Interview Advising services

[drold2012]

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Has anyone tried a paid interview adviser or editor for the personal essay(Like MedEdits.com)? I heard some advisers, who used to be on admission committes, will coach you on how to ace the interview, and they tell you what really does the interviewer focus on, but they are expensive. I haven't talked to anyone who has actually done it, though. Any feedback is appreciated.

 

[student1799]

Has anyone tried a paid interview adviser or editor for the personal essay(Like MedEdits.com)? I heard some advisers, who used to be on admission committees, will coach you on how to ace the interview, and they tell you what really does the interviewer focus on, but they are expensive. I haven't talked to anyone who has actually done it, though. Any feedback is appreciated.

There is no way you should pay for this kind of thing. The career office at most schools will provide at least one session of free interview coaching, even for alumni. (You do a role-play interview and they give you feedback afterwards.) You should call and ask them. If you can't get interview practice at your school, ask a med student or doctor that you know if they can spend a few minutes mock-interviewing with you as a favor.

Ditto for essay editing. People on SDN will read your essay and offer feedback for free. Not only that, the paid essay services tend to make all applicants sound fake and packaged, and the adcoms can spot that a mile away. You definitely want to get feedback on your essay before submitting it, but it has to be genuine and sound like it was written by a real person. An essay like that can only come from you, not from a paid service.

 

[DrMidlife]

There is no way you should pay for this kind of thing.

The farther the candidate ranges from the traditionally acceptable milieu, the less likely it is that traditional advising is going to be useful.

Not to say that paying for help is necessarily going to be useful.

A very nontraditional premed who has the money could spend it in worse ways than on a consultant. See Nasrudin's comments on this.

 

[drold2012]

Thank you guys for taking the time to comment on this. I was thinking that since we are Non-Traditionals, so we need a certain kind of advising , not the one provided in schools for the 21's years old. I thought traditional advising won't help non-traditionals much. Because the school adviser probably doesn't have much experience advising older students.

 

[student1799]

I thought traditional advising won't help non-traditionals much. Because the school adviser probably doesn't have much experience advising older students.

By the same token, most med schools don't have that much experience *admitting* older students. The vast majority of their applicants, and thus students, are young--so the system is geared to that type of applicant, and nontrads have to jump through all the same hoops, whether it makes sense or not. (Wait till you apply, and have to fill out secondaries asking you to list "every job you've held since high school." Or when the financial aid office says you have to submit your parents' tax returns, even though you've been married for 20 years and have kids of your own.) Under those circumstances, you might as well deal with the kind of people who'll actually be looking at your application, i.e. the traditional school personnel.

I would point out, BTW, that your original question asked specifically about interviewing and essays--not about advising in general. When it comes to higher-level topics like school selection and application strategy, I'd say the vast majority of advisers are useless, for trads and nontrads alike. (I'm basing that on many, many comments I've read on SDN, as well as my own experience.)

. For useful advice about med school applications, your best sources will be SDN (experienced nontrads) and your own instincts and initiative. I learned a huge amount from SDN, made up a fair amount myself as I went along, and it worked: I got into 2 schools and 4 waitlists. But if I'd listened to some of the stuff the adviser in my very expensive postbacc program told me, I probably wouldn't have gotten into med school at all.

The farther the candidate ranges from the traditionally acceptable milieu, the less likely it is that traditional advising is going to be useful.

I more or less agree with this, when it comes to actual advice. But, as I said above, they are still useful as a proxy for the admissions staffs that will be reading a nontrad's application.

Not to say that paying for help is necessarily going to be useful.

No, not necessarily useful--and I would venture to say not LIKELY to be useful.

I've seen some favorable comments here about consultants, and in fact I used the person in question, but I wasn't thrilled with the experience. After I'd used up her 2-hour minimum, I decided not to continue.

The problem, as I see it, is that this consultant (like her peers) probably works mostly with clients who have little need of her services in the first place--i.e. very strong applicants who mainly need their hands held. She may work with "nontrads," and in fact calls that her specialty, but I'd guess that they're nontrads with picture-perfect records. I don't think consultants like her have any real clue about how to help nontrads with weak stats or unusual backgrounds.

I had both, but I knew that I also had substantial strengths and meaningful achievements to bring to the table. This consultant, despite having accepted me as a client (she reportedly doesn't take everyone), pretty much sneered at my application and implied that I would never get into med school. I swallowed my anger and proved to her that I was worth taking seriously, at which point her attitude changed. But I realized that I was spending more time justifying myself to HER than making progress on my application, so I decided to go forward on my own.

In the final analysis, I'd say the main service this woman provided was to get my Irish up and make me determined to prove her wrong. And her initial dismissive reaction to my application made me realize that many adcoms would see it the same way unless I made some changes in how I presented the information. I guess you could call it "tough love" without the love.

So, in the end, I did get something out of the experience, but was it worth $550? Hard to say. .

 

[drold2012]

Thanks Student1799. I think you are right. What you says makes a lot of sense.