how much is the chance of admission from campus visit?

[IvyKeepCalm]

Hi everyone! New comer as applicant for Accounting 2018 Fall.

I just got a campus interview from one of my perfectly-matched programs(as far as in my opinion XD). This invitation came way earlier than expected.

There will be workshop and individual interviews with professors.

 

Just wondering generally speaking, how how much is the chance of admission from campus visit? I know maybe this is a hard to answer question, but any thoughts could help! Thanks!

 

Also, any tips for how to behave during the visit? especially the workshop part. I will share my experience with the visit and forgive me for hiding the name.

[YaSvoboden]

Congrats! It depends, but usually at least half. If you are invited out this early then it is probably higher than that.

 

Be yourself. The campus visit is a great opportunity for you to interview them as well. You want to find out everything about the school that you can. Ask the PhD students about the program and interactions with faculty. Ask professors what they are currently working on. You should try to get an idea of this yourself, but it is also a good question. You will probably tell your "why a phd" story several times.

 

Have you ever attended a workshop? Read the paper beforehand so you can try and understand what is going on. Be attentive, silence your phone, etc. You shouldn't be afraid to ask a question or two if you have them but you are probably not going to impress anyone with your insight at this point. It would be perfectly fine to be silent throughout. If you ask any question that isn't completely stupid, that would be a positive. It would be bad if you fall asleep, text the whole time, or talk so much that you derail things (I have never seen an interviewing applicant do this).

[IvyKeepCalm]

Thanks a lot YaSvoboden! I have attended several Seminars from Accounting department in my current university. Maybe Seminars and Workshop are the same but just different names? Or Workshop expects more interaction with the presenter/audience.

Definitely agree that asking not-stupid questions is the most important and difficult part. And I really need to be bold in asking questions and be polite for the whole visit. I summarized what professors usually ask presenters in the Seminar, and trying to ask similar questions in my way if applicable. Haha.

Thanks a lot for your suggestions

[YaSvoboden]

Seminars are usually classes for PhD students where you discuss papers in a small group. Workshops are when an outside speaker comes and presents new research and the faculty of the hosting university give feedback.

[Ragnarok]

My advisers told me that a campus visit means pretty much a lock unless the professors there really, really dislike you when they meet you.'

[IvyKeepCalm]

Super! I am trying to attend the visiting presentation as much as I can before I go. XD.

[IvyKeepCalm]

So happy to hear this! I will try to be adorable when I meet them.

 

My advisers told me that a campus visit means pretty much a lock unless the professors there really, really dislike you when they meet you.'

[Rando]

A couple of things, because I disagree with some earlier comments:

 

1. Schools will vary in terms of what campus visits mean. For some schools, a campus visit is effectively an offer, where it gives the school an opportunity to inform you about the school and even try to convince you to come. (Of course if it turns out you're a lunatic in person, you won't get an offer.) But for other schools, campus visits are a way to choose from among a promising subset of applicants. So for those schools, even if you're perfectly fine in person, there may only be a 50% chance of an offer. And if you're local to the school, the school may invite you for a campus visit with an even lower likelihood of offer, because a local visit is less costly for both of you. It's definitely not fair to say that a visit is a lock for an offer at all schools.

 

2. If you attend a workshop, I would strongly discourage you from asking questions during the workshop, for a few reasons. First, the regular workshop audience (phd students and faculty members) are typically already competing for an opportunity to ask questions - there are usually more questions than available time. Second, if you're talking about campus visits in the near term, it's likely that you'll be attending a faculty recruiting workshop, where the presenter is trying to get a tenure-track faculty position. So the stakes of that workshop are really high. What I've seen happen in the past, when phd applicants or even phd students have asked questions, is that they've sometimes struggled to articulate exactly what their question is, and it's derailed the job talk because the recruit is trying very hard to respectfully answer a question that doesn't make sense. I don't think that's fair to a faculty recruit.

 

So those are two reasons why faculty members wouldn't want you to ask questions during the workshop. But there are also strategic reasons why you shouldn't want to, as well. First, in my opinion, the payoff is very asymmetric. The odds of you asking a fantastic question that wows everyone and increases your odds of an offer are much less than the odds of you asking a question that makes you look worse. Second, taking a question from the workshop, and discussing it during an office visit seems like a really good way to make yourself look thoughtful. Like, if you're sitting in some professor's office and say, "I was wondering if you could help me understand something. During the workshop, the speaker said XYZ [ maybe something like "Obviously, CEOs who have been with their firms longer are likely to be paid more."] I thought that was interesting, but I wasn't sure why it was obvious. Could you help me understand why he/she said that?"

[Rando]

1. Different schools will vary in terms of the likelihood of offer conditional on inviting you to campus. For some, it's a virtual guarantee as long as you act like a reasonable person during the visit. For others, it's a way to narrow the field. 50% seems like a reasonable lower bound for likelihood of an offer, unless you're local to the school, where they may have invited you because it's relatively costless for both them and you.

 

2. Please don't ask questions in the workshop. Faculty and phd students are already fighting for an opportunity to ask questions, and this is especially true this time of year, when we have faculty applicants coming in for a job interview.

 

3. As an alternative to asking questions in the workshop, write down any questions that come to you, and use those questions as an opportunity to have a good conversation when you meet with faculty.

 

4. I'm not sure if this was a joke, but please don't try to act "adorable".

[IvyKeepCalm]

Totally agree. The workshop was a recruitment presentation from a potential assistant professor indeed. And none of us asked questions.

 

I wish I had seen your reply earlier. It is super helpful for applicants for people with campus visits coming. Thanks!

 

 

1. Different schools will vary in terms of the likelihood of offer conditional on inviting you to campus. For some, it's a virtual guarantee as long as you act like a reasonable person during the visit. For others, it's a way to narrow the field. 50% seems like a reasonable lower bound for likelihood of an offer, unless you're local to the school, where they may have invited you because it's relatively costless for both them and you.

 

2. Please don't ask questions in the workshop. Faculty and phd students are already fighting for an opportunity to ask questions, and this is especially true this time of year, when we have faculty applicants coming in for a job interview.

 

3. As an alternative to asking questions in the workshop, write down any questions that come to you, and use those questions as an opportunity to have a good conversation when you meet with faculty.

 

4. I'm not sure if this was a joke, but please don't try to act "adorable".