Do I suck at interviewing?

[michigander1]

Hi SDN,


So these past two weeks I’ve been alternate-listed by my two favorite schools. I’m very sad about it and slightly confused. While they’re both good schools, I didn’t think either one of them was too far out of my reach. Just to paint a picture: I’m a Michigan Resident traditional applicant with a 509-513 MCAT and a 3.8+ GPA. I’ve spent my undergrad summers working as a CNA and I have great leadership and volunteer experiences. I’ve shadowed multiple doctors over the years and I feel like my personal statement and essays were strong. I’ve also been accepted to a DO school OOS (great school, but not my top choice). My major weakness as an applicant is that I have no research experience (that being said, I tried to only apply to schools that put less of an emphasis on research). I consider myself a people-person with strong interpersonal skills, and the only interview I left feeling like I totally messed up was the one school I’ve been accepted to.


However, both Wayne State and MSU CHM have given me the “alternate list” email post-interview in the past few weeks. Does this mean I’m disillusioned about how strong my people skills are? I’ve come to the conclusion that I must be much worse at interviewing than I previously thought (because since I was good enough on paper to receive the II, it must have been the interviews that killed me, right?)


A very, very small part of me is hopeful that this might have something to do with the new AAMC regulations regarding the number of acceptances that a school can give out, and maybe I have more of a fighting chance at coming off the alternate list in upcoming months than applicants had in previous years, but the self-critical voice in my head tells me I shouldn’t try to deflect any blame off of myself.


Do any of y’all on the other side of the application process wall have any input for me? Am I clearly a terrible interviewee but just unaware of it? Do you think I have any chance at coming off the alternate list before April 30th this cycle? Or should I wait until that deadline and just hope for the best after everyone drops down to one acceptance? To my fellow applicants, are any of y’all getting blindsided by multiple alternate lists this cycle or is it just me?



For reference, according to MSAR:

Wayne State 509 3.74

MSU CHM 507 3.68

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Yuma7131]

Well, I'm not sure if anyone can say if you are not good at interviewing because we weren't there but I think there is still hope for you.

 

[Fennel608]

I kind of assume that if you weren’t good at interviewing, you would likely be rejected rather than alternate listed. That isn’t necessarily true, though. Maybe practice interviewing a bit more or do a mock interview with a professor as they can likely tell you if you need to work on the skill more than we can without knowing you.

 

[gyngyn]

I kind of assume that if you weren’t good at interviewing, you would likely be rejected rather than alternate listed.

Many schools waitlist just about all the folks who are not accepted (it cuts down on the death threats).
I doubt that the strategy of waitlisting more applicants will be common. I can say that even very good waitlisted candidates are likely to be taken off the waitlist much later this year since we have no way of knowing who is holding multiple acceptances.