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Had an interview today at a Polish university for a Master's degree in Business. I expected at least a 30 minute interview. I've never had a university interview before so this was my first.

After 5 minutes they said thank you and that was all. She mentioned that she looked forward to seeing me at the university, but with only 5 minutes, it gave me the impression that it wasn't long enough, and I had questions to ask.

They asked 2 questions, and I mentioned I may be interested in getting a PhD and being a professor, they seemed pleased, so either I said something wrong or they already decided they wanted me considering my desire to continue education.

It certainly was not enough to get a feel for my interests or background, but if they were looking for PhD candidates and professors, maybe that did it for them, when combined with my educational history (I graduated with a 4.0 GPA) and the requirements are not as strict in Poland as in Germany.

I was also wearing a suit, very well dressed and kept, and with a good environment in the background (it was an online interview). They responded that they really liked my answer and would see me at the university or something to that extent, although their English was also not great and they had a strong accent.

The last thing I said was that I thought she was right when she mentioned that I could do both entrepreneurship and academia simultaneously and I said about how I agree with that and it makes a lot of sense. I don't know what I might have said wrong, I started discussing my work history, at one point she suggested that she would check my work history and so on, but certainly did not inquire further or ask any additional questions about it.

I guess I will find out next week, but I feel weird because I expected a long interview with lots of questions like what I researched and got prepared for, but being so short, I was surprised and now I feel like it will probably get rejected because I read online if it's under 15 minutes it probably means it didn't go well.

What do you think

Update:

My application for the school was accepted. So the short interview was not a rejection, but rather normal for this school.

My application score was 100/100. It was 100% weighted toward the interview. So the 5 minute interview received a 100%.

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  • I spent hours preparing for a 5 minute interview with 2 easy questions without getting to ask questions of my own. It's one of the top universities in Poland, and I know it's not the same standards as Germany (not as strict), but still, I feel like I must have did or said something wrong.
    – learningaddict
    Apr 17 at 16:13
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    This question is probably too focused for this website? It is basically impossible to give you any sort of real answer. But I will note that in my field in the US, graduate school interviews are quite short and pretty much just to make sure you are not a crazy person. It is possible this one was similar the the interviewer was satisfied after a few minutes.
    – Benjamin Horowitz
    Apr 17 at 16:16
  • @BenjaminHorowitz ok that was the kind of answer I was really hoping for. Maybe they were so pleased at my interest in pursuing PhD and professorship that they didn't want to risk scaring me away by letting me ask questions XD. That's the hope then. Otherwise I butchered it somehow! But the fact that sometimes it can and does happen to be a short interview just to see who I am means that possibly my expectations for the interview may have been too high. It's not Harvard or MIT.
    – learningaddict
    Apr 17 at 16:20
  • I also realize they did not introduce themselves, I neglected to ask but if it was a formal interview I would expect them to introduce themselves.
    – learningaddict
    Apr 17 at 16:44
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    Their interest may also have been to simply judge your language abilities, if for example you were from another country. That can often be done to everyone's satisfaction in just 5 minutes.
    – Wolfgang Bangerth
    Apr 17 at 18:32

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My best guess is that it did go well, in fact. I'll also guess that there were a large number of candidates, leading to the shortest possible interviews.

I assume that the interviewer also has your written application and so may not need much other than to see that there are no red flags in your behavior.

Since she said she was looking forward to seeing you she found you acceptable for entrance. Otherwise she would have been non-committal at best.

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