Interview/Acceptance Dilemma

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deleted448912

Hi Everyone,

I have a dilemma and would love to hear the feeback of other applicants and currently enrolled Ph.D. students. I interviewed last week at my top choice and heard back that same day from my POI notifying me that the faculty would be offering me admission and that an official offer letter would be coming some time the following (this) week. So here's my dilemma: as of my writing, I haven't received the official offer letter, yet. I was originally scheduled to leave tonight to fly to interviews at my #3 and #5 choice schools. I only have a few hours before I would have to leave. I am leaning towards cancelling these interviews and trusting that the letter will come as promised by the end of this week. Cancelling will save me a bit of money and allow me to avoid missing work. However, the risk of cancelling includes having fewer potential options if (God-forbid) my #1 choice offer falls through.

Any thoughts on what the best course of action is? I am scheduled to interview at my #2 choice next Monday, which I intend to go to unless I have received the official offer letter by that time. Also, I have an official offer from one school already (my #4 choice) and have interviewed at two other schools (my #6 and #7).

For those of you who are already enrolled, what are the odds that a verbal acceptance from a highly regarded faculty member falls through unexpectedly?

Thanks in advance, everyone! I am probably overthinking this, but your feedback would be very helpful.

All the best to you!

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Although I think it is not super-likely that the offer will fall through, how do you know that #3 isn't really #1 without interviewing? I would still keep interviews #2 and #3. Things can change dramatically after you actually visit and meet people and learn things that are not on the website.

Good luck!
Dr. E
 
I've heard of this happening a lot for postdocs and jobs. Is there a way that you could get a written offer via email?

Not to derail the thread, but can you provide more information on how this happens with postdoc sites? Are you talking about formal/informal and in what context did this occur?
 
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Although I think it is not super-likely that the offer will fall through, how do you know that #3 isn't really #1 without interviewing? I would still keep interviews #2 and #3. Things can change dramatically after you actually visit and meet people and learn things that are not on the website.

Good luck!
Dr. E

+1, Dr. E.

Since you are already scheduled and haven't accepted (signed, sealed, delivered), I would check out these other schools just in case you fall in love. You got through the first difficult part of getting the interviews, why not see if one knocks your socks off? :love:
 
I've heard of verbal (and even sometimes unofficial email) offers being extended for postdocs and then it falls through. The primary situations I've heard of are either funding gets cut or doesn't come through as expected or the person doing the hiring being flaky. This is primarily for research postdocs, btw. I'm not sure about how often this happens for clinical ones.

What do people do since the postdoc cycle ends around march (maybe april) and most applications are due by December/January?
 
They would accept another offer, if they had one, I suppose. I think it's a good rule of thumb to never accept an offer (and turn down interviews or remove yourself from consideration at others places) unless you have it official in writing.

I applied to postdocs this year, and not a single person in my intern cohort who's accepted an offer has received anything in writing. It seems to be the norm to accept verbally, follow up by email, and trust that everything will work out. Not saying that's ideal, but especially given how fast things are moving this year without a uniform notification date, you'd really be screwing over your other sites if you didn't withdraw your other applications until you had your accepted offer in writing.

To the OP: I would not cancel an interview on such short notice. As others have said, you don't know for sure that you won't love your other options just as much as your first choice. Plus, if your interview is tomorrow, that doesn't give them enough time to invite someone else to interview. You aren't saving them any time or effort by canceling at this point - in fact, they'll have to do more work to get the word out to people who were scheduled to meet with you.

In my grad program, our DCT explicitly told us that we were expected to 1) accept every interview we were offered and 2) not cancel once we committed to an interview. Granted, that's for internship, so it's not like you can accept an offer from one site before interview season ends. However, I tend to feel the same way about grad programs, to an extent. Once you've committed to attending, you should attend, unless you're 100% certain that you would not attend that program and you've also given the program enough advance notice that they can invite someone else.
 
Although I think it is not super-likely that the offer will fall through, how do you know that #3 isn't really #1 without interviewing? I would still keep interviews #2 and #3. Things can change dramatically after you actually visit and meet people and learn things that are not on the website.

Good luck!
Dr. E

This!

Go interview.
 
Many thanks to those of you who responded! It was very helpful.
 
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