No offense to those who go there and love it, but I had by far the worst interview of any I've been to so far at UIC in Peoria. The people I met were nice enough, but it was so horribly organized!
😱
First, over the phone I was told the day started at 11. An email said 1, but the letter they sent said 11. Granted, I should have called, but I figured the email was a typo. I got to the Admin office at 11, and the person there said, "Oh yeah, some of those letters had the wrong time. I was afraid this might happen." So if you knew about the problem, WHY DIDN'T YOU DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT?
😡 Luckily I have family in town, so I visited my granparents until the interview started.
In case anyone was wondering, the reason they don't have the med students talk to the interviewees over lunch is because they don't have a cafeteria. But I was told "there were some vending machines in case you're hungry. And Jimmy Johns will deliver to the school."
So at 1 we were supposed to get a half-hour welcome/intro thing from the Dean - WHO DIDN'T SHOW. (At least until much later, and that was just to answer any questions we had.)
There was a brief tour that didn't include any of the hospital facilities, though we were told about one student who, on a 3rd year rotation, went to Kankakee where there was no housing available. He lived out of a hospital room for 8 weeks.
😱 At the actual interview part, the people on the panel just fired questions at me, and weren't engaging at all. The whole "day" lasted about an hour and a half.
🙄
Overall - VERY VERY NOT IMPRESSED.
😡