Getting a grad school interview scheduled in upcoming week could be overwhelming situation emotionally. You start weaving out plans of visiting Canada Tower, if applied in Toronto, Canada; Of visiting alpes ranges, if in france/switzerland or would have started imaging yourself sitting in google headquarters if university is in USA.
Getting a call for interview could happen in three cases:-
- CASE 1: University interview each candidate who applied
- CASE 2: University only interview’s a selected number of students
- CASE 3: University shortlist at least double the strength required, for interview
Out of all three, CASE 2 is only a sigh of relief. Possibilities of getting a reject are not null in that case too but the one who is rejected is the only 1 out of 10 who misbehaved with the interviewer during the meet or an online video call.
The day arrived when the interview has to happen in real and your are over prepared revisiting all the projects you have completed in past, the subjects in which you was graded A, research articles that you published and internship opportunities that you didn't missed.
Every millisecond before the interview was longer than a minute and more than million points coming to mind at single point of time to mention diplomatically during the call and forcefully maintain a fake smile for the 1 hour long video call.
The interview started in between day/night managing different time zones on this planet. All behavioral questions were thrown to you, one of the interviewer asked about technical question like “tell me how transformers evolved in deep learning” and some questions were totally out of the box which I didn’t mentioned in my writing at grad school interview questions list. But the long hour was near to an end.
By now you would have asked the interviewer “When to expect the interview results” or they would intimate themselves. The call ended with a thank you note and now you revisited the long hour with a cool breadth and would have been indulged to you daily routines.
- A day passed, stress started mounting up and you doubt on your interview’s first couple of questions — if you answered them properly or you mingled some points in between
- Two days. Your thoughts — “Ahh i would have better described my research in a non technical sense in some better way other than making it semi-technical-casual talk”
- Day three after interview. You start getting impatient about the interview outcome and again checked via internet; what are the odds of you getting selected since the school is very competitive and acceptance rate is just 5-10%
- Day N — A week passed or some weeks or a month.
The day when it was proposed that admission committee will revisit your profile to take some decision and that golden day by when you could expect your admission interview outcome has already passed. Days are passing like air, so fast. And with each passing day, what was the interview anxiety few weeks back has now been converted to result excitement.
One started procrastinating. Not even the apple smoothie which your mom prepared for you is of your taste anymore. You stop attending repeated phone calls from your girlfriend/boyfriend. Checking you mail box for any intimation after every hour became your new habit. But disappointment follows at every check.
Finally the mail excited you the most. You received the decision from admission committee for the interview. Your fingers started moving towards the email box on your phone/tablet in a slow motion.
Touching that velvet tab which mentioned the name of university you applied to was the best thing you could ever imagine to touch. The mail opened slowly than the eyelashes oscillation. You have enlarged your eyeball to the maximum extent, bigger than the lips you would have opened for your favorite pizza, so that not a single word of the email could get missed in the process.
You acceptance was in front of you, when you read those sparkling words, as said by god for you from heaven
Dear GoodFellow
I am delighted to express that you will be part of the program you applied to in your dream University. Please fulfill the details to completed your acceptance of this offer. Hope to see you in next intake.
Regards,
Head of the program
Keep learning, keep hustling.