Hey Everyone! Just got home from my Iowa interview so I'll give you a summary of my day. Sorry if this is suuuuper long.
Today was one of the first interview days at Carver. Another applicant said he thought they began on Monday, but I couldn't get anyone to confirm this. Our day started at 10:30AM. You check in with admissions and they seat you in a conference room. The room is pretty small so try and get there early to get a good seat. I arrived about 10:10 and there were already 6 people there. 15 people interviewed with me today. Most of the people were Iowa residents, but they had maybe 1-2 non-residents.They have water and granola bars and candy on the table for you. The morning was just a bunch of info sessions about financial aid, curriculum, student affairs, etc. Try and think of questions because it seems like they ask you every 5 minutes if you have any questions.
After the morning sessions we went to lunch and on tours with current med students. The lunch was pretty good - several choices of sandwiches and they had fruit, chips, cookies, and pop. The med students we ate with were very friendly and helpful. Then we went on a tour of the school. Ladies, wear comfortable shoes because this is quite a bit of walking (when you're in high heels!) They take you through the med school, a couple research buildings, and the hospital. Kind of a weird tour because you do a lot of walking but not much actually seeing things. Like you don't get to see the anatomy lab or anything like that.
After lunch we split into groups. Half the people did CBL (Case-Based Learning) which is part of the curriculum at Iowa. The other half went to do their interviews during this time. And then the groups swapped. CBL is led by an M4 and it is really relaxed and fun. It's nice to get to see how you will actually be learning in med school.
The interviews have the structured portion at the beginning where they ask 3 questions and don't respond to you, and after that it's open to talk about anything. My interviewers were very friendly and went out of their way to make me comfortable. I can only remember two of my structured questions - why medicine and propose possible solutions to combat rising healthcare costs. After the structured questions, I had many questions about my educational background and experiences that I had discussed during the why medicine question. It was very conversational and I felt satisfied that I had time to say all I needed to say. After your interview, you meet with Barbara in admissions for a few minutes so she can explain the next steps of the process to you.
One interesting thing is that they're thinking of switching to a new curriculum next year. It hasn't been approved yet, but it looks interesting. You would only do 3 semesters of pre-clinical work with the new curriculum and your clerkships would start at the end of 3rd year. One strange thing about this is that you won't take Step1 USMLE until sometime during 3rd year. Everyone was really excited about it. They're waiting to see if it will be approved for this year or if it needs more work before they can implement it.
Also, I overheard some girl asking a couple people if they were me from SDN. She had been creeping on the forum and since only one person had announced that they were interviewing at Carver today, she was trying to figure out who it was. It bothers me soooooo much when people creep on SDN but never say anything, because this site is only useful if people contribute their experiences. If you have time to read through these long threads, you have a few minutes to post a couple sentences about your progress through the app cycle. I had planned on identifying myself if I met anyone from SDN, but I'm not going to tell someone who I am when they just creep on here and never help out or post anything.
OK I'm done 🙂 Let me know if I forgot anything or if you have questions about anything else, and good luck to all who interview here in the future!
