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Hey guys,
I've been lurking around for awhile, loving all the advice/help these forums have given, and since I just came out of my Nova interview I think that it's about time I made a thread about my experiences so far - also I think I screwed up a question at nova so I would appreciate any feedback as to how well I answered that question...
I took my PCAT this august and scored lower than I thought I would -
69 composite, with math and chem in the 50s and bio, verbal and reading in the 70s/80s...so I was discouraged at the get go but there was no way I was going to learn enough to pull it higher by October so I decided not to take it, and I'm contemplating whether or not to take it again in January...
I decided to take a shot at submitting my Pharmcas anyway because I hoped that my extracurriculars and gpa would balance the scores...I've volunteered at the hospital pharmacy, shadowed pharmacists, and joined clubs when I could...My gpa is at a 3.5 and I'm going for a Biology major this spring...I submitted my Pharmcas late September, it was emailed out Mid-October, and the first school to reply was Lecom Bradenton...
Just as everyone has said, Lecom-B has an awesome staff, are very punctual, professional and the most helpful administration team I have so far encountered. My interview was in the morning and everyone got filed into a big conference room type of setting...There were 20 of us and they divided us into groups with opposite itineraries for the day (interview, then tour/tour, then interview)...They were training people to do interviews so I was interviewed by a seasoned interviewer and by a noobie...Totally low stress situation, they asked the usual: why pharmacy? how do you study? leadership roles? Favorite class? How do you manage stress? etc...Afterwards we went for a tour, did a quick article summary, a informational presentation about the school and financial aid and then we were free to leave...It ran from 7:30am to noon...and everything on the schedule was on time - they had to be because they had two batches for interviews, and they needed us finished before the next group came in...The facilities were the cleanest, its all one building, but they have strict rules against eating and smoking around campus and in their rooms...I got my acceptance letter like 2 weeks after and I sent in the deposit last week...
Nova on the other hand was excruciating (thanks again to the people who answered about the supplementals)...It was only after emailing Nova that they sent me a link to the supplementals which were fairly easy to finish...Then it was a two month wait for a hope to get an interview - which I thought would never come, but I was ecstatic when I got the invite email 😍...So to the people fretting because they haven't heard back, don't worry, it sucks that its a slow process, but they will eventually get back to you - I know I was relieved as hell when I checked my inbox, so no worries still more time to kill during the wait
...There were 5 of us today, a quick tour by Jessie Sutton because the students that were supposed to do it had finals, and then the wait for the interview...I don't know why but I was way more nervous this interview than at lecom - maybe because people were saying the other was more laid back or because it was open file, who knows...
There were two interviewers, both nice, I think they tried the good cop bad cop but it just didnt transfer over so I couldn't really tell what act they were trying aside from being interviewers (if that made any sense at all)
...They asked why nova, why pharmacy, and why I performed the way I did on the pcat, in some classes etc. and what would I do if I wasn't accepted...
I think I did fine with my other questions but they had asked if I was going to take the pcats again and I froze. I didn't want to say a blatant "no" or "yes" so I told them that I honestly didn't know whether I wanted to take it again or not and that I wanted to see how good my scores were in terms of applying....
All in all I think I bombed this question because I was just so unsure of how to answer it because I was unsure of whether or not I would take it again - would they want me to take it again before they accepted me? Would they waitlist me if I said no? 😕 😕 How do you guys think I came across to the interviewers? I'm really bummed out because of this and I really hope it doesn't kill my chances of getting accepted into Nova 🙁
TLDR: Interview at lecom-b - laid back, no worries - accepted
Interview at Nova - a tad bit more stressful, couldn't nail the "would
you retake the pcat question?" How would you
guys go about answering this?
For people still waiting for Nova interviews, don't worry they take
longer to invite, but there's alot more time/chances for everyone to
get one so good luck
I've been lurking around for awhile, loving all the advice/help these forums have given, and since I just came out of my Nova interview I think that it's about time I made a thread about my experiences so far - also I think I screwed up a question at nova so I would appreciate any feedback as to how well I answered that question...
I took my PCAT this august and scored lower than I thought I would -
69 composite, with math and chem in the 50s and bio, verbal and reading in the 70s/80s...so I was discouraged at the get go but there was no way I was going to learn enough to pull it higher by October so I decided not to take it, and I'm contemplating whether or not to take it again in January...
I decided to take a shot at submitting my Pharmcas anyway because I hoped that my extracurriculars and gpa would balance the scores...I've volunteered at the hospital pharmacy, shadowed pharmacists, and joined clubs when I could...My gpa is at a 3.5 and I'm going for a Biology major this spring...I submitted my Pharmcas late September, it was emailed out Mid-October, and the first school to reply was Lecom Bradenton...
Just as everyone has said, Lecom-B has an awesome staff, are very punctual, professional and the most helpful administration team I have so far encountered. My interview was in the morning and everyone got filed into a big conference room type of setting...There were 20 of us and they divided us into groups with opposite itineraries for the day (interview, then tour/tour, then interview)...They were training people to do interviews so I was interviewed by a seasoned interviewer and by a noobie...Totally low stress situation, they asked the usual: why pharmacy? how do you study? leadership roles? Favorite class? How do you manage stress? etc...Afterwards we went for a tour, did a quick article summary, a informational presentation about the school and financial aid and then we were free to leave...It ran from 7:30am to noon...and everything on the schedule was on time - they had to be because they had two batches for interviews, and they needed us finished before the next group came in...The facilities were the cleanest, its all one building, but they have strict rules against eating and smoking around campus and in their rooms...I got my acceptance letter like 2 weeks after and I sent in the deposit last week...
Nova on the other hand was excruciating (thanks again to the people who answered about the supplementals)...It was only after emailing Nova that they sent me a link to the supplementals which were fairly easy to finish...Then it was a two month wait for a hope to get an interview - which I thought would never come, but I was ecstatic when I got the invite email 😍...So to the people fretting because they haven't heard back, don't worry, it sucks that its a slow process, but they will eventually get back to you - I know I was relieved as hell when I checked my inbox, so no worries still more time to kill during the wait
...There were 5 of us today, a quick tour by Jessie Sutton because the students that were supposed to do it had finals, and then the wait for the interview...I don't know why but I was way more nervous this interview than at lecom - maybe because people were saying the other was more laid back or because it was open file, who knows...There were two interviewers, both nice, I think they tried the good cop bad cop but it just didnt transfer over so I couldn't really tell what act they were trying aside from being interviewers (if that made any sense at all)
...They asked why nova, why pharmacy, and why I performed the way I did on the pcat, in some classes etc. and what would I do if I wasn't accepted...I think I did fine with my other questions but they had asked if I was going to take the pcats again and I froze. I didn't want to say a blatant "no" or "yes" so I told them that I honestly didn't know whether I wanted to take it again or not and that I wanted to see how good my scores were in terms of applying....
All in all I think I bombed this question because I was just so unsure of how to answer it because I was unsure of whether or not I would take it again - would they want me to take it again before they accepted me? Would they waitlist me if I said no? 😕 😕 How do you guys think I came across to the interviewers? I'm really bummed out because of this and I really hope it doesn't kill my chances of getting accepted into Nova 🙁TLDR: Interview at lecom-b - laid back, no worries - accepted
Interview at Nova - a tad bit more stressful, couldn't nail the "would
you retake the pcat question?" How would you
guys go about answering this?
For people still waiting for Nova interviews, don't worry they take
longer to invite, but there's alot more time/chances for everyone to
get one so good luck
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