had no idea. I said I wasn’t sure but I emailed that professor a few days later with the answer.
4. Remember you are interviewing them too
I think this is often forgotten but try to remember this because it really helps put things into a better perspective. Of course, you want the interviewer to like you, but if this is someone you are interested in possibly rotating with, ask them questions. ‘Are you taking rotation students next year?’, ‘how would you describe your mentoring style?’, and ‘what is your current funding situation?’ are pretty big questions that you might appreciate knowing the answers to before making your final decision.
5. Take down notes
This is always good advice and pretty self explanatory. Whether you take notes down during the interview or at the end of the day, having something to reference later is helpful. Even if you write your opinion or how you felt, it will help remind you of those feelings about a month later when you have to decide where you’re going to attend.
6. Let your personality shine
This is such a cliché but it’s true. BE YOURSELF! Whichever program you are interviewing with, they will have to decide whether or not to admit you to a program that takes a long time. Giving them a sense of who you are as a person will allow them to decide whether or not you are a good fit for the program. Don’t be a certain way because you think it’s what they want to hear/see. Be your unique self. There’s no one in the world like you.
7. Send a thank you email
Email the professors who you interviewed with thanking them for their time during recruitment weekend.
At the end of the day, you need to remember that you worked really hard to get to where you are. You are getting a chance to talk science with other scientists and to see if you like them. Hopefully you get admitted to all of the programs you liked, but at the end of the day, you only need one yes. And if you do have a decision to make between programs, hopefully the interviews you had with the faculty and the conversations with current grad students will make the decision easier for you!
