i know that they already invited people for an open house. other than that, your impression seems adequate. the students there are very pleased with the program, and if you're interested in a psychanalytic perspective then its the right place for you.
gl
Since SDN's Interview Feedback section doesn't include Adelphi's Ph.D. program, I think it's worth mentioning here--since I believe it reflects on the program--that Adelphi had by leaps and bounds the most time-wasting and condescending group interview I experienced at any school. (This is not sour grapes, by the way: I got invited to the Open House, plus I think very highly of what I've learned about the program itself otherwise.)
So what happened? They had 6 or 7 of us sit in a room together with one faculty member and one student, both of whom intentionally said next to nothing... for
two hours. Just endless. It was like some sort of weird caricature of an analytic session (not necessarily coincidental, since the program itself is highly psychodynamic). But it was just incredibly awkward, with dozens of long silences. More to the point, it was far less revealing of who we really were than any other individual or group interview I've had. Their stated goal at the outset was for us not to talk about our credentials, but rather to give a sense of who we "really" are personally, etc. Unfortunately, this was far outweighed by their other, eventually-admitted goal: to see how we do socially in awkward or unexpected situations. No one was remotely natural. (Ironcially, during the one 10-minute break we got in the middle, the applicants stood around talking totally normally out of earshot of the faculty member.)
I understand that "stress" interviews of this and other types are not unheard-of, and I agree that there is often something valuable to be learned about people's reactions in uncomfortable situations. But for two hours?? Fortunately, I only had to take half a day off from work and drive out from NYC, but I cannot imagine how frustrating the experience must have felt for people who had to truly travel to get there. Again, I "did" well, but only by keeping in check my rising frustration about how condescending I found the experience. Are we not all adults here?
😉
We were later told that different faculty members run these group interviews differently, so maybe my group just got unlucky, but the fact that the school chose to use its one in-person chance with applicants to present itself that way (and only that way) went a long way towards turning me off from the program.
Just my two cents.
MW
