Questions to Ask in a Grad School Interview
For the lunch, the student panel, or the walk between buildings where no faculty are present. Current students can tell you what no interviewer will: what the stipend leaves after rent, whether the weekly meeting actually happens during grant season, who switched advisors and what it cost them, how long a reimbursement takes. Ask several people the same question and treat the answers that repeat as the accurate picture of the place.
The questions
Open any question for the note
If you were choosing again, would you come here?
Why ask it
A hesitation before the yes is worth more than the answer. Ask it of a fourth or fifth year rather than a first year, since the people near the end have seen how the program behaves when something goes wrong.
What do students here complain about most?
Why ask it
Ask it of several people separately. Anything that comes back twice is real: a bottleneck course, a slow reimbursement office, a professor everyone has quietly learned to route around.
How long did the people ahead of you actually take, and what held them up?
Why ask it
Students know the specific reasons: a failed experiment, an advisor on sabbatical, a committee member who sat on a chapter for a term. The reasons matter more than the median, because they tell you which risk is common here.
What does the stipend leave you with after rent, and does anyone take outside work?
Why ask it
The most practical question of the day and the one faculty answer worst. If several students mention tutoring, bar shifts, or a partner covering the rent, you have learned what the package really is.
How often do you actually meet your advisor, and does that hold during grant season?
Why ask it
Advisors describe their intent; students describe the calendar. Ask what happens to the standing meeting in the weeks before a big deadline, because that is when you will most need it.
Has anyone in your cohort switched advisors, and how did it go?
Why ask it
Advisor mismatch is the most common reason people leave. A program where switching has happened and the student kept their funding has a real safety net. If nobody has ever done it, ask whether that is because nobody needed to.
Who is first author on the recent papers from your group?
Why ask it
Authorship norms are stated generously and practised variably. Looking at the last few papers with the person who wrote them tells you more than any description of lab policy.
What was the qualifying exam actually like, and has anyone in recent years not passed?
Why ask it
Students remember the format, the reading, and how long it took over their lives. They will also tell you plainly whether it is a filter or a formality, which faculty tend to soften.
What did your first year look like week to week, and what surprised you?
Why ask it
The surprise is the useful part: an unadvertised teaching load, a rotation that ate a term, a required course everyone resents. It is the gap between the handbook and the year.
How long does it take to get reimbursed for something, and who chases it?
Why ask it
A small question that predicts a lot. Departments that take four months to repay conference travel are asking students on a modest stipend to lend them money, and it is a reliable sign of how administration works here.
Which required course would you drop if you could, and why?
Why ask it
Gives permission to be specific about the curriculum without asking anyone to criticise a colleague. Repeated answers mark the part of the program that has not been revised in a while.
How much of your summer is funded, and what is expected of you during it?
Why ask it
Nine-month packages are common and the summer arrangement is often informal. Students will tell you whether the summer is research time, teaching, or a period they cover themselves.
Where did the people who left go, and is anyone still in touch with them?
Why ask it
Leaving is normal and the destinations are informative. A cohort that still speaks to the person who left is a healthier place than one where a departure is treated as something not discussed.
What do people here do about health care, and how long is the wait to see someone?
Why ask it
Coverage on paper and access in practice are different. Ask about the counselling wait specifically, since it is the service graduate students most often need and the one most often oversubscribed.
How much do students here talk to each other about their work?
Why ask it
Some departments run reading groups and shared offices; some are a corridor of closed doors. This is the single biggest factor in whether the middle years feel lonely, and it never appears in recruiting material.
What did nobody tell you before you accepted?
Why ask it
Asked plainly, it usually produces the most useful sentence of the visit: the cost of parking, the two-hour commute from affordable housing, the term when everyone is expected to teach.
How much feedback do you get on your writing, and how quickly does it come back?
Why ask it
Ask for a number of weeks. Students give you the real turnaround, and comparing it with what the advisor claimed earlier is one of the few direct checks available to you in a single day.
Who do students go to when the problem is their advisor?
Why ask it
There should be a name: a graduate director, an ombudsperson, a senior professor who is known for it. If students look at each other before answering, the answer is that there is nobody.
What kind of student struggles here?
Why ask it
Students describe the mismatch honestly because it is not a criticism of anyone. Whether they say people who need structure or people who need independence tells you which one this place actually offers.
What would you want to know if you were sitting where I am?
Why ask it
Closes the conversation by handing them the agenda, and it often surfaces the thing they have been deciding whether to mention. Ask it of every student you speak to and note what comes up twice.
Getting real answers on a visit day
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Who to ask what
Senior students, without faculty in the room
Fourth and fifth year students give the most accurate account of advising, exams, and money, because they have seen a full cycle and are no longer worried about impressing anyone. Find them at the dinner or in the lab, not in the scheduled panel.
The graduate coordinator for anything administrative
Funding letters, fee structures, health insurance, leave policy, and time-to-degree statistics are usually held by staff rather than faculty, and staff will often give you exact numbers a professor will approximate.
The potential advisor for scope and expectations
Ask what they expect a first-year student to accomplish, how they prefer to give feedback, and what they are funding next year. Asking about their availability directly tends to produce an optimistic answer, so verify it with their students.
Pinning down the money
- Ask for the offer in writing with the number of years, the annual amount, and the source stated.
- Ask what is deducted: fees, health insurance premiums, and whether the stipend covers twelve months or nine.
- Ask what happens if funding runs out before you defend, and whether students in that position teach, take loans, or leave.
- Ask whether travel to conferences is funded, and how reimbursement works in practice.
- Compare offers on what is left after rent, not on the headline stipend.
What goes wrong on visit days
Treating it only as an evaluation of you
Most visits happen after a decision has effectively been made, and the day exists so you can choose. Candidates who spend it performing rather than asking learn very little about where they are about to spend five years.
Asking only your intended advisor about your intended advisor
Nobody describes their own availability accurately. Ask three of their current students how often they meet and how quickly drafts come back.
Not asking about people who left
Attrition is the number that reveals most about a program, and it is rarely volunteered. Ask how many people started in a recent cohort and how many are still enrolled.
Accepting verbal funding promises
Assurances about a sixth year or summer support that are not in the letter tend to evaporate when budgets change or the professor moves.