4 IIs last cycle but no acceptance - is interview practice all I need?

[deleted903608]

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[calivianya]

Odds are you need some interview practice, but it could just be your clinical experience and volunteering. I feel like I performed the same for all of my interviews - 3 MD and 3 DO - and all three of the MD interviews ended up being post-II R (one after a waitlist) and all 3 of the DO interviews were post-II acceptances.

More goes into acceptance/rejection than just the interview performance.

 

[deleted903608]

Odds are you need some interview practice, but it could just be your clinical experience and volunteering. I feel like I performed the same for all of my interviews - 3 MD and 3 DO - and all three of the MD interviews ended up being post-II R (one after a waitlist) and all 3 of the DO interviews were post-II acceptances.

More goes into acceptance/rejection than just the interview performance.

Thanks, that makes me feel a bit better - thinking it was all about my interview performance has been making take the rejections pretty personally, but I suppose that it could be my other weak spots as well.

 

[Faha]

Which schools did you apply to this cycle? Where is your state of residence?

 

[bettyboop2243]

i agree. perhaps interviewing skills is a good place to start. how are you prparing for your interviews?

 

[deleted903608]

Which schools did you apply to this cycle? Where is your state of residence?

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[deleted903608]

i agree. perhaps interviewing skills is a good place to start. how are you prparing for your interviews?

For MMIs (Maine track and Umass), I practiced scenarios on my own beforehand. For traditional, I did a mock interview with a former adcom and he seemed to think I did well.

 

[bettyboop2243]

And during your interviews did you have any questions similar to your practice questions?

How much practice did you do?

Did you read through ur primary and secondary application responses And when did you do so?

For MMIs (Maine track and Umass), I practiced scenarios on my own beforehand. For traditional, I did a mock interview with a former adcom and he seemed to think I did well.

 

[Faha]

You had a good list. Harvard and Yale were reaches and Rutgers accepts few non residents but all your other schools were appropriate. You may need to apply further away in order to increase your chances for more interviews and an acceptance. Consider adding these schools when you reapply:
Seton Hall
Pitt
Case Western
Cincinnati
Oakland Beaumont
Western Michigan
Medical College Wisconsin
Loyola
Rosalind Franklin
St. Louis
Creighton
Tulane
NOVA MD
Miami
Wake Forest
Duke

 

[bettyboop2243]

Also, Consider this.

Here are some things that get people rejected immediately:

· Being unprofessional for any reason. An example is addressing a faculty member by their first name. Another is chewing gum during the interview. If you have a dry mouth, suck on a lozenge instead. BTW, the interview lasts all day. Acting unprofessionally during your tour, like yelling at a parking attendant, or trashing the school, or expecting the Admissions Office staff to hang up your coat or fetch you coffee is duly noted and affects your fate accordingly.

· Not taking the interview seriously, like showing up poorly dressed. This is suit and tie time (and nice dress/outfit/suit for the ladies). You're going into character. Yes, if the airline loses your luggage, we understand that.

· Do NOT be arrogant. People who think that they're God's gift to Medicine do not go into Medicine.

· Being too shy or nervous. Being quiet is OK; being monosyllabic or robotic is not.

· Not making eye contact is also a no-no (yes I'm aware that in some cultures, one does not look elders in the eye, but this is the USA and you need to look people in the eye here).

· Any hints of immaturity will be lethal for your chances. We expect you to be thoughtful and self-aware. Would you admit the gal who, when asked a hypothetical, "What would you do in this situation?" answers, "Oh, that wouldn't happen."

· Showing you're greedy.

· Showing any hint of entitlement. This includes the “I was accepted to XSOM, so what are you going to do for me?” The answer will be “Good luck and have fun at XSOM.”

· Being clueless as to why you're choosing Medicine as a career.

· Doing this because your mom/dad wants you to be a doctor (or don't think you can be doctor).

· Completely lacking people skills (4.0 automatons are a dime a dozen, really).

· Showing that you're more interested in research than Medicine. This might be OK at Stanford, but it won’t fly at most other schools.

