How much of the interview is devoted to your transcript?

[JBudege]

Question for those who have gone through the interview process- How heavily did the interview focus on your transcript vs other topics?

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[docss26]

Question for those who have gone through the interview process- How heavily did the interview focus on your transcript vs other topics?

Not very much at all. At four of my interviews, they had never asked about the specifics of my transcripts. The interview is to give them an idea of who you are as an applicant. They already looked at your transcript to give you the interview invite.

 

[weetzie00]

Question for those who have gone through the interview process- How heavily did the interview focus on your transcript vs other topics?

I attended 3 interviews. One was a closed-file interview, so they had no previous knowledge of me at all. At the other two interviews, there were no straightforward questions regarding grades. The only time a question was angled to that was at one of the interviews, I was asked at the end if there was anything about my application I thought I needed to explain. Check out the interview feedback. Then you can get a better idea of what to expect at the particular schools you are applying to.

 

[Passion4Sci]

Hardly anything at all...

"Why was your Stanford GPA higher than your UC Davis GPA?" was the only question directly related to my undergraduate study / transcripts.

 

[pharm B]

I think the transcript is just used to get your foot in the door. From there on, only major blips on the radar might be brought up in an interview, if they even look at your transcript.

Like Weetzie mentioned, some schools do closed-file interviews. You walk into the room with a blank slate. What you leave the committee with is up to you. 😉

 

[ll Switch ll]

I had an open file interview and they didnt ask me a single question about my transcript, grades or classes. I even had an F on my transcript for a class that was unrelated to pharm or my prereqs, to go with all Bs and As, and they didnt even ask me what happened in that class or anything.

 

[FlavyFlav]

I'll speak from the <3.0 category. I had two interviews that I attended. The first was closed-file, single interviewer with student. We did not focus very much at all on my past experience, and more on my interest in pharmacy, and whether I would make a successful pharmacy school candidate.

The second was open-file, single interviewer. The beginning focused alot on my bad grades and withdrawals. I had prepared for this aspect and was able to clearly state my reasons for the low grades and prove my upward progression. I was able to push the interview into my experiences outside of school where my background was a little more polished.

Basically, if you are a good communicator, with a little tact you should be able to drive the interview where you want it to go while having the interviewer believe they're the ones who drove you there.