My first medical school interview is in a week and a half and to prepare I've been taking advantage of the practice interviews offered on the campus at which I did my post-baccalaureate studies.
Last week I did a mock interview at Career Services, which was helpful in answering general questions such as the loaded "Tell me about yourself" or "Describe a time when you have failed." It was nice to hear how to structure my answers and also to see how I come off to someone who doesn't know me. It's crazy how much the interviewer could deduce about me just from a general description I gave of myself.
Tomorrow I have another mock interview, this time with the pre-health office and I'm looking forward to it but I'm also a little terrified. I've never seen this adviser before so I don't know if she'll be like the one who crushes my dreams or the nice one who's always excited to see how I'm doing. I've heard she's pretty hard during interviews, which is honestly what I need to prepare for the real thing.
On the other hand, I'm looking forward to practicing medical school specific questions such as ones dealing with ethics and the healthcare overhaul. I don't like answering those sorts of scenarios because I'm pretty middle of the road and I don't feel like it gives the interviewer a good opportunity to get to know me. But there's a good chance these will come up so I'd like some feedback on my answers.
All in all, I'm not too stressed out about this interview thing. I feel like I know myself and my reasons for pursuing this path well enough to speak about them with confidence. And as long as I can communicate those things effectively, I think I will be just fine. At least that's what I keep telling myself every time I think how important this interview is for my future. Because when I focus on that, I start to freak out a little.
On the responses from medical schools front, I got two more rejections (one pre-secondary and one post-secondary) on the same day that I passed the initial screening at another school bringing me one step closer to getting an interview invitation there. I honestly don't know how many people are in this "small pool" and how rigorous the screening for it was, but a significant amount of people have been rejected before reaching this pool so it must be something.
I'm not reading too much into these things because there is no way of knowing how each school does their admissions. And I can't control getting an interview invitation at this point. It's completely out of my hands now.
In short, I need to focus on rocking this interview and enjoying the freedom of having too much time on my hands.
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