thank you card or thank you email?
Started by cellmatrix
The consensus I've read is to send hand-written notes to the PD (as opposed to EVERY faculty member you interviewed with), then perhaps follow-up emails later on in the season to your top choices. However, emails to the PDs are becoming more of a standard, so I doubt you'd run into too many problems with that.
Personally I hand wrote to the PDs.
I don't think you can necessarily go wrong with either, beyond being too wordy/rambling/desperate sounding within the communication itself. I would agree with just sending to the PD or your main contact person in setting up the interview in the first place -- if you end up sending something to every individual you interviewed with you risk being wordy/rambling/desperate sounding, or worse yet, now you leave someone out you interviewed with at that same institution and forgot.
For fellowship interviews it may be that you only interviewed with two or three people, depending on the place, so it's somewhat more rational to contact each of them -- but I guess that's up to the individual.
Personally, I returned contact to the program coordinator for the fellowship (person I generally communicated most with) and the fellowship director by phone or email and did not handwrite/snailmail anything. Come to think of it, I think they initiated most of those phone calls -- but my specialty (forensic path) is relatively more competitive for programs seeking qualified applicants than applicants seeking good programs, so I didn't find it surprising that they wanted to keep marketing themselves as much as I wanted to keep marketing myself.
For fellowship interviews it may be that you only interviewed with two or three people, depending on the place, so it's somewhat more rational to contact each of them -- but I guess that's up to the individual.
Personally, I returned contact to the program coordinator for the fellowship (person I generally communicated most with) and the fellowship director by phone or email and did not handwrite/snailmail anything. Come to think of it, I think they initiated most of those phone calls -- but my specialty (forensic path) is relatively more competitive for programs seeking qualified applicants than applicants seeking good programs, so I didn't find it surprising that they wanted to keep marketing themselves as much as I wanted to keep marketing myself.
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Once you are done with your interviews and have decided who you will rank. I recommend writing one email sent to your inbox and then blind copy all the PDs from the programs you interviewed at and thank them for your interview, tell them how much you enjoyed their program, and that you fully intend on ranking their program #1.
Would you send a thank you note to your home institution? Seems a bit weird to me. Wasn't planning on it, but hadn't really thought about it either.
I suppose it would depend on what kind of terms you're on with the PD. My home institution doesn't have a pathology program, so I don't have any experience with this exactly. HOWEVER, there is a program near by that I had rotated at and spent time with the PD, as well as several email exchanges with him in the past. I had just sent him an email, since it's what we're both "used to", so to speak.
Thank you notes. Handwritten.
