See, that's funny, because today I happen to be wearing the Bennington sweatshirt my gf got me, so I can swoop in like a really nerdy super-hero.
😉
Hi Lukie. 'sup? I had a phone interview long about a year ago, and got accepted. I deferred my start from last Fall to this Summer, and so I'm about 60 days from starting out there. Here's what I can tell ya.
The questions they ask are unlikely to be the kind you can study for. Rather than barrage you with factual questions like "who was the inventor of the iron lung?" or bizarre job-interview questions like "if you were a fork, how many tines would you have?" they are much more likely to bust out the kind of things like "so, tell me about your background." and "what kinds of experiences have you had so far in healthcare?"
They're honestly trying to get a sense of who you are, so both you and they can figure out if the program is one where you'd be comfortable, and successful. No tricks. No hidden agendas. I was surprised by how laid-back and stress-free it was. I had sent a million emails with questions, so at first I thought the admissions person and I were just shooting the breeze and making small talk before she got into the tough questions... but ten minutes later we were still talking like that, so it dawned on me that
was the interview.
I think they would love to accept tuition money from anyone who applied, but the problem with that would be that a big portion of any class would not finish, or not get into a good med school. And the record shows that in the past few years, roughly 100% of the Post-Bacs have gotten a spot in one of their top few schools, the first year applying, and very very few people don't finish the program.
So whatever they do with the counseling up-front, it seems to work. I appreciated how they seemed to respect my experience and years out of school. As such, I felt like they just lay it all out on the table. You have choices in which program you go to, and they have choices in whom they accept. So why bother with sales pitches, and why not make sure both parties would be happy?
Just be ready to talk about what you're doing, why you're doing it, and how you plan to make it all happen. You'll be fine.
(Iron Lung history:
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blrespirator.htm. Tines: for me, I think it's three.)