· Still being the hyper-gunner...I rejected a 4.0 gal who wanted to answer the questions I asked of another person in the interview panel. I don't want to admit someone who will be in my office whining about how they got a 95 on an exam and deserved a 96.

· Having a flat affect. This might be due to medication, or a mental or personality disorder. You ever meet someone who could never crack a smile? I don't want someone like that touching patients.

· Copping an attitude. I asked a woman why she didn't have any volunteer experience. She replied that she was too busy working. Fair enough, some people have lives, but she copped an attitude while delivering this, and I just wrote down "reject".

· Coming in with scripted answers and being unable to deviate from said script.

· Being ill-prepared for fairly common interview questions (e.g. Why this school? Why Medicine?)

· Thinking that always circling back to your accomplishments and how great you are impresses us.

· Making excuses for misdeeds. We had rejected someone once who had some fairly benign misdemeanors, but blamed it on the policemen who gave him the tickets.

· Don’t do show and tell. I don’t want you pulling out a binder with your resume or portfolio. Let your application speak for you.

· Being a babbling idiot. These are those people who can't answer a question concisely. I've sure you've met people like this...why bother using one word when ten will do? I suspect that they’re thinking for an answer while they're speaking, so the mouth is going while the brain tries to come up with something.

· It’s OK to gather your thoughts, but it’s not OK to blank out. This group includes the people who do something like this (and I am NOT making this up!):
goro: So tell me about this trip to Honduras
Interviewee: Well, we went there for a mission trip and...what was the question?
goro: (thinking: reject!)

Or the guy who, when asked "How does your hobby relate to the practice of Medicine?", and can't even say "It doesn't", and definitely can't even BS an answer, but sits there in a coma?

 

[Goro]

Hi guys,

Despite submitting pretty late (complete mid September) I was fortunate to receive 4 IIs to mid-tier MD schools this past cycle (Tufts, UMass, Dartmouth, Einstein). Unfortunately, I've been striking out post-interview - 3 Rs (Tufts initially deferred me but rejected today) and still waiting on Einstein, but not feeling confident. I'm preparing to reapply next year, but my stats are pretty solid (3.7/517) and I have strong research and have checked boxed for clinical experience and volunteering (though I could definitely beef those numbers up and plan to). I don't think I would have gotten those interviews if my app wasn't good enough to get me in, so is working on interview skills what I should focus on? I felt like all my interviews went decent to great, and all my interviewers seemed to give me good feedback, so I'm not sure where I went wrong. I am a bit reserved but not completely socially awkward, and I made every effort to appear professional. Any other advice on how to kill interviews in a reapp?

Read this:
Goro's Guide to Interviews

You also used this phrase above: I have strong research and have checked boxed for clinical experience and volunteering and as such, it is possible that you gave off the vibe that you were indeed box-checking.

Take a service job where you have to interact with people.

Take an acting, speech, or debate class

Get to your school's career counseling center for more interview prep/help/practice.

IF you know anyone who works in an HR setting, seek their advice.

Ask acquaintances (not friends or relations) to give you practice interviews. You can guide them to SDN's interview feedback section so they can see sample interview questions.

 

[naway]

I'm not the greatest interviewer, but I strongly suspect it was moreso my lowish and cookie-cutter ECs that ultimately caused me to receive 4 post-II rejections (1 outright R, 3 WLs) last cycle. This is just speculation on my part, but I think that sometimes schools will interview applicants who aren't remarkable overall but who have some quality that makes them stand out, particularly if that student has something about them like URM or nontrad status that will enable them to meet a quota or round out the class if all of their other interviewees with those qualities that they want to make sure are represented in their class decline their acceptances. These students were never going to be their first choice, but they were too valuable to have as backups to pass up on interviewing them all together. All that changed for me this cycle was that I increased my volunteer experience, and I've had a great bit more luck. I'm still as awkward as ever at interviews; in fact, one of my interviews went so obviously poorly that I'm still stunned I got an acceptance. A lot of the time, improving interviewing skills is all a multiple interview/0 acceptance applicant needs, but I don't buy the notion that this is always the case for every single person who winds up in that situation.