most bizarre interview moment?

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At one of my later interviews, one of the other interviewees brought a friend along... He wasn't there in the very beginning of the day, but he showed up during the tours, joined us for lunch, and then hung out at the admissions office with the applicants as we waited for the interviewers to come get us.

It was super odd, and even more awkward given that the friend barely said 3 words during the whole day.. super weird.

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Mine was when my interviewer told me the decision was "up to God."

Badpokerface.jpg

The decision was literally up to him. He is the dean of admissions. Not sure how God fit into that equation.

Was he a former surgeon, because if so he may not see the difference. :D
 
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This was an entertaining thread. My interviews were all pretty typical.
 
Some of the questions were borderline bizarre or the way they were presented to me were at least. Talking about grades and then in the middle of my answer, a 2nd interviewer asks how I feel about medical marijuana. Random.
 
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Being asked what my SAT score was and then being told that my verbal score was low, being questioned for why I decided to go to boarding school (it's high school....that stuff should ALL be in the past and not mentioned), and then why I ended up going to school X for undergraduate but then chose this supposedly inferior name for my Master's program by this older Asian physician who then bragged about his kids going from public school to an Ivy league college....I pretty much knew I was toast at that school only to surprisingly get accepted a couple months later.

I also had this moment at another interview when my throat got so dry that I completely choked up to the point that I had tears coming out of my eyes and needed water ASAP. That was definitely embarrassing.
 
At one interview, my interviewer said, verbatim, that people south of the Mason-Dixon line are "a bunch of snake-handlers."

:confused::confused: :confused:

what-does-that-even-mean-spiderman-jjJvhK.jpg


then again, i went out to dinner with a bunch of people tonight who had never heard of the term "WASP."
 

A particular variety of tongue-speaking Jesus freaks likes to ritualistically play with poisonous snakes, I think because there's some Bible verse to the effect of 'snakes only bite hellbound sinners'...

Also WASP is one of those within-white-people distinctions that's fallen by the wayside as of late. Unless you mean they weren't familiar with the '80s metal band with that name, in which case they totally suck.
 
A particular variety of tongue-speaking Jesus freaks likes to ritualistically play with poisonous snakes, I think because there's some Bible verse to the effect of 'snakes only bite hellbound sinners'...

Come on, be fair.

Mark
17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

Google + 3 seconds to copy and paste.
 
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Come on, be fair.

Mark
17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

Google + 3 seconds to copy and paste.


I think scarshapedstar's paraphrased version sounds slightly less crazy.
 
I went to the same high school as my interviewer, which is known as a prestigious math/science high school and has a long history of westinghouse/intel finalists. The moment I walked into his office:

Interviewer: So you went to X high school? (with enthusiastic voice)
Me: Oh. Yes, I did. Did you graduate from there as well?
Interviewer: Class of '6x. What was your Intel research about? (still, with enthusiastic voice)
Me: Oh. Um... I didn't participate in that in high school.
Interviewer: ... (silence) ... why didn't you? (no more enthusiasm in his voice)

Interview was dead from that point onward. He lost interest and asked "is there anything you want to talk about?" a few times during the interview. I'm a postbacc, so high school was more than 12 years ago.

Got waitlisted. I turned down the waitlist later.
 
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Mine was when my interviewer told me the decision was "up to God."

Badpokerface.jpg

The decision was literally up to him. He is the dean of admissions. Not sure how God fit into that equation.

Which school was that?
 
Being interviewed for a private scribe position at a cardiologist's office.

The lady interviewing me for the spot was five minutes late, opens door with freshly brewed espresso in her hand… Guides me through the maze of the doctor's office to her office where the interview begins.


She looks at my resume and then blankly gawks at me that I have no work experience................ I guess being a paid ATA, TA, working in both clinical and laboratory research setting among other menial office jobs "don't count" as work experience....




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Another time I was being interviewed the woman's phone blares some ghetto hip hop (I'm talking a NASTY song) and she says it's an emergency. She literally sits on the phone for 10 minutes yelling at her 'pookie' aka boyfriend....... I just sat there and smiled.
 
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guy from my school interviewed last year and was asked out of the blue if china and afghanistan share a border... answer? yes they do. he had no idea and said as much... still got accepted. :)
 
At one interview, my interviewer said, verbatim, that people south of the Mason-Dixon line are "a bunch of snake-handlers."

Now, I'm pretty sure I'm going against the grain here, especially for you Texas people, but I personally love anyone who broadly paints everyone in the South in a negative light in a professional situation. I hear a lot of complaints about interviewers saying politically incorrect and abrasive things, and honestly, I'm not feeling you. This kind of direct ****-slinging food fight mentality is actually just what I want to hear and makes me feel more comfortable.

