Choosing research faculty for interviews?

[sanktank7]

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Im in the process of choosing research faculty for interviews at a couple of schools. My questions:

1) Do these people really have no say as to whether or not you get into the program - some programs say this explicitly but not sure if I believe it.

2) I want to step away from my current research and choose researchers who are doing things I think are cool; but since its outside my field I feel like they might think Im an idiot because I dont know a lot about their work. Do I need to read up a lot on these people or background on their type of research before I go to the interview?

 

[Neuronix]

1) Do these people really have no say as to whether or not you get into the program - some programs say this explicitly but not sure if I believe it.

If they're people who are intimately involved with the MD/PhD program, they could. Most faculty are not, and thus don't. This is with the exception that they really really love you or really really hate you for some extremely rare reason.

2) I want to step away from my current research and choose researchers who are doing things I think are cool; but since its outside my field I feel like they might think Im an idiot because I dont know a lot about their work. Do I need to read up a lot on these people or background on their type of research before I go to the interview?

Nope. Your challenge is to not fall asleep while they go on an hour long 1on1 presentation about their work. They're looking for indentured servants, errr, grad students. The attitude of most is: if you're good enough for the MD/PhD adcoms, you're good enough for them!

 

[gstrub]

Although Neuronix is mostly right, I will say that as a member of the adcom here the people you interview with do have a say in what happens to your file, IF you have a decent application to begin with. In other words, you can push yourself in either direction with a good or bad interview. Typically, however, the interview with the program director is the important one.

I would read about the research done by those interviewing you so you can have something intelligent to say. Figure out a way that your research experience will better prepare you to work in their field, and when the opportunity arises to mention the work that they do you can have a good way of integrating your experience with their research goals. Also it can help to have a good hypothesis-type question to ask them about their research, giving them the opportunity to gladly ramble on about how important BMP-2 interacting with b-integrin blah blah blah is so important.