Interview recap

My first interview was a couple of weeks ago and it was absolutely exhausting. I think most of that exhaustion stemmed from having to get up at 5:30 am to get to the interview site on time, but being "on" for whole hours on end drained me.

The day consisted of an introduction in the morning by the charismatic dean of admissions followed by two 30-minute interviews. With my group assignment, I had half an hour before my interviews began to hang out and talk with everyone else in my group and we were a pretty jovial bunch. We stayed away from the "How many interview invitations have you gotten?" questions and instead talked about where we were from and what we were doing in life.

Since this school is very non-traditional student friendly, the stories of my fellow interviewees were interesting and engaging so time flew. Next thing I knew I was headed to my first interview.

My first interrogator was a surgeon (Dr. S) who was in private practice and was not affiliated with the medical school at all. Her style of questioning was more conversational and she seemed to honestly want to understand my thought-process and decision-making regarding choosing medicine as a career, especially after giving up on it in undergrad. She asked questions very specific to my application and only threw in one ethical question that was super easy and had an obvious correct answer.

The interview was also being "observed" by a second year medical student (Mr. M), and I put that word in quotations because he did ask me a few questions instead of just seeing how to conduct an interview.

At the end of my interview, I struggled to find questions to ask Dr. S because she had nothing to do with the school. Eventually I figured out that she had done her residency here and so I asked what had brought her out here. That's all I had for her and then I turned my attention to Mr. M who was very helpful in explaining his opinions regarding the unique curriculum. I hope not having anything for Dr. S isn't going to hurt me too badly but I really couldn't come up with anything.

Overall, I think I did well enough. I definitely didn't knock it out of the park because I could've answered some questions better, either stated things more concisely or made my point clearer. But I also didn't do poorly so really I have no idea how to grade myself. I found Mr. M much easier to read with regards to how I was doing than Dr. S but since I don't think his opinion carries any weight I'm in limbo about this one.

My second interview was with a different M2 (Ms. T) and it had the standard, "What are you strengths and weaknesses?" questions. Essentially the whole thing was like that. There was one mention of something on my application but the rest of the questions were incredibly general, especially "Tell me about your clinical experiences." What about them? Can you be a bit more specific? Haven't you read my application?

In the end, I was able to emphasize the one point I wish I'd done better on in the first interview so hopefully that'll help. I think my answers were sufficient but definitely not ones Ms. T would mention as memorable.

And by that I mean, I don't think either interviewer will say that they really enjoyed talking with me. That doesn't mean the conversation wasn't enjoyable because it was, especially with the first one, but I don't think it stuck out to them as awesome. There were a couple times in the first interview when I felt Dr. S wanted to call me out on my bullsh-t but thought better of it (for example, she thought I had no idea what I was talking about, which I did but whatever). Or that could just be my insecurities rearing their ugly heads.

Anywhos, I handed each interviewer an update letter to take to the admissions committee that discussed my recent research accomplishments (poster presentation at a major conference in my field and submission of a paper for publication) and wished them a good day.

The rest of the day included a lunch with current medical students, more presentations, a tour of the campus, and a Q&A with even more medical students. No one really had any questions for them because we were completely drained, and also because the presentations and other opportunities to speak with students had answered all of our questions.

Honestly, after my interviews I just wanted to go home. This is my local medical school and I've heard their spiel many times before. It's my absolute top choice and if I get in then I am definitely going here. No doubts. So the rest of the day seemed almost like a waste of time to me mostly because I was tired and wanted to go home, but I had to put on my happy face and look excited.

Overall, I have no idea what my chances are at this school right now. The dean of admissions said that those invited for interviews have a 2 to 1 chance of getting in, so I like my odds. Also, if you assume they offer 2 spots for every 1 in-state person that matriculates, then my chances go up to > 75%. I like those odds.

The school is pretty quick about sending out acceptances post-interview if they really like you so I guess I'll know soon enough. But plenty of people don't get in until mid-March, meaning this application process could just drag on forever.

If I don't hear back by early January, I will send a letter of intent that further elaborates on my strengths, my commitment to medicine, as well as my huge desire to go there. So there are options.

I plan on fighting for this school with all my might.

Another interview invitation

As I was powering off my phone on the airplane to fly to Mexico last week, I noticed an email from an admissions office inviting me to interview*. In the text of the email it said I had seven days from the date of the invitation to schedule said interview, which wouldn't exactly work since I'd still be out of the country.

I called the admissions office as the plane doors were closing hoping to be able to do it quickly right then, but the lady who schedules the interview was at lunch. They asked if I could call back in an hour. Umm, what part of "The plane doors are closing and can't you hear the flight attendant in the background", do you not understand?

Anywhos, I wasn't able to book the interview before we took off and they said they don't book them over email (I tried), which led to me using Skype over our very shaky internet connection. Lots of, "Can you please repeat that?" and "I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear you" comments later, I was booked for an interview in a couple of weeks.

I won't be able to attend the first date they offered (early next week) because I'll be at a conference presenting a poster, so instead I'm scheduled for one that is 10 calendar days and 5 interview dates later. Not ideal, but that's just the way it worked out.

I also emailed other schools in the pseudo-area telling them I'll be there during that time and that if they were to offer me an interview I'd appreciate it if it could be while I'm around. So far I haven't heard anything, but then again it's technically only been two business days since they got that email. I'll give them another one and if I don't hear back by tomorrow I'll book the flights for just this interview.

Lastly, I will post an interview recap of my dream school interview from last week in the coming days. In short, I don't think I killed it but I didn't do badly either, so I don't know how that'll affect my chances of acceptance. We'll find out soon enough since the admissions committee meets at the end of this week and/or beginning of next week.

In the end, everything worked out wonderfully with scheduling my first interview as well as being able to enjoy my vacation. All in all, I got to have my cake and eat it too. Now if I could get an acceptance on my birthday next week, that'd just be the icing on that most delicious cake.

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*This is at the school that just recently marked me as "Complete" after sitting on my application for three months, and then invited me for an interview not even a week after that. Black Magic, I tell you. Or different schools have different versions of what it means to be complete. Whichever.

Black Magic

That's how I believe medical school admissions operate.

Today I got an email stating that I was finally complete at a school whose secondary I submitted in mid-August. My letters of recommendation were ready before I even submitted that so I have no idea why it took them this long to mark me "Complete".

It's not like this is Jefferson or Boston University that each get 10,000 applications a year. WTF.

Reality check

My mock interview with the Pre-Health Office went very well on Tuesday. I don't know why, but when I talk with medical people my answers get twice as long. With Career Services, I was able to communicate my path to applying to medical school in 4 minutes, while in both Pre-Health interviews it was on the order of 10 minutes. No bueno. I need to stop rambling!

Other than that, the practice interview wasn't nearly as dreadful as I had anticipated. I know what to work on and how to improve my answers and disposition so rocking the real interview is entirely doable. And the adviser assured me that it's completely normal to be rejected from the schools that I've been rejected from.

So far, I've been rejected from mostly reach schools, ones I have very little chance of getting into based on my overall GPA or my out-of-state status. So it makes sense and I shouldn't stress out too much about it.

If all else fails, she gave me pointers on what I should do to improve my application for next year in case I have to reapply. I can't really improve my GPA or MCAT any more than I already have so the next step would be getting more recent clinical experience in the form of a clinical research position.

I'm hoping I get into the school I'm interviewing with next weekend (it's my state school and I have the best chance to get in there) so I don't have to worry about balancing my current job with a clinical research position an hour away from where I live. Also, I REALLY don't want to have to rewrite all my essays for another application cycle.

Practice interviews and more news

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.