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Hi everyone,
As interviews are set to begin at some schools fairly soon, I figured this might be a good service to try and get started (and hopefully become an annual "tradition"). If you're interested in doing a mock interview with a medical student, please read this post carefully and in its entirety.
If you're a medical student interested in doing interviews with applicants, please PM me. Those with interviewing experience at their schools are strongly encouraged to help out, but experience is by no means necessary. To verify your status and ensure the integrity of this service, you should be willing to submit a picture of your student ID or some other form of "proof" that you're an enrolled medical student to me. This information will not be shared and will be deleted once your status has been verified. Alternatively, if you feel uncomfortable sending this information to me,we can try and get a mod to act as a "verifier" (if one is willing) you may PM sector9 with your verification to keep your identity and other info confidential. At a minimum, however, I'll at least need a Gmail address in order to share the sign-up list with you (see below).
General Info
The goal of this from my perspective is to offer you the opportunity to go through a "real" interview in order to give you an idea of what to expect when you start visiting schools. Many pre-health offices offer this service to their students (or even require it to get a committee letter), but I know that many applicants to have a useful pre-health office to help them with these sorts of things. While interviews at individual schools will of course vary, the goal here is to simply go through the process and answer some general questions about your application that you may very well get at some point on the trail. The exact format of the interview will be dictated by your interviewer, but here are some guidelines:
-Interviews should be approximately 15-30 minutes, followed by 10-20 minutes of feedback. The number of questions your interviewer will ask will be dependent on the "flow" of your interview, though 15-30 minutes should be enough time for at least three questions. The time and method of your interview will be worked out between you and your interviewer.
-Interviews can be done using whatever method works for both people, but Skype or some other kind of video chatting would probably be best and the most realistic.
-Questions will come from the information you provide in your application, specifically the personal statement and activities.
-For a variety of reasons, it's strongly recommended that applicants NOT share their grades or MCAT score with their mock interviewer. Additionally, these topics should be out-of-bounds for questions.
-Applicants are encouraged to immerse themselves in the experience and treat it as a real interview, i.e., dress up, prepare, etc..
Sound good? Keep reading.
Requirements to participate:
-YOU MUST BE APPLYING IN THE CURRENT (2012-2013) APPLICATION CYCLE (sorry, but I'm guessing that the demand for this will probably be too great to do interviews with non-applicants)
-You must have completed and submitted your AMCAS application
-You must be willing to share your personal statement and your activity descriptions. To verify that you're actually applying this cycle, the PDF AMCAS allows you to save should be submitted to your interviewer. It is strongly recommended that you remove highly personal information before sending the PDF (i.e., your SSN, address, grades/MCAT score, etc.) to your interviewer. This is for your own protection. To make things easy, simply edit the PDF and remove all pages that include any information other than your PS and activity descriptions.
-You must sign up using the Google Form provided here (note: this information will only be seen by me and any other (verified) interviewers that volunteer to participate, and your identity will not be linked to your SDN username unless you share your username with me or your interviewer): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHpEeUt5LVRpdkYxN2xPZTNySVAzZ3c6MQ
Other notes:
-As I'm the only one doing this at the moment, I will obviously be limited by the number of applicants I can interview. Hopefully we'll get some volunteers, but it's highly likely that everyone who signs up won't be able to get an interview. Interviews will be done on a first come, first served basis. If you fail to make it to your agreed-upon interview time, you will lose your spot and will have to submit the request form again.
-If you do an interview and found it helpful, donate to SDN as a "thanks." This service is provided free of charge.
-This service will obviously require a lot of trust in both directions. Applicants should be assured that all information they share with their interviewer, including during the interview, will remain confidential. In return, the identity of your interviewer and any other information should not be shared publicly on SDN or privately with others. Hopefully requiring everyone to "pony up" with their personal information will encourage this culture, but I can only speak for myself when I say that your information will not be shared. If you're getting bad vibes from your interviewer, you're strongly encouraged to get in touch with me and/or request a different interviewer. Once again, be judicious about keeping highly personal information (your address, SSN, grades, MCAT score, etc.) private. Keeping any shared personal information confidential is in agreement with SDN's terms of service. Individuals found violating this policy will be reported to the mods.
