awkward interview moment - thoughts?

[HateTheMCAT]

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so during a recent interview, my interviewer stopped halfway through, made an awkward face, and asked if i had seen what was written in my recommendation letters. i responded with "no, they were blind." she continued for a second awkwardly and then moved on to her next question. i did not ask what she was referring to because i wasn't sure if this was a stress test to see if i had confidence in what was written about me, but i was also very curious if there is something alarming in the letters. i got the interview in the first place, so i would figure there couldn't have been anything too bad in my letters. has anyone heard of an interview strategy like this before?

 

[Catalystik]

No. Wow! Way to do a stress interview, if that was the intent.

 

[DocMcCoy]

so during a recent interview, my interviewer stopped halfway through, made an awkward face, and asked if i had seen what was written in my recommendation letters. i responded with "no, they were blind." she continued for a second awkwardly and then moved on to her next question. i did not ask what she was referring to because i wasn't sure if this was a stress test to see if i had confidence in what was written about me, but i was also very curious if there is something alarming in the letters. i got the interview in the first place, so i would figure there couldn't have been anything too bad in my letters. has anyone heard of an interview strategy like this before?

Some schools don't look at your letters till after you are invited for an interview.

 

[deleted248403]

I'd take that as "there is something bad in your LOR".

They might have brought you in for an interview because you were a strong candidate despite this mystery-one-bad-LOR but i'd still see if I could figure it out.

 

[HateTheMCAT]

I'd take that as "there is something bad in your LOR".

They might have brought you in for an interview because you were a strong candidate despite this mystery-one-bad-LOR but i'd still see if I could figure it out.

and what do you think would be the best way to figure that out? was just caught a bit off guard during the interview...so wasn't sure if i should ask more about it or just play it cool during the interview. (although i REALLY wanted to ask about especially as soon as I left the interview and it's been bugging me since)

 

[deleted248403]

You could try and follow up with the interview and ask why she asked that question and see if you get a response.

That way if it is bad, and you dont get an offer from this school, you can mentally be aware of it in future interviews or if it doesnt work out this cycle - not ask the same person for a LOR

 

[HateTheMCAT]

You could try and follow up with the interview and ask why she asked that question and see if you get a response.

That way if it is bad, and you dont get an offer from this school, you can mentally be aware of it in future interviews or if it doesnt work out this cycle - not ask the same person for a LOR

Think I should wait on doing that before I hear a decision from this school?

 

[deleted248403]

Could do but you also dont want the interviewer to forget. How long ago was the interview?

 

[HateTheMCAT]

Could do but you also dont want the interviewer to forget. How long ago was the interview?

just this past Friday. supposed to hear back from them in 2-4 weeks about a decision.

 

[phospho]

I'd wait till a decision is made... if it's a no-go, then you know it's most likely related to that letter... if you're in, why care?

As for contacting her before the decision, I don't think you'll get much out of it. It's not like she's going to tell you what letter it was, or what they said. And even if she did, I can almost gaurantee you that whatever she had to submit to the committee has already been submitted. And even if she hasn't submitted something, it's not like you can "withdraw" that letter and give her another one instead or fix that "impression". The interview is over.

Let's hope that if there is a negative remark, that awkwardness was because she was surprised that someone would write something like that about you after she met you.

I gotta tell you though, it pisses me off so much when letter writers pull off crap like this. They're called recommendation letters. If you can't recommend me, then tell me that you can't write the dam letter, a-hole...

 

[deleted248403]

I'd call and ask, but thats me.

I'd want to know so i can fix it, and if you do it today its not like awkwardly after the fact because today is the next business day.

 

[HateTheMCAT]

I'd call and ask, but thats me.

I'd want to know so i can fix it, and if you do it today its not like awkwardly after the fact because today is the next business day.

thanks for all the advice. i think i'm going to wait for the decision to come before i pursue any information. like phospho said, there is little that can be done to change anything now, and i don't want to bring any further attention to it at the moment especially if it was something relatively minor.

i have a feeling i know what it probably is regarding. i'm a non-traditional student who majored in journalism undergrad. however, my post-bacc program required one of four recc letters to be from an undergrad professor so i had to get one from one of my journalism professors. and since i am pursuing medicine now, i believe that he most likely mentioned that i had never indicated an interest in that to him while i was a student and that he was somewhat surprised (or he was mad that i chose not to pursue journalism because i thought medicine was a better career choice for me - probably less likely). either way, if i am right, i am sure that the interviewer basically read this letter and questioned by commitment to medicine. so hopefully, my experience since undergrad and my answers during the interview helped her get over this concern. the last thing she said to me when i left was "i think you're committed."

 

[J ROD]

wait on the decision.

 

[Morsetlis]

We can only speculate, sorry.

 

[Steeler7588]

has anyone heard of an interview strategy like this before?

Yep. Granted, the medical student who told me this graduated a few years ago, so this may no longer be the practice and you very well might have a poor letter.

But basically, he knew of a professor who would comment that one of an applicant's letter writers had written some negative things, and then would ask the applicant why they thought that might be the case. I think it was more a "see how they react" thing and not trying to figure out if letter writers were glossing over something.

So yes, I've heard of this being done before. Can't say for sure that's what happened to you. Either way, I wouldn't call unless you get rejected from everywhere. Short of looking at what you might need replacing for next year, it's not like you can do anything about it. Just assume she was testing you (again, unless you end up having to reapply) and don't sweat it.

 

[ThaliaNox]

I know that on SDN people like to rip on pre-medical advisory offices, but threads like this make me grateful for the one I had as an undergrad. One of the services they did for us was letter collection and screening. As in, someone in the advisory office reads our letters of recommendation for us and notifies us if there is one it would be unwise to use. I know of lots of people who got said notices, so letters which are less than stellar are probably more common than we would like.