Interviews and Mentors

Interviews

• Personal interviews are not considered as a formal part of the admissions review. If you are applying to the Maternal & Child Health track it is strongly recommended to arrange a telephone or in-person interview.
• If you wish to visit please see the Visiting the Department of Epidemiology page.

Faculty Mentors

• Temporary academic advisors will be assigned to new students.
• You will be able to select your thesis or dissertation supervisory chair and committee after matriculation in consultation with the faculty.
• Application decisions are not based on whether or not a student has identified a mentor. Therefore, do not try to secure a mentor in advance. However, if the applicant’s area of interest is not represented among our faculty, his or her chances of admission will be reduced to avoid situations where a student cannot find a mentor.
• If you wish to discuss your interests with a appropriate faculty prior to admission or before you apply, see these valuable tips:
  • Review our faculty members' interests at the following websites.
    • Partial Research Interest List
    • Regular Faculty List
    • Adjunct Faculty List (Regular UW faculty with a 2nd appointment in Epidemiology)
    • Affiliate Faculty (Courtesy faculty, most of whom may not chair a committee but may sit on it.)
• Review our faculty members’ publications in PubMed.
  • To search on a name in PubMed, enter John Robert Doe as Doe JR (no comma).
  • Restrict the search to the previous three years.
  • Click on other relevant restrictions, such as “humans”, “English”, etc. to narrow the search.
  • If the faculty member has a common name, look at the topics to see which are close to the faculty member’s interests. Also look at the full article to see determine whether the author has the name you are seeking, and his/her institutional affiliation.
• Write a professional letter, succinctly describing your qualifications, interests and degree of interest.
  • Paste the text into email (not as an attachment).
  • Attach a professional CV or resume.
  • Email it to each faculty member individually.
  • If you can’t reach the faculty member by email within a week, send another email or call. Keep in mind that many of our faculty travel extensively.

Return to Prospective Student's Page

Updated 2/14/08