Just curious as to whether any of the veterans out there have any tips and/or tricks for the interview process: scheduling, fielding questions, and kicking ass?

At times it’s tough to come up with thoughtful questions to ask during an interview especially when they have thoroughly outlined the program to you during the informational sessions. I tried to be fairly general in my questions to the interviewers to keep them talking a bit.

And I smelled great…

Interviewers loved to talk about their research.  If you can get them off on a tangent about their research, they’ll take over and enjoy the interview quite a bit.  Of course, you won’t get much opportunity to talk, but then again, you’ll make a favorable impression.  Lots of interviewers ask about hobbies and surprisingly, many of them will share similar hobbies and interests with you.  Almost all programs will ask where else have you been and what do you think about them.  Tell them the truth, but only if it’s favorable.  Don’t badmouth other programs or dish out dirt.  Obviously avoid politics, religion, etc in the topic of conversatioun.

Why not interviewers add something here: what do you want us to ask or talk about? point on talking about your research is well made, and keeping off from being badmouth or touching topics like politics, religion etc, but honestly sometimes interviewers get candidates stumped. We have to drag the interview to the point where we can talk on the point of mutual interest, but a little bit of a spot here would be of great help for those who are still out on the trail..