2014-2015 Texas A&M Health Science Center Application Thread

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Command said:
Congrats to everyone who has prematched so far!
If you have any questions about med school life, feel free to ask here or PM me

And don't worry if you haven't gotten in yet, there is still plenty of time. A lot of people match and there's also the waitlist!
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Does the school provide any prep course or materials for step 1/step 2? Also how long do yall have off to study for them? Anything else you wish you would've known going in?
 
Incidentally, A&M never asked me to submit a secondary. All the other schools (that require them) did except for A&M. I submitted one anyway and, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, got a late interview.

So, to all you neurotic applicants in future cycles reading over this thread, don't worry too much if A&M doesn't contact you about the secondary; just submit it anyway!
 
anyone that has already interviewed at the temple campus, how was your interview day? as far as stress, faculty or student interviewers, and overall experience. sorry is this was answered before, I couldn't find anything about the temple campus.

I really appreciate the help, my interview is next week and the pre-interview nerves are starting to creep up.......
 
power7bb said:
anyone that has already interviewed at the temple campus, how was your interview day? as far as stress, faculty or student interviewers, and overall experience. sorry is this was answered before, I couldn't find anything about the temple campus.

I really appreciate the help, my interview is next week and the pre-interview nerves are starting to creep up.......
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+1

I've heard A&M's are hard and have ethical questions, so if someone could shine some light it would be really helpful 🙂
 
Dr Granger said:
+1

I've heard A&M's are hard and have ethical questions, so if someone could shine some light it would be really helpful 🙂
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Well, I'll preface this by saying that my interview was at the Bryan campus. If you're interviewing in Temple, take this with a grain of salt; however, they are the same school so it should be quite similar.

My A&M interviews were far and away the best and easiest I had. My interviewers were both extremely friendly and were all smiles the whole time. With the exception of one of my UTSW interviewers, they were the only two interviewers I've had where I would have actually enjoyed sitting and talking with them longer than our allotted time. As someone who had a horrible stress interview at UTMB, I can tell you that my A&M experience was as far away from stressful as possible.

That said, they did have a few questions that they said they were required to ask and read directly from a paper. Each interviewer had two of them. I don't remember each one, but the ones I do remember were "What is the biggest problem facing the world today," "If you were volunteering at a community service center and a woman came in right at closing time who spoke a language you didn't understand but seemed quite distressed, what would you do?" and "Discuss a time that you had to change your outlook to interact with a person of a different background." These aren't really questions you can prepare for ahead of time since the ones you get will likely be very different from mine; just be ready to think on your feet and don't be afraid to ask for a moment to consider your response (I did this twice).

Overall, though, I left thinking to myself "If those interviews won't get me an acceptance, nothing will" which is about the highest praise I can give.
 
Agree with @Silverflash, though my interview was also in B/CS. Ive interviewed nearly everywhere in Texas and A&M had probably the nicest faculty/staff/students as well as lowest stress interview day of any school I attended, though the interview day was LONG. I had 1 PhD and 1 MD for my 2 interviews and both were very conversational and easy. They both had a few "standard" questions they had to ask as mentioned already, I got 1 VERY easy ethical question, and I know some people on my interview day went way over their 30 minute interview time since they were just having easy conversations during their interviews. Good luck! They are open file interviews if that matters to you, so they may ask about or complement your MCAT and GPA.
 
Wish I could provide insight on Temple/RR campus interview day because the Round Rock facilities look amazing, but my interview day in Bryan was exactly like the previous 2 posters, extremely laid back, easy, not stressful whatsoever. Concur that they probably had the nicest faculty and staff of the schools I've been to as well. In case any of you wanted to see either of the campuses facilities and what not, I found these albums that have really good pictures of the outside/inside of some different campus' facilities:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tamhsc/sets/
 
I interviewed at the Temple location. The first interview was relaxed and easy going but I couldn't gauge the second one. The best way to explain it is to picture yourself as a psychologist's patient. He had question after question and I'd answer. He'd jot some notes down and move on without much discussion, if any at times. It threw me off so I really hope that wont be why I don't get accepted 🙁

In regards to their questions, I pretty much had those that Silverflash mentioned.
 
Did we have to pay a fee to accept the pre-match offer here? I couldn't find anything in the emails but most other schools either require it or mention you don't need to pay it yet.
 
Dr Granger said:
+1

I've heard A&M's are hard and have ethical questions, so if someone could shine some light it would be really helpful 🙂
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They'll ask questions like; "what do you want your gravestong to say when you die," or "If you could revive one person who would it be and why." I thought they were pretty dumb myself, but they have their reasons.
 
power7bb said:
anyone that has already interviewed at the temple campus, how was your interview day? as far as stress, faculty or student interviewers, and overall experience. sorry is this was answered before, I couldn't find anything about the temple campus.

I really appreciate the help, my interview is next week and the pre-interview nerves are starting to creep up.......
Click to expand...
I interviewed at the Temple Campus. Overall, the day was great. Whitney and Ms. Diaz were great at explaining the new curriculum and answer any questions that you may have. We took a tour of S&W, which was impressive, and of the histology lab. There was a lunch/student panel which only provided more information about A&M. The above posts have laid out the types of questions that you may see. They read your packet pretty well, so be prepared to answer any questions about what you submitted. Let me know if you have any other questions!
 
