What On Earth Does 'POI' Stand For? - The GradCafe Forums

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What on earth does 'POI' stand for?

Asked by cokohlik, February 26, 2011

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cokohlik

Posted February 26, 2011

cokohlik

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Posted February 26, 2011

I just can't figure it out.

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selecttext

Posted January 18, 2013

selecttext

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Posted January 18, 2013 (edited)

I guess some of the graduate students here have never been chastised by their supervisors for their superfluous usage of abbreviations.

 

The POI thing never sat right with me. 

Edited January 18, 2013 by selecttext

• high_hopes
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sfspirit

Posted February 26, 2011

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Posted February 26, 2011

I think "Person of Interest"? meaning a faculty with whom you hope to work

I just can't figure it out.

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cokohlik

Posted February 26, 2011

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Posted February 26, 2011

I think "Person of Interest"? meaning a faculty with whom you hope to work

Ohhhh Everything makes so much more sense now!! Thank you!

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anthropologygeek

Posted February 26, 2011

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Posted February 26, 2011

It means person of interest and it refers to who you want to work under.

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MoJingly

Posted February 26, 2011

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Posted February 26, 2011

We recently had a pretty wild and crazy discussion regarding this

• waddle
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Andean Pat

Posted January 18, 2013

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Posted January 18, 2013

Thank you for asking! I did not know either but figured it meant something of the sort.

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Usmivka

Posted January 18, 2013

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Posted January 18, 2013 (edited)

Not to be confused with PI, or principal investigator, the lead person on a grant or research project (at least as defined above, but exactly the same thing if you believe the etymology and definition at bottom).

 

Also, according to allacronymns.com science section, POI means one of the following, so clearly this is not standard terminology:

Point of Interception  Panoramic Optical Imager  petroleum, oil, lubricants  plagioclase-olivine inclusions  Primary Ovarian Insufficiency

 

If we expand from the science only acronymns, Principal Officer of Investigation (essentially a longer, more formal version of PI), Program of Instruction and Plan of Instruction are a teensy bit more common, which could almost, sort have been misinterpreted by an applicant at some point and led to our current conundrum. In fact, the first one there is likely the real origin in an academic context, but since it was never defined here people made up their own definition (see above thread).

 

Or maybe 'POI' in the form suggested by others was made up by someone here on the forums and then snowballed. It could even have started as a typo, since all three letters are next to each other and sequential on the keyboard...somebody typed a little too fast, and an acronym was born sans meaning.

 

EDIT: Apparently before this edit people were investigating scientific principles...

Edited January 18, 2013 by Usmivka

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Lyra Belacqua

Posted January 18, 2013

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Posted January 18, 2013

Not to be confused with PI, or principal investigator, the lead person on a grant or research project (at least as defined above, but exactly the same thing if you believe the etymology and definition at bottom).

 

Plus, when you're applying/visiting, your POI is someone who may be your PI in the future, which gives them even more of a potential semantic overlap in that context.

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little

Posted February 10, 2017

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Posted February 10, 2017

Professor of Interest not "person". 

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