how many days do you leave aside for interviews?

[chloroform2009]

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For someone at work or in his/her last year of school, how many days should be reserved for medical school interviews? ( including both the actual interviews and travel/lodging time. And assume that the person is applying to as many medical schools as the average candidate and has reasonable, if not excellent, academci stats )

 

[jla314]

For someone at work or in his/her last year of school, how many days should be reserved for medical school interviews? ( including both the actual interviews and travel/lodging time. And assume that the person is applying to as many medical schools as the average candidate and has reasonable, if not excellent, academci stats )

probably 1-2 days per interview is what you should expect. i fly in the night before and fly out right after the interview day is done.
IMO it doesn't matter if your stats are good or excellent, interview invitations are highly individual and context dependent. its cliche but this is a fairly random process. i don't know if there is any one truly representative number for an "average" applicant...

 

[chloroform2009]

probably 1-2 days per interview is what you should expect. i fly in the night before and fly out right after the interview day is done.
IMO it doesn't matter if your stats are good or excellent, interview invitations are highly individual and context dependent. its cliche but this is a fairly random process. i don't know if there is any one truly representative number for an "average" applicant...

I know that interview invites are very random but I wanted to get a feel of how many days total you would expect to miss out on school or work because of the interviews. 1-2 days for interview isn't very ideal, as ~ 10 interviews alone would mean potentially being absent for 20 days, and we all know that 10 interviews might not be enough.

Do these amounts of interviews potentially endanger someone's chance of staying employed or graduating on time?

 

[ChiDO]

Do these amounts of interviews potentially endanger someone's chance of staying employed or graduating on time?

employed...well you'd probably have to ask your boss in regards to that if you don't have vacation days.

as for college...no effect..just let the professor know out of kindness

 

[jla314]

yeah no worries if you are still in school. about halfway through the process i started trying to schedule interviews for when i'd miss the most class. i thoroughly enjoy missing as much class as possible.

 

[Spiker]

yeah no worries if you are still in school. about halfway through the process i started trying to schedule interviews for when i'd miss the most class. i thoroughly enjoy missing as much class as possible.

lol with your stats one would think that you enjoy class ALOT more than you just sound.

 

[jla314]

lol with your stats one would think that you enjoy class ALOT more than you just sound.

lol try taking my classes from this semester. 1/2 fluffy crap + 1/4 really interesting (but is videotaped) + 1/4 lab (not a class). = no incentive at all to physically show up

 

[mvenus929]

Depends on how many schools you apply to, and how competitive you are. Also, take into account that some of your interviews may be in the second semester, not the first.

My first cycle, I went on 4 interviews. Two of them were on Friday, when I didn't have class anyway, and the other two were on Wednesday, when I had only one class. For one of the Wednesday interviews, I flew out Tuesday night and flew back Thursday morning in time for an exam. For the other, I left on Tuesday night and came back on Friday night (since I had a Friday interview in the same trip). For the other Friday interview, I drove up Thursday night, and drove home after the interview. All in all, I missed about 3 days of class.

 

[brooklynblunder]

depends on where you live too and where you apply. i leave right after work but im on the east coast. if you are on the west coast and go to the east, it wont work

 

[rockaction]

I've been able to squeeze by with getting flights after my classes end the day before and leaving right after the interview the next. You lose effectively one day of class.

 

[JJMrK]

I've missed > 10 days of class, and will miss more before the semester is over.

 

[FluffyRabbit]

I work right now, and I try to schedule Monday interviews as much as possible. I fly on Sunday and back immediately after the interview, so I only miss one day.

Unless you have an unreasonable amount of vacation time, or you don't expect many interviews (maybe you're applying to very few schools), I would stay on the safe side and not use any of it for non-interviewing purposes until you have at least one acceptance. Before that, you don't really want to be stuck deciding between giving off a bad impression at work or missing interviews.

With 10 interviews and eventually no acceptance, it would seem that improving at interviewing would be more pertinent than actually having more interviews.

 

[red10]

From what I've gathered, missing a ridiculous amount of class is actually pretty normal for pre-med kids and most profs have come to expect it. I know a girl who has been to maybe 50% of our labs because she always ends up with interviews on lab days.

Also, my friend who is an engineer has missed at least a day (if not more) of school each week for the the past 6 weeks or so because of family stuff and job interviews. She isn't pre-med but she's been traveling to interview for jobs during the week.

I think profs just kinda expect low attendance senior year. We've all got one foot out the door anyway.