My interview with this faculty member made this school skyrocket up my list to #2.

old(er) post but...

lol, gotta respect the Mason-Dixon line:thumbup:

I used to drive 30min extra to Delaware to buy Everclear instead of going to Maryland so I wouldn't cross the Mason-Dixon line.

I'd bet money this was a school in PA or the interviewer went to school in PA. My gf, who grew up in Ohio and went to school there doesn't get the fascination with it.
 
guy from my school interviewed last year and was asked out of the blue if china and afghanistan share a border... answer? yes they do. he had no idea and said as much... still got accepted. :)

Why would it be surprising if he gave the right answer?
 
Why would it be surprising if he gave the right answer?

I don't think it'd be surprising if he said no. That border is so obscure that most people wouldn't even notice it at first glance.
 
I get that, but he sisko said that the guy "still got accepted." If you got the question right, why would it hurt your chances?
 
My understanding is that the guy didn't know and admitted that.

he had no idea and said as much...

Sometimes being able to admit you don't know is a good thing, you know your limitations and such.
 
I get that, but he sisko said that the guy "still got accepted." If you got the question right, why would it hurt your chances?

I agree with you there, it really wouldn't.

Edit: yeah what kami just said, that's the point of the question.
 
old(er) post but...

lol, gotta respect the Mason-Dixon line:thumbup:

I used to drive 30min extra to Delaware to buy Everclear instead of going to Maryland so I wouldn't cross the Mason-Dixon line.


Wait, wtf??? Since when is a massive generalization in a professional setting allowed. Apparently I'm a snake handler for living in Florida (technically, I have to go north to be"southern" :)). I understand not liking certain areas due to an overwhelming prejudice in that area, but to spread more prejudice is stupid. Heck I understand making jokes about regions (e.g. The previous parenthesis), but to make that statement in a professional setting displays overwhelming bias and makes one appear close minded.
 
I agree with you there, it really wouldn't.

Edit: yeah what kami just said, that's the point of the question.
I see, reading comprehension fail on my part. :)

When an interviewer asks an ultra-specific question like that, I don't think he/she will hold it against you if you don't know the answer. (Unless it directly relates to something in your file, of course.)
 
Thread Revival!

"I mean, what's the worst that can happen? I get rejected?" - Me to my Interviewer at what is realistically my dream school.
 
I've been so lucky. Everyone on my interview days have been super chill bros/bras.
 
Mine was when my interviewer told me the decision was "up to God."

Badpokerface.jpg

The decision was literally up to him. He is the dean of admissions. Not sure how God fit into that equation.

HAHAHA sorry for quoting this up again but that is just ridiculous
 
My understanding is that the guy didn't know and admitted that.



Sometimes being able to admit you don't know is a good thing, you know your limitations and such.

One of my interviewers used a word that I had never heard before (litigious). I took 3 seconds to determine if I could bull**** my way through my answer trying to guess what it meant, but instead I just said "What do you mean by litigious?"

He laughed at me and explained and the rest went AOK!
 
I took 3 seconds to determine if I could bull**** my way through my answer trying to guess what it meant

Sounds like that one scene in Family Guy, which unfortunately I could not find:

Lois: Peter, it's great they picked your theme, but isn't it a little esoteric?
Peter: Esoteric? [camera zooms to a conference room with six men inside Peter's brain]
Man 1: Could it mean "sexy"?
Man 2: I think it's a science term.
Man 3: Fellas, fellas, esoteric means "delicious".
Peter: Lois, Who's the Boss? is not a food.
Brian: Swing and a miss.
 
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I must say, interview season's started and nothing bizarre has happened :)

Let's hear them stories!
 
At one of my interviews, there was a kid that kept requesting information about being in the army and being a doctor. He asked admissions, the dean, students, people around campus on the tour... it was all he really seemed interested in

When I met him at the beginning of the day I went to shake his hand and he flinched and he was too timid to engage in an actual conversation with anyone.

I laughed to myself and wondered how he could ever make it through any form of basic training in the army.

So this wasn't really embarrassing for me but it just put on awkward vibe to the day for everyone interviewing because he kept running off trying to track down the info he wanted and we would all have to wait for him or go find him lol.
 
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My favorite moment thus far, came from a Top 10 school:

I: I see you're from [the Midwest]. Was it weird growing up without [list of technology/modern conveniences]?
M: Huh? Uh...
:confused:
M: We had all those things as I grew up.
I: Oh... *puzzled look* well how about you tell me what it was like back at your home and why you would want to come all the way out here...

