While I understand this take, I respectfully disagree. Maybe it’s different at the top-of-the-top R1s, but at my R1 - where we’d get 30-40 apps per year for 2-5 spots - I wanted to give students every opportunity to feel like they mattered. If that meant 30 minutes on Zoom with 10-15 of them, great!

If my website indicated that I was not looking to add to my group, I would respectfully decline meeting requests - but was happy to connect them with someone else who had openings. I just felt that if a student spent their time in good faith trying to engage with me, it was worth reciprocating.