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IMS grad school interview at U of T


dodohae

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Hi there, 

 

I am a undergrad student who has applied to Institute of Medical Science Masters program at U of T. 

I had pretty poor grades (from awful first year but 3.7 rest of the years) but I had couple of decent project course experiences. 

Surprisingly I was emailed today to set up an interview with a professor!

This is pretty scary because I have heard that you usually interview with graduate coordinators, not professors. 

Any advices towards how I should approach the interview? For those who have been accepted, what would they ask and what should I prepare for? 

 

 

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I'm not overly familiar with the program however, it seems odd that you "usually" interview with graduate coordinators, as they are not the people who you are working for. In my experience, typically graduate school interviews (research based) are preformed by the principal investigator for the lab that you will be working in. For this program, do you apply to a specific stream (cancer, cardiac, respiratory, immunology, etc.) and then get placed in a lab after the fact? Or is the professor that is interviewing you the same one you will be working for? 

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21 hours ago, ExercMed said:

I'm not overly familiar with the program however, it seems odd that you "usually" interview with graduate coordinators, as they are not the people who you are working for. In my experience, typically graduate school interviews (research based) are preformed by the principal investigator for the lab that you will be working in. For this program, do you apply to a specific stream (cancer, cardiac, respiratory, immunology, etc.) and then get placed in a lab after the fact? Or is the professor that is interviewing you the same one you will be working for? 

That was just speculation, it might be true that most interviewers are PIs. The interviewer in my case is not from the lab that I am working in. I think she is part of the graduate school admission committee that reviews applications and also conduct interviews. IMS is a diverse field, and there is no need to apply for a specific stream, but I am interested in studying cancer or stem cells. In this program I apply first, get accepted and find a lab. But I think it's good to find a lab prior to being accepted although that does not guarantee admission into the program (admission itself is determined by admission committee). 

 

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I was interested in IMS before and I met with one of the coordinators to know more about the program. You dont have to worry about this coordinator interview, its just how they run things, they want to talk to you for a bit and gather some notes, with that they will give a recommendation to the committee. If you have a supervisor that will help too, but from what I remember it is not necessary? 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 06/03/2018 at 9:42 AM, Jay's Brain said:

Hey @utmosteffort just wanted to check in about your IMS interview. Was the individual you met one of the admission committee members? Did they give you a timeline of when you'll hear back?

Thanks!

Hey, the interviewer was not one of the admission committee member. It turns out there are a lot of advisors that report to the committee member to help them make the decision. The timeline really depends since they have meeting once every month (one in march and one in April). The decision is heard within a week of the meeting. You could ask the advisor to delay it to the other month. Also, i got strong impression that securing supervisor is #1 thing that admission committee is looking for :(... you may be moved to different applicant pool if you dont find one by the time of committee meeting. People who are accepted from this pool are generally med-school tier GPA students who look appeasing to supervisors 

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11 hours ago, utmosteffort said:

Hey, the interviewer was not one of the admission committee member. It turns out there are a lot of advisors that report to the committee member to help them make the decision. The timeline really depends since they have meeting once every month (one in march and one in April). The decision is heard within a week of the meeting. You could ask the advisor to delay it to the other month. Also, i got strong impression that securing supervisor is #1 thing that admission committee is looking for :(... you may be moved to different applicant pool if you dont find one by the time of committee meeting. People who are accepted from this pool are generally med-school tier GPA students who look appeasing to supervisors 

Thanks for letting me know. I've been in touch with a supervisor, but haven't heard from anyone in the ad comm yet. Was the interviewer a prospective POI for you? Can you also clarify what you mean about the meetings in March or April and delaying it from one month to the other? 

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