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Dartmouth is a way up in rural New Hampshire in a small town called Hanover just on New Hampshire's border with Vermont. The town itself is beautiful. Small colonial houses, lots of churches, with the school seamlessly connected with the rest of the town. Small coffee houses, and family run business dominate. Supposedly there is a town ordinance, which prevents fast food chains from opening up within Hanover. The Connecticut River is two blocks down from the school and has some cool rec stuff going on (rowing, kayaking, fishing). The undergrad and med school campuses are connected. The Dartmouth hospital is amazing and they make it a central selling point for the school. It's arranged sort of like a mall with a long central walkway with doctor's offices and patient corridors coming off the sides. It really doesn't feel like a hospital. There are large windows lining the walkways looking off into the trees, which are all busy changing color at the moment. There's nice carpeting in the non-patient areas, private sleeping quarters for students doing rotations, and even a guy playing piano in the central lobby.
So anyway the interview day… The day started at nine in the morning. There were about 15 of us interviewing and we all congregated in the plush lobby of the admissions office waiting for the director to arrive. Everyone was really nice and very talkative. Most of the people there from the east coast with three or so coming from Dartmouth undergrad although the director told us later that California was the most represented state in the entering class.
Once the director arrived we all piled into a conference room down the hall from the waiting room. We were each asked to introduce ourselves to the group and then the director gave us a quick overview of the school's philosophy, curriculum, and admissions process. She was followed by the financial aide director who told us all about how deeply we were soon going to be in debt.
We were then bused to the medical center (Dartmouth's pride and joy) and given a tour by a third year student. Our tour guide was very friendly and was more than willing to answer questions. She wasn't a part of the admissions committee so some of the most interesting information came from her. (She had time outside of school to coach hockey, disliked the "quiz" (test) in every subject every two weeks, and had had an argument with one of her interviewers at Dartmouth when she was interviewing.) After the tour she had lunch (free!) with us after which it was time for our interviews.
Everyone had two interviews scheduled for half an hour each. About half the group had to take the bus back to the medical school to find their interviewers while the rest of had interviews scheduled in the medical center. My first one was with the chair of the physiology department. He hadn't read my file and simply asked me to tell him about myself. He let me ramble for 15 minutes or so with occasional questions about what I had said or nods. After I was done he asked me a few more questions about things I had said and then invited me to ask him any questions I had. He was friendly and the interview was very low pressure with little to no structure.
My second interview was with a clinical ophthalmology professor. She also had not read my file. She started off by telling me a bit about herself and then asked me to tell her about myself. Again I rambled, she asked a few clarifying questions, and then gave me the opportunity to ask her any questions. Low pressure, friendly, little structure.
The day ended with a tour of the med school itself led by first year student. Overall the day was totally relaxed and painless. I would definitely recommend staying with a student. My hostess and her roommate were fun, informative, and more than gracious (she picked me up from the Greyhound stop at four in the morning).
Hope it's helpful!
