They flew me out for an on-campus visit. The interview(s) consisted of casual meetings with most of the faculty and some time spent with other graduate students. I'm not sure if it was valuable to put candidates through a gauntlet-style round of 30-minute conversations covering many of the same topics when these could have been done as small group meetings, affording the time for more substantive discussions and experience on campus.

This was just a phone screen. So the first part was the introduction of the profile and work the team does. Then the interviewers went in to say that it is going to be theoretical ones. All the questions were about the solid mechanics, dynamics, and materials science. They were very nice.

I applied online as many advanced educated Chinese back in China. There is no interview at all. We submitted a package of material including CV, personal statement, transcripts, certificate, GRE score report, TOEFL score report, etc.