:rolleyes:

I've also had questions pertaining to a certain sport I've played for a long, long time:
- What was your nickname? (not interview appropriate...)
- What's your best memory? (awkward...)
- Honestly, how good were you?

All at different interviews, all of which asked me how it pertained to medicine.
 
Some of the questions were borderline bizarre or the way they were presented to me were at least. Talking about grades and then in the middle of my answer, a 2nd interviewer asks how I feel about medical marijuana. Random.
LOL.
 
I was the one conducting the interview but the applicant leaned back in his chair, put his legs on the table and crossed them on the table! But that wasn't the end of his brashness. He later said and I quote, "Really I think I'm overqualified for this......"

Utterly amazing....
 
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Come on, be fair.

Mark
17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

Google + 3 seconds to copy and paste.
That's what she said.
 
I was the one conducting the interview but the applicant leaned back in his chair, put his legs on the table and crossed them on the table! But that wasn't the end of his brashness. He later said and I quote, "Really I think I'm overqualified for this......"

Utterly amazing....

Perhaps he was just suffering from invasive testicular cancer.
 
My very first interview, at Columbia:

Interviewer: So what books are you reading now, and please don't say The World According to Garp.

Me: (thinking, What's with the Irving grudge?) I'm reading the Lord of the Rings just to read it before the movie comes out.

I: Yes, my son is doing that too. What does the ring do?

Me: (thinking, AHa! I know this one!) It makes you invisible.

I: And what else?

Me: (thinking, ok, concrete didn't work, time to get allegorical)Well, there's a lot of metaphorical references to the ring being connected to 'the great eye of Sauron' so it can also be interpreted as an instrument of vision as well as an instrument of invisibility.

I: And what else?

Me: (thinking, oh crap, I thought that last one was pretty good.)
Well, uh, the ring also warps the mind of its wearer after time, it becomes a focus of extreme jealousy, and because of that sort of jealousy, a source of isolation.

I: And what else?

Me: Well, the short poem at the beginning of the book also says that the ring also binds the other, lesser rings together, so it has an element of ruling power as well.

I: Ah, yes, I had forgotten that. And what else?

Me: (feeling like a real dork at this point, and really scraping the bottom of the barrel) Well, returning to the vision theme, the wearer is also taken out of the world of sunlight and brought into a sort of shadow world... but I'm getting the sense that's not what you're looking for.

I: The wearer of the ring never gets older.

Me: Ah, that's right, I'd forgotten that.

I: That's because you're not worried about getting old.

He then went on to talk about fears of aging and dying in his older patients and sort of implied that I was shallow for not thinking of it.
:eek: :eek:

I got waitlisted in the end.

strange
 
Bumping this thread with my own bizarre moment. A couple months ago:

Interviewer (2nd year student): So what was the biggest challenge you faced in undergrad?

Me: Well, idk if you have read my PS but I struggled with my grades early on and have really worked hard to improve my academic standing. In fact I've learned a lot about myself from overcoming this challenge... disciplined study habits, time-management, resilience, etc... Really have matured from this process.

Interviewer: I know how that can feel. I personally hate studying. I'm doing enough but I just find it hard to get motivated to study.

Me: Yea it's not exactly the highlight of my day.

Interviewer: I was actually on academic probation for a while back in undergad. Even now I dread classes, but I do great in clinicals!
I then changed the subject by asking something about the curriculum. But really, wow. :smack:

*Edit: this was at a newer DO school that was otherwise pretty decent.
 
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When I was interviewing at a newer school, one of my interviewers was a student. One of the questions was so poorly worded that I asked him to repeat the question in 3 different ways. He got visibly nervous and it was downhill from there. Got rejected a couple weeks later. Cringed hard


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When I was interviewing at a newer school, one of my interviewers was a student. One of the questions was so poorly worded that I asked him to repeat the question in 3 different ways. He got visibly nervous and it was downhill from there. Got rejected a couple weeks later. Cringed hard


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hahahaha thats terrible
 
BUMP...read through some of this thread- absolutely awesome. about to interview for IM residency and it reminds me of some of those med school interviews.
I went to a conservative Christian school and I had one interviewer flat out ask "are your classes even hard? did they ever challenge you?" basically getting at that my grades were meaningless... pretty rough. hoping that residency interviewers are more chill than all of the weird stuff you have to answer for med school
 
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One of mine asked what my favorite online video game is. This caught me by so much surprise I sort of stared at her for a few seconds.
 
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