[NotSammyHagar]

This is exactly what I've done the last few interview cycles I went through. For me, my screening interview was with a company that had a tone of public problems with treatment of female engineers and fired the ceo soon after. But they had some good engineers too. I interviewed with them and it was a mess, but I did get good experience. I thought I failed, they never told me, then 6 months later tried to get me to come do a full loop.

I think it's a smart strategy to pick 1 or 2 companies you'd never want to work out, including for low pay, and do your practice there. You should tell them if you pass why you don't want to come there, including for the low pay.