@Command or any other current students in B/CS...is there a free clinic that any of you volunteer at? I heard of the "Health For All" Clinic, do some of you volunteer there or anywhere else?
 
I understand that teh night before, there is a social mixer. My interview is next week on 12/11/14. Does anyone know how to find out more about this?
 
YogaBe@r said:
I understand that teh night before, there is a social mixer. My interview is next week on 12/11/14. Does anyone know how to find out more about this?
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they'll send you an email a few days before with a bunch of documents and the social information will be one of those docs
 
TCU1990 said:
@Command or any other current students in B/CS...is there a free clinic that any of you volunteer at? I heard of the "Health For All" Clinic, do some of you volunteer there or anywhere else?
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yeah that's a free clinic in bryan

here's the email we get like biweekly about volunteering there:

Just to remind everyone what volunteering entails, you will arrive at the clinic and be arranged in pairs of M1s with M2s. You'll call in your patient, take vitals, take them to their room, and perform a focused history and physical. Afterwards you will present to a physician. You'll then return to the patient with the physician to finish up the appointment. Finally, you will write a SOAP note with the assistance of an M4. M1s and M2s- THIS IS A GREAT OPPORTUNITY FOR LEARNING AND PRACTICING!
 
MSUspartansx4 said:
Does the school provide any prep course or materials for step 1/step 2? Also how long do yall have off to study for them? Anything else you wish you would've known going in?
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sorry dude I dont really know since I'm an M1. I know we do get time off to study, just not how much. Also with yall transitioning to 1.5 years of basics it might be different next year.
 
Nogo said:
I interviewed at the Temple location. The first interview was relaxed and easy going but I couldn't gauge the second one. The best way to explain it is to picture yourself as a psychologist's patient. He had question after question and I'd answer. He'd jot some notes down and move on without much discussion, if any at times. It threw me off so I really hope that wont be why I don't get accepted 🙁

In regards to their questions, I pretty much had those that Silverflash mentioned.
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Sounds like the same interviewer that I had.
 
Not a problem. No, I'm just a non-trad veteran.
 
FutureFACS said:
I wonder if this will only pertain to those who interviewed after the first batch of pre-matches
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Nope. From what they said they rank all of the applicants and they will send out prematches depending on position on the list, not on interview date. I was impressed at how open they were about their application process.
 
drdoorittre said:
Nope. From what they said they rank all of the applicants and they will send out prematches depending on position on the list, not on interview date. I was impressed at how open they were about their application process.
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Awesome! That's great to hear. I wonder if there is any chance for us OOSer's lol
 
FutureFACS said:
Awesome! That's great to hear. I wonder if there is any chance for us OOSer's lol
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I wasn't paying full attention when they were talking about OOS stuff but I believe they said that they had made offers for all the spots there were for OOS but they would make more offers as they were expecting some OOS people to decline. I was interviewing there Dec 4.
 
drdoorittre said:
I wasn't paying full attention when they were talking about OOS stuff but I believe they said that they had made offers for all the spots there were for OOS but they would make more offers as they were expecting some OOS people to decline. I was interviewing there Dec 4.
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Thanks for the input!
 
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II today for 12/11. I guess someone else cancelled last minute. I'm just worried about finding a(n affordable) place to stay on such short notice. Ideas?
 
II, but I have another one and have already bought my plane ticket. Tough decision!
Yay, I just called them and they let me reschedule for January 8th. Can't wait to try out an Aggie whoop!
 
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Hey, does anyone remember them mentioning how competitive it was to get any particular site for your last 3 years? I know Houston was pretty limited and they were looking for engineers, but generally do people get to go to their first choice?
 
mr11 said:
Hey, does anyone remember them mentioning how competitive it was to get any particular site for your last 3 years? I know Houston was pretty limited and they were looking for engineers, but generally do people get to go to their first choice?
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Not sure about the competitiveness necessarily, but they mentioned something like 30 MS2's will stay in B/CS, then ~30 go to Houston, ~50 in Dallas, ~50 in Round Rock, ~40 in Temple.
 
dragon mouse said:
II today for 12/11. I guess someone else cancelled last minute. I'm just worried about finding a(n affordable) place to stay on such short notice. Ideas?
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If you're at the Temple location for the interview there is a strip of cheap motels off the highway for around 40 or 50 dollars a night. Very close to the campus (<10 minute drive).
 
Do they allow input by the students for bids for certain sites based off of living situation? i.e. I live in Dee Eff Dubya and would like the 1:3 year B/CS😀FW if possible so I don't have to sell my house. Guess that would be a good question during the interview...
 
Well SDN put a smiley face in my post for me rather than B/CS - DFW.
 
typoncho said:
Do they allow input by the students for bids for certain sites based off of living situation? i.e. I live in Dee Eff Dubya and would like the 1:3 year B/CS😀FW if possible so I don't have to sell my house. Guess that would be a good question during the interview...
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They said that like 80% of people get their first pick and they would try to accommodate you if you had a special situation IE family in the area etc.
 
Thanks for the prompt responses. I should be hearing soon then because I submitted September 30. I'm hoping for good news.
 
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