Ahh...Please help!! Need Advice

[PsychNerd3]

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Okay so I have an interview tomorrow at 12:45. The school is located about 5 hours from where I am and I intended on making the trip tomorrow morning. The weather is getting very bad here so I decided to check the weather for my trip. Appears that the entire state I am going to has a severe winter advisory until 7pm tomorrow. It is advising that no one travel. Considering it is a 5 hour trip, I am not quite sure what I should do. Should I brave the snow and ice or should I call the school and request a phone interview because of the dangerous conditions? I really dont know what to do...ahh!

 

[airmont]

Don`t drive. you will not make it there anyway. I once had a interview for a coveted RA position and drove in the snow. I made only half-way before the car ahead of me spun out and wrecked my car. Don`t do it. Ask for a phone interview.

 

[lilies05]

eh... they always say not to travel. use your judgment... i've driven long distances in snow when i had to get somewhere. i think they'd understand if you couldn't make it, i'm sure lots of people had their flights cancelled. but i think that whether they intend to use it against you or not, not having an in-person interview doesn't help


just my 2 cents though...

 

[GiantSteps]

Okay so I have an interview tomorrow at 12:45. The school is located about 5 hours from where I am and I intended on making the trip tomorrow morning. The weather is getting very bad here so I decided to check the weather for my trip. Appears that the entire state I am going to has a severe winter advisory until 7pm tomorrow. It is advising that no one travel. Considering it is a 5 hour trip, I am not quite sure what I should do. Should I brave the snow and ice or should I call the school and request a phone interview because of the dangerous conditions? I really dont know what to do...ahh!

No school expects you to kill yourself or risk your life to get there for an interview. It could very well be that the school may have to cancel/ reschedule the interviews anyway. You probably should have called the school today to see what they expect. However, since you must not have done that, I think you should decide by first thing tomorrow morning and immediately call the psychology department to tell them if you can't make it. If the school itself is in the storm zone then you will not be the only one to miss the interview, if in fact it is going to take place. Definitely call the school early if you are not going so they see that you are courteous and responsible. Actually, call them if you do try to drive it so you do not drive all the way there only to find out the interview is not taking place. Don't worry, it happens to schools in snow ridden parts of the country all the time.

 

[JockNerd]

No school expects you to kill yourself or risk your life to get there for an interview.

This is accurate.

You won't be in a condition to interview after a long, harrowing drive. I'm betting your time frame was for good weather, too. If it's getting bad you'd need to add two hours of night driving in bad weather with little sleep.

I bet many applicants can't make it; reschedule.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

DRIVE!!!!!!

Okay, not really. Call and re-schedule.

I had an internship interview where there was some snow. Even though it wasn't a lot of snow, the site was understanding when one of the applicants got stuck/lost and showed up a bit late. This was a couple inches and not nearly the kind of storm that gets the, "Don't drive" warning. I am sure your school will understand.

 

[schoolpsych]

I am in a very similar situation as you. My state and a large portion of the state that I have to go to are under a winter weather warning. I got up at 5:30 am today to get to the interview (which is about a 3 1/2 hour drive away) and it had already snowed 3 inches at my house and it was going to continue to snow heavily all morning. There was no way I was gonna drive as I did not want to risk getting into an accident (my well-being is more important than an interview). I called the school and they were very understanding. They are even letting me come in another day to interview (I think it is actually make-up interview day they created just because of the weather).
Definitely call and try to reschedule.

 

[Ollie123]

Remember last year when central NY had a severe blizzard and Oswego had snow drifts topping 10 feet?

Yeah, in the middle of that giant storm was me clunking along in my 4-door sedan on my way to Vermont, hunched over the steering wheel like a 90 year old great grandmother, barely able to see the front of my own car let alone anything else on the road. I slid off the road and had to get towed out. All told it took me about 4 hours longer than I planned on.

The upside is that people seemed impressed with how well I handled it since alot of people would be absolutely freaking out over something like that and I guess I demonstrated I could remain calm under pressure😉

That being said - it isn't worth it. Reschedule. I should have, but I was stupid. Don't take chances. NO school worth attending would hold that against you, and you can't go to grad school if you're dead.

 

[RayneeDeigh]

Don't drive.

I live in a place where there's snow for about 8 months of the year so I'm well aware that other places overreact to snow and throw out warnings like crazy. However, you do not want to be on a highway finding out that the advisory was actually right. That's how people die.

For everyone still planning interviews, FLY. At worst, your flight will be cancelled but you won't have to drive in bad conditions.

Further, you don't want to even go to a school that isn't understanding of common sense things like weather. Trust me (as someone who recently got in trouble for missing half an hour of class because of winter car problems) this is a good opportunity to find out just how flexible your program is about things that come up in life.

 

[ny1020]

Not sure if your interview is in the NY area, but if it is, I doubt that any school would penalize you for not showing. We've gotten around 4-5 inches and it's still coming down. Probably the only people who will be at interviews are the ones who came to town last night. As everyone else has said - you probably will not be the only one rescheduling.