Abroad, taking time off to interview--need some advice

[glikegrandpa]

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Hi everyone.

I'm currently in Cambodia working with an organization on community health education, and I will be here until July 2012. I'm also applying this upcoming cycle because I want to attend right as I get back.

My problem is deciding when I should come back. I currently have Sept 8th to Oct 7th planned, but I'm thinking that may be a little too early to catch the bus for a lot of schools (especially my CA state schools), but here's why I'm leaning heavily towards those dates:

1. My cousin is getting married in Phuket, Thailand on Oct 10th, and since it's a destination wedding, there are activities with the fam planned until Oct 17th. Additionally, my best friend (who I haven't seen in years and is going to move to Shanghai after I get back to the States) is making a visit to Cambodia after that and we plan to do a little traveling until about the 25th. I know that "med school should come first" but these are both very important events to me and I'd like to not have to miss them.

2. School starts October 1st here, and I'm a part-time English teacher. If I took off mid/end October and came back mid/end November, it'd almost be 2 months of school I'm missing. I would prefer to not do that.

I'm a semi-competitive applicant (3.73 c/sGPA, 34Q) with 4 semesters (3 academic year + 1 summer w/ fellowship grant) of research, teaching experience, athlete, and this gigantic 2-year leadership/volunteer experience I'm currently embarking on. Would it be too much to request that schools interview me in my desired time frame? Any ideas would be appreciated. LizzyM already said that I would be taking a huge risk--and I know I would be--but I want to know if there are any others out there with ideas/success stories.

Thanks for reading!

 

[raltima07]

Hi everyone.

I'm currently in Cambodia working with an organization on community health education, and I will be here until July 2012. I'm also applying this upcoming cycle because I want to attend right as I get back.

My problem is deciding when I should come back. I currently have Sept 8th to Oct 7th planned, but I'm thinking that may be a little too early to catch the bus for a lot of schools (especially my CA state schools), but here's why I'm leaning heavily towards those dates:

1. My cousin is getting married in Phuket, Thailand on Oct 10th, and since it's a destination wedding, there are activities with the fam planned until Oct 17th. Additionally, my best friend (who I haven't seen in years and is going to move to Shanghai after I get back to the States) is making a visit to Cambodia after that and we plan to do a little traveling until about the 25th. I know that "med school should come first" but these are both very important events to me and I'd like to not have to miss them.

2. School starts October 1st here, and I'm a part-time English teacher. If I took off mid/end October and came back mid/end November, it'd almost be 2 months of school I'm missing. I would prefer to not do that.

I'm a semi-competitive applicant (3.73 c/sGPA, 34Q) with 4 semesters (3 academic year + 1 summer w/ fellowship grant) of research, teaching experience, athlete, and this gigantic 2-year leadership/volunteer experience I'm currently embarking on. Would it be too much to request that schools interview me in my desired time frame? Any ideas would be appreciated. LizzyM already said that I would be taking a huge risk--and I know I would be--but I want to know if there are any others out there with ideas/success stories.

Thanks for reading!

That's all you need to consider. Why take a risk when your an otherwise good applicant?

 

[kansaskid]

I'm in the same boat and will be back in the states in October. There really isn't anything else we can do, is there? We can tell the schools when we'll be home and hope it's a long enough time frame to get interviews completed. I don't know about you, but for me, it's prohibitively expensive to fly back at the individual request of each school. Is this really an unreasonable risk to take? The only alternative is what? Wait an entire year to apply so as to be in the states for whenever we might get interviews?

 

[alwaysaangel]

Way too early. Especially for California schools who tend to start late, offer interviews slowly and not be terribly responsive to "I'll be in town any chance I'm getting an interview."

You may get a couple here and there but thats going to be too early for a lot of schools. If I were you I would schedule it in Jan-Feb and just as you get interviews let schools know thats the only month you can do it. That way you are collecting interview offers from Aug/Sept-Jan and you will likely have quite a few by then.

Counting on schools reviewing you THAT early and offering you an interview is a terrible idea.

You really need to think about how this is affecting your future. If you cripple yourself in applying you
1) Could end up not getting in anywhere, forcing yourself to spend more money applying a second time
2) End up not getting into any California schools when you otherwise might have. Going to add a lot of cost to your expenses in attending an OOS or private school as well as the stress of not being in California for 4 years. And the slight disadvantage when you apply to residencies and try to come back to Cali

Is it really worth it? I think only being in the US for one month is a huge risk already. But to do it in Sept/Oct is just a terrible idea. I get you have a wedding and if you want to attend the wedding go for it - but you need a different month to be in the US for interviews.

 

[glikegrandpa]

Thanks for the input, alwaysaangel. I think I'm leaning towards just skipping the traveling with best friend and heading home on or around October 18th (definitely after the wedding though).

I understand what you mean when you say that September is too early, but is mid/late October to mid/late November STILL too late? Most schools should be well into their interview stages by then, even CA schools, right? I don't want to be too "late" by interviewing in Jan/Feb 2012, since I know that the bulk of interviews happen October, November, and December.

So my question is: do you (and anyone else reading this) think that Oct 18th - Nov 14th is still too "early" in the interview game? I don't know if I would be entirely comfortable interviewing later, especially since a few of the schools I'm applying to even start sending out acceptances before I can interview.

Thanks again, and go bears.

Way too early. Especially for California schools who tend to start late, offer interviews slowly and not be terribly responsive to "I'll be in town any chance I'm getting an interview."

You may get a couple here and there but thats going to be too early for a lot of schools. If I were you I would schedule it in Jan-Feb and just as you get interviews let schools know thats the only month you can do it. That way you are collecting interview offers from Aug/Sept-Jan and you will likely have quite a few by then.

Counting on schools reviewing you THAT early and offering you an interview is a terrible idea.

You really need to think about how this is affecting your future. If you cripple yourself in applying you
1) Could end up not getting in anywhere, forcing yourself to spend more money applying a second time
2) End up not getting into any California schools when you otherwise might have. Going to add a lot of cost to your expenses in attending an OOS or private school as well as the stress of not being in California for 4 years. And the slight disadvantage when you apply to residencies and try to come back to Cali

Is it really worth it? I think only being in the US for one month is a huge risk already. But to do it in Sept/Oct is just a terrible idea. I get you have a wedding and if you want to attend the wedding go for it - but you need a different month to be in the US for interviews.

 

[glikegrandpa]

I understand what you mean when you say that September is too early, but is mid/late October to mid/late November STILL too late?

I mean, "...is mid/late October to mid/late November still too EARLY?"

 

[LizzyM]

Mid-Oct to mid-Nov is fine if you apply early and send email messages to each school giving them a heads up about your availability.