This may be a bit late since I know many of you are busy prepping for your trip to NIU--BUT for those of you who are attending open house Friday at Northern Illinois, who extended the invitation? Your primary POI or someone else?
I have just recently confused myself (I blame it on this lengthy process)--entirely too much to remember. In short, my primary opted not to accept students this upcoming year. So, my secondary became my primary and my tertiary became my secondary. I received an interview offer from one of those latter two individuals. I, for some reason, assumed I must have listed him as my secondary since I received the email from him. In the meantime, I've been corresponding with the individual I assumed was my tertiary who I will also be interviewing with while there--which seemed sort of odd that she was emailing me when I hadn't received anything else from the other prof.
Anyway, in the process of reviewing both individuals' publications/research more extensively, I started wondering why I had ranked them as I thought because although I wouldn't have a problem with either of them, I seem to "get into" the assumed tertiary's more. I just pulled my personal statement to realize that I actually do have this assumed tertiary ranked as my actual secondary, which would now make her my primary.
Make sense? Hope I haven't confused anyone with all of that
But, I'm now wondering whether the POI who wants/likes you the most is the one to interview you? Or if it even matters--the website claims that they do not accept students by professor but they do, of course, look at current research interests for close matches.
BLAH! I'm basicaclly wondering (I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder why!) whether I should give up on working with my true current primary and 'settle' for the secondary. Hmm, all questions I am sure that I can verify soon but I'm antsy right now.
I suppose that it could be a good sign that she's been emailing me--we shall see!
G'luck!