Logistics
and Planning
Medical
schools make interview offers after some initial screening of your application
materials. You should feel great when
you get an offer! Offers go out as early as September and as late as March and
April. You can ask a school’s admissions
office about their particular cycle this year.
If
you are offered an interview, you may be given some choice of dates or little
choice at all. It is all right to politely ask to change your interview
date once. It is fair to try to
concentrate interviews in the same geographic location around the same time,
but it is difficult to do this either early or late in the interview season,
e.g.: if offered an interview by one school in the Philadelphia area, you can
call other Philadelphia schools to which you applied, tell them when you plan
to fly to the area, and ask if there is anyway to discern if you might
interview there around the same time. Key:
don’t be pushy - it’s not worth it to shoot yourself
in the foot.
Clothing:
Women - wear a suit, pantsuit, or dress and jacket. Men - wear a suit or jacket and tie. Avoid anything too outrageous or distracting
- you want the interviewers to see you as a professional and concentrate on the
conversation, not your attire or accessories.
Avoid
any fragrance - too many folks have allergies to risk it bothering someone in a
closed room.
Before
you make travel plans, be sure you have the location of the interview and time
it would take to get there from an airport, train station, etc. Admissions personnel can be very helpful with
this. Some schools have current students
who act as hosts, making your stay cheaper and easier, and maybe more fun, too.
Research
the schools - know the web site and view book at a minimum. Come in with informed questions.
Preparation:
Once
your first interview is scheduled, imagine an actor or actress preparing for
opening night; she wouldn’t just read her script silently and then arrive on
stage; she would practice her lines out
loud. You will be able to present
your ideas much more eloquently if they have come out of your mouth before your
big day. Practice, practice, practice! Try practicing with a friend, in front of a
mirror, or whatever works for you.
Check
out
http://www.studentdoctor.net/interview/index.asp
for feedback from other applicants.
Know
your application and your essays hands-down.
Anything you have submitted is fair game, though the interviewer may or
may not have read your file yet.
The
Interview - Helpful Hints:
Be
sincere, courteous, use tact, and show enthusiasm. It’s okay to use
humor, but don’t be a wise guy.
Display
an interest in the interview. Treat
every question as important.
Be
honest and consistent in responses.
Listen
carefully to the question or comments being made. Ask for clarification if a question is
vague. “Did I understand your question
to be...,” “As I understand the question...”.
Use
the thinking/pause method when you need to regroup or organize thoughts.
Don’t
be passive regarding the content of the interview. The interviewer will ask specific
questions. Your responses should address
the question and can also make reference to an area or subject that you want to
talk more about. Before the interview,
make a mental list of five things you want to get out about yourself sometime
during the interview.
Don’t
try to second-guess the interviewer’s politics when asked your opinion about
some issue. It is the way that you have
arrived at your opinion that is of interest to him/her.
Avoid
negative comments about professors of classes where your grades are lower,
about fellow students, former employers, co-workers, etc.
Be
prepared to respond to questions about your weaknesses as well as your
strengths.
Respond
to any questions about your personal life tactfully, especially if you indicate
that you do not understand the relevance to your motivation, qualifications,
etc.
Keep
the interviewer’s attention by varying the tone of your voice: lower/ raise,
vary the tempo, speed up/slow down but always be articulate. Speak loudly enough.
Maintain
good eye contact and positive body language.
A
key component of the interview is to understand the fit between the med school
and the applicant. Find out why this is
the right school for you.
Enjoy! Believe it or not - many former applicants
report that this was their favorite part of the application process.
Also:
Send
a thank you note to your interviewer within a week of the interview. It is the polite and professional thing to
do, and it gives you a chance to reiterate a point you feel you might have
missed in the interview. A neatly
hand-written note or a short business letter is acceptable.
Try
not to be intimidated by your competition,
think positively & believe in yourself.
Acceptances,
Rejections & Waitlists:
There
is no set time between interview and notification of the admissions decision,
though many schools will try to give you a time frame, e.g. six weeks. Your application may be put “on hold,” which
feels like limbo, but at least it means that you are not rejected. Essentially the schools need to take many
weeks to examine the entire pool, and lots of applicants who got everything in
early in the cycle end up waiting for news.
Be familiar with your responsibilities as an applicant, posted at http://www.aamc.org/students/applying/policies/start.htm.
It
is also helpful to know about the medical school procedures, known as “traffic
rules,” listed at:
http://www.aamc.org/students/applying/recommendations/62820/policies_applicants.html
Acceptances:
(Our
favorite outcome!)
Once
admission is offered at University XYZ, you will be asked to declare if you
accept the offer or not. Just because
you accept the offer, you DO NOT HAVE TO ENROLL THERE. This just means that you hold onto it as a
real possibility, given all other offers thus far. At any one time you should only hold two
offers maximum for any length of time.
No deposit will be required of you at that moment. This is your chance
to get additional questions answered about financing, curriculum, moving to a
new location, etc. As of May 15, you can
only hold one offer.
Rejections:
Rejection
is not easy to take in any form, but when you put the effort and money into
this process that is required, it can be pretty disappointing. Hopefully you have a school list that is
appropriate to your application and you will indeed be admitted somewhere
soon. Please feel free to speak with
Dean Bassett if you are receiving an unexpected number of rejections.
Waitlists:
Unlike
we see with undergraduate school, the waitlist process at medical schools is a
vital part of the process that you can feel hopeful about. Every year many