Questions to Ask During a Grad School Interview
Twenty questions for a graduate program interview or visit day, covering advising, funding terms, time to degree, exams, authorship, and what current students would change, with notes on who to ask what.
20 questions · each with the reason to ask it · conversation guide
The questions
Open any question to see why it works
- 01
What are you working on right now, and where does that work need new hands?
Why ask it
An easy opener that faculty enjoy, and it tells you whether there is an actual opening on the project you applied for. If the answer is about work that wrapped up two years ago, the lab you read about may no longer exist.
- 02
How do students here find an advisor, and how often does that first match change?
Why ask it
Programs run on very different models: admitted to a lab, admitted to a department with rotations, or left to arrange it yourself. The rate of switching tells you whether the system is forgiving of an early mismatch.
- 03
What does the funding package cover, how many years is it guaranteed, and what is it tied to?
Why ask it
A five-year guarantee contingent on teaching assignments that may not materialize is not a five-year guarantee. Ask what happens in year six, since that is where funding gaps actually show up.
- 04
What is the median time to degree in this program, and what usually slows people down?
Why ask it
The published figure and the lived one diverge. Faculty who supervise regularly can name the specific bottleneck here: a slow committee, a hard-to-schedule instrument, fieldwork seasons, or thesis chapters that stall.
- 05
Of the students admitted in the last five years, how many finished, and where did the others go?
Why ask it
Attrition is the number programs are least eager to volunteer and the most useful predictor of how the place treats people under strain. A department that tracks it and can describe it honestly is a good sign in itself.
- 06
What does the first year actually consist of: coursework, rotations, teaching, or research?
Why ask it
The load in year one determines whether you arrive with time to build a project or spend twelve months on requirements. Ask how many courses are genuinely required versus recommended by custom.
- 07
How much teaching is expected, in which years, and is it paid separately from the stipend?
Why ask it
Teaching is either training or unpaid labor depending on how it is structured. Four sections a semester with no mentoring is a different job from two with a faculty observer and feedback.
- 08
What do qualifying or comprehensive exams involve, and what happens to a student who does not pass?
Why ask it
Ask about the retake, the timeline, and whether a failure ends funding. Programs vary between a formality and a genuine cut, and knowing which one you are entering changes how you spend year two.
- 09
How often do you meet with your students, and how do you prefer to give feedback on writing?
Why ask it
This is the single largest variable in a graduate experience. Weekly standing meetings and returned drafts is one advising style; three emails a year is another, and neither is universally worse, but you should know which you are choosing.
- 10
How is authorship decided on work a student leads?
Why ask it
Ask before you arrive, not after a paper exists. Look for a stated convention in the group rather than a case-by-case judgment, because case-by-case tends to favor whoever holds the grant.
- 11
What happens if a student's interests move away from the work the grant funds?
Why ask it
Funded projects have deliverables, and intellectual freedom is limited by them in practice. Honest answers describe the constraint. An answer of you can study anything you like is worth testing against what current students actually work on.
- 12
If an advising relationship stops working, what does a student do about it?
Why ask it
You want to hear a named person or committee outside the advisor's chain, because otherwise the only route runs through the person you are having trouble with. Departments that have handled this before will describe how.
- 13
What is the stipend relative to rent here, and where do students actually live?
Why ask it
A larger stipend in an expensive city can leave you worse off. Current students will name the neighborhoods, the commute, and whether people take second jobs, which is the practical measure of whether the funding works.
- 14
What health coverage do students get, and what mental health support is available through the university?
Why ask it
Ask about dental and vision, dependent coverage if that matters, and the current wait time for a counseling appointment. Coverage that exists on paper with a two-month wait is worth knowing about in advance.
- 15
What is the working culture between students: do people collaborate, or is it mostly separate?
Why ask it
Best asked of students without faculty present. Cohorts that read each other's drafts and share code make a hard program survivable; a competitive or scattered cohort leaves you with only your advisor as support.
- 16
What do students here complain about most?
Why ask it
Almost everyone answers this, and the recurring complaint is usually structural: a required course nobody rates, a building problem, an administrator, or a funding process. Complaints repeated by three separate people are real.
- 17
Which parts of this program would you change if you could?
Why ask it
A faculty member who cannot name anything is either new or being careful, and both are useful to know. A specific answer, especially one about a reform under way, tells you where the program knows it is weak.
- 18
What have your last few graduates gone on to do?
Why ask it
Ask for the last three or four by name rather than for placement statistics, which are often calculated generously. If most left the field, that is not a verdict on the program, but you should hear it before deciding.
- 19
What distinguishes a student who thrives here from one who merely gets through?
Why ask it
Pushes past general encouragement toward the specific habits this environment rewards: independence, persistence with an instrument, comfort with cold-emailing collaborators. It also reveals how much structure you would be given.
- 20
What would you want me to have thought carefully about before I accept an offer?
Why ask it
Closing with this often produces the most candid answer of the interview, because it invites a warning rather than a pitch. Whatever they name is the thing they have watched students underestimate.
Using a Visit Day Well
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Ask the Right Person
Ask the Right Person
Faculty for the intellectual questions
Current projects, where a student could contribute, authorship conventions, and advising style. They will not give you a reliable read on stipend adequacy or on which required course is a waste of a semester.
Current students for everything about conditions
Rent, workload, whether the guaranteed funding held, how the advisor behaves in year three rather than at recruitment. Ask senior students in particular, since first-years have not hit the difficult stretch yet.
The graduate coordinator for the rules
Exam timelines, leave policy, health coverage details, what happens administratively if funding lapses. They usually know the exceptions, which is where the real policy lives.
Recent graduates for the outcome
Email one or two whose work you found, and ask what they would do differently and how long the final year took. People who have left are noticeably more direct than people still enrolled.
How to Ask Without Sounding Like You Are Auditing
How to Ask Without Sounding Like You Are Auditing
- Attach the hard questions to something specific you read: I saw the 2023 paper on this, is that line still funded, rather than a bare question about money.
- Ask numbers questions of the coordinator and students, and judgment questions of faculty. Asking a professor about attrition rates usually gets an estimate rather than a figure.
- Ask the same question of three people separately. Where the answers diverge is the interesting part, and it is the only way to find out what is not being said.
- Keep two or three questions in reserve for the awkward end of a meeting, since that is when people say the most useful things.
- Take notes between meetings, not during, and write down the exact numbers you were given so you can compare offers later.
Common Mistakes
Common Mistakes
- Asking what is on the department website. It reads as no preparation and costs you one of your few questions.
- Treating the interview as one-directional. Programs that are recruiting expect to be evaluated, and a candidate who evaluates carefully is usually read as serious.
- Deferring every question about money and time to degree until after you have an offer, when the people who would answer candidly are no longer as available.
- Judging the program by how impressive the interviewer is. Your daily experience will be set by advising style, funding terms, and your cohort, not by anyone's reputation.
- Skipping the informal parts of a visit day. Dinner with students produces more information than any scheduled meeting.
After the Interview
After the Interview
- 1Write down, the same evening, the funding terms exactly as they were described to you, including years, contingencies, and summer support.
- 2Send a short note to each person you met that references something specific they said rather than thanking them generically.
- 3Email one senior student you did not get to speak with, since a private reply is often more direct than anything said on the day.
- 4List the two things about the program that concern you, and ask a specific person each one before you decide.
- 5Compare offers on the same four axes: advising fit, funding through completion, time to degree, and where recent graduates ended up.