Interviews

[BamaPsych]

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I was wondering what the procedure that is appropriate, or that you have used, in dealing with 2 interview offers on the same day/weekend. Here are some specific examples:

1.)What would you do if you accepted an interview at a school, then heard from a higher choice school who wanted an interview on the same day?

2.)What would you do if you accepted an interview at your preferred school first and then got asked by a less preferred school for the same day - at this point do you ask for another interview date or a telephone interview?

Suggestions, please!

 

[KillerDiller]

Ideally, you can figure out schools' interview weekend from their websites, from current students, from your POI etc. before invitations are sent out. This way, if you receive an invitation from one school for a specific weekend and you happen to know it's the same weekend as your first choice school, you can hold off on accepting until you know your status at your preferred school. Many applicants even hold off on answering their phones if they don't know the number calling just to avoid feeling pressure to accept an interview invitation on the spot.

Some schools will let you reschedule or do a phone interview, but not all programs will accommodate this.

 

[psybee]

most of my interview invites were via email, which made it easier. if you do a forum search your can find both the interview invite dates and the interview dates -- there's obv. no guarantee that they will happen on the same day as last year, but it's likely it'll be similar. you can also find out the approx. date offers are extended for schools.

 

[JockNerd]

All of my interviews were arranged by email.

In case 1, I think I'd just switch, if I knew I strongly preferred one program or another.

In case 2, which happened to me two times, I just did a phone interview.

 

[BorntoRun]

You would think this sort of thing happens a LOT, but I only remember hearing about multiple interview offers in the same weekend in this forum a couple times last application cycle. I would try to make as many interviews as you can, as you never know where a school you prefer less now will end up in your ranking list after you visit it. Several schools do more than one day of interviews, too, and there can be some flexibility - they know you're applying to more than one program. On the list of things to worry about right now, I wouldn't put that one too highly.

 

[psychnic]

I ran into this situation last year, when I was initially offered an interview at a safety school and then later invited to interview the same weekend at one of my top choices. I ended up splitting the time, i.e., I spent Thursday and Friday at the first school and Saturday and Sunday at the second school. Luckily, the schools were able to accomodate this. I also received all of my interview invitations by phone, though, which made things a little trickier.
Instead of immediately accepting an interview at a safety/low school on your list, it could be good to say something like--"That sounds really great, I'm really excited about your meeting you and learning more about your awesome program, etc. I just need to check my calendar and clear those dates and then I'll give you a call back." This buys you at least a little time to call the secretaries at your top choices and see if interview invites have gone out yet.

 

[mlwg1]

This happened to me; I went to my preferred school and did the second interview by phone.

 

[deleted176373]

I was wondering what the procedure that is appropriate, or that you have used, in dealing with 2 interview offers on the same day/weekend. Here are some specific examples:

1.)What would you do if you accepted an interview at a school, then heard from a higher choice school who wanted an interview on the same day?

2.)What would you do if you accepted an interview at your preferred school first and then got asked by a less preferred school for the same day - at this point do you ask for another interview date or a telephone interview?

Suggestions, please!

1. Hold off on accepting interviews as long as possible.

2. When you do accept an interview, call the schools higher on the list and ask when their interview dates are because of a possible conflict.

3. If you get an interview with a better program or you suspect a possible conflict, politely ask for an alternate date with the lower ranking school. Some schools will play ball, some won't.

4. If offered a telephone interview, by all means accept, but don't expect these to generate any offers. Occasionally they bear fruit, more often than not they don't.

5. Although poor etiquette, accept the interview even if you suspect but don't know that another program will be making an offer to interview on the same day. If you get the better offer, politely call up and remove yourself from the interview pool. Don't abuse this, but don't feel bad about it either... this is how the game is played and for once you have the ball in your court. You won't have the opportunity to be in the drivers seat often so make the most of it.

I was invited to interview at 14 programs, I turned down 7 invitations, but did 3 telephone interviews and traveled to 7 programs. Once accepted to a fairly high rated program, I cleared all the lower programs from my interview list so that they could invite other students.

Conflicts are bound to happen, pick the best school based on fit and move forward. I hope all of you get lots of invites!

Mark

 

[mlwg1]

1. Hold off on accepting interviews as long as possible.


4. If offered a telephone interview, by all means accept, but don't expect these to generate any offers. Occasionally they bear fruit, more often than not they don't.

5. Although poor etiquette, accept the interview even if you suspect but don't know that another program will be making an offer to interview on the same day. If you get the better offer, politely call up and remove yourself from the interview pool. Don't abuse this, but don't feel bad about it either... this is how the game is played and for once you have the ball in your court. You won't have the opportunity to be in the drivers seat often so make the most of it.

Mark

Re: 4, fair point. I did not get offers from the schools I had phone interviews with, but I got offers from 3/4 schools whose in-person interviews I attended. And to be honest, I didn't care about the telephone interview schools as much. I'm sure that came across during the interview in one way or another.

Re: 5, I ended up contacting an interview coordinator to remove myself from the pool once I got an offer from my top school. I figured it would be best to leave my potential spot to interviewees who really wanted to attend that school.

Interviewing with multiple schools is pretty much like trying to date multiple people at once. It's complicated.

 

[deleted176373]

Interviewing with multiple schools is pretty much like trying to date multiple people at once. It's complicated.

It can be an awful lot of fun too! The interviewing that is... 😉

Mark