Feel free to post any questions you might have here. Depending on the response and whether or not other people volunteer, interviews can begin more or less immediately.
Good luck!
As interviews are set to begin at some schools fairly soon, I figured this might be a good service to try and get started (and hopefully become an annual "tradition"). If you're interested in doing a mock interview with a medical student, please read this post carefully and in its entirety.
If you're a medical student interested in doing interviews with applicants, please PM me. Those with interviewing experience at their schools are strongly encouraged to help out, but experience is by no means necessary. To verify your status and ensure the integrity of this service, you should be willing to submit a picture of your student ID or some other form of "proof" that you're an enrolled medical student to me. This information will not be shared and will be deleted once your status has been verified. Alternatively, if you feel uncomfortable sending this information to me,
General Info
The goal of this from my perspective is to offer you the opportunity to go through a "real" interview in order to give you an idea of what to expect when you start visiting schools. Many pre-health offices offer this service to their students (or even require it to get a committee letter), but I know that many applicants to have a useful pre-health office to help them with these sorts of things. While interviews at individual schools will of course vary, the goal here is to simply go through the process and answer some general questions about your application that you may very well get at some point on the trail. The exact format of the interview will be dictated by your interviewer, but here are some guidelines:
-Interviews should be approximately 15-30 minutes, followed by 10-20 minutes of feedback. The number of questions your interviewer will ask will be dependent on the "flow" of your interview, though 15-30 minutes should be enough time for at least three questions. The time and method of your interview will be worked out between you and your interviewer.
-Interviews can be done using whatever method works for both people, but Skype or some other kind of video chatting would probably be best and the most realistic.
-Questions will come from the information you provide in your application, specifically the personal statement and activities.
-For a variety of reasons, it's strongly recommended that applicants NOT share their grades or MCAT score with their mock interviewer. Additionally, these topics should be out-of-bounds for questions.
-Applicants are encouraged to immerse themselves in the experience and treat it as a real interview, i.e., dress up, prepare, etc..
Sound good? Keep reading.
Requirements to participate:
-YOU MUST BE APPLYING IN THE CURRENT (2012-2013) APPLICATION CYCLE (sorry, but I'm guessing that the demand for this will probably be too great to do interviews with non-applicants)
-You must have completed and submitted your AMCAS application
-You must be willing to share your personal statement and your activity descriptions. To verify that you're actually applying this cycle, the PDF AMCAS allows you to save should be submitted to your interviewer. It is strongly recommended that you remove highly personal information before sending the PDF (i.e., your SSN, address, grades/MCAT score, etc.) to your interviewer. This is for your own protection. To make things easy, simply edit the PDF and remove all pages that include any information other than your PS and activity descriptions.
-You must sign up using the Google Form provided here (note: this information will only be seen by me and any other (verified) interviewers that volunteer to participate, and your identity will not be linked to your SDN username unless you share your username with me or your interviewer): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHpEeUt5LVRpdkYxN2xPZTNySVAzZ3c6MQ
Other notes:
-As I'm the only one doing this at the moment, I will obviously be limited by the number of applicants I can interview. Hopefully we'll get some volunteers, but it's highly likely that everyone who signs up won't be able to get an interview. Interviews will be done on a first come, first served basis. If you fail to make it to your agreed-upon interview time, you will lose your spot and will have to submit the request form again.
-If you do an interview and found it helpful, donate to SDN as a "thanks." This service is provided free of charge.
-This service will obviously require a lot of trust in both directions. Applicants should be assured that all information they share with their interviewer, including during the interview, will remain confidential. In return, the identity of your interviewer and any other information should not be shared publicly on SDN or privately with others. Hopefully requiring everyone to "pony up" with their personal information will encourage this culture, but I can only speak for myself when I say that your information will not be shared. If you're getting bad vibes from your interviewer, you're strongly encouraged to get in touch with me and/or request a different interviewer. Once again, be judicious about keeping highly personal information (your address, SSN, grades, MCAT score, etc.) private. Keeping any shared personal information confidential is in agreement with SDN's terms of service. Individuals found violating this policy will be reported to the mods.
Feel free to post any questions you might have here. Depending on the response and whether or not other people volunteer, interviews can begin more or less immediately.
Good luck!
Last edited:
Thanks for doing this!
