Hey applicants (I know dozens of you are out there lurking),
I went through the MSTP application cycle last year and blogged about my impressions of each of the 12 schools I applied to. The blog is private but if you would like to see more of my school-specific thoughts feel free to pm me and i'll give you access.
Anyway at the end of the cycle I wrote this summary of the interview process as a primer for new applicants (and for family/friends reading the blog and curious about the process). Might be interesting reading, might not, but here it is regardless.
So I don't know if I'll make this blog public (after the cycle is complete, of course), but if I do, I think I may as well offer my thoughts on the interview process. It is undeniably long and tiring, and the source of quite a bit of unnecessary stress for most MD-PhD applicants. Note that I won't address the topic of what it takes to get in - I'm not enough of an admissions insider to speak knowledgeably on that. I will say that I had success applying to elite MSTPs with no publications, using a summer research project as my primary talking material, and coming from a no-name college. I was fortunate to have good numbers and passionate recommenders, and devoted three August weeks to daily essay writing. I'll begin with a little background about my journey, chronicled in the rest of this blog.
I applied to 20 medical schools, 19 MSTP and one MD-only (Loyola). As perhaps the first serious MD-PhD applicant to come from my college (small, liberal artsy, Augustana College in Illinois), I really had no idea if my application would be competitive. So I played it safe with some mid-tier Midwestern MSTPs and tossed some lines out to many elite programs as well. I hoped to get somewhere around 12 interviews, and I figured that would give me a good chance of being accepted somewhere (note: those curious about the nitty-gritty of my application can see my MDApps; it's #17473).
To make a long story short, I was unexpectedly successful in getting interviews. I was offered 16 (15 MSTP). As planned, I went to 12 MSTP interviews. This number of interviews is a lot for a medical school applicant; it borders on lunacy for an MD/PhD applicant. But I do think I've learned a bit along the way, and so without further ado, here is some 'wisdom' from a grizzled veteran of the process.
Apply early! You will have the most options in terms of picking your interview dates, and this kind of flexibility can be incredibly helpful. Also, many schools begin accepting applicants early in the interview season, and in these cases, your chances of being accepted are higher the earlier you interview.
Get ready to miss a LOT of school/work. Almost everybody interviewing for MD/PhD programs is either a senior in college or working in a lab somewhere. Either way, you'll find it difficult and undesirable to leave home for some interview dates. Suck it up and go anyway if you think there's even a chance you'd enroll if accepted. One late problem set or bombed test won't kill you; missing out on a trip to a fantastic school to chat up faculty and eat a bunch of free food would be a major bummer. This is just a sacrifice you have to come to terms with. And don't be groaning about your back-home responsibilities while you're on the interview. Live in the moment and enjoy your mini-vacation! You've earned it, and you don't need that extra stress on Interview Day.
As a corollary to this, don't stress about flight stuff. Peak interview season is in winter, and it's likely that a few of your flights will be affected by weather delays or cancellations. Go carry-on only; it'll simplify your life. There's nothing you can do about the weather; always take extra reading material and don't freak out when Mother Nature interferes with your plans.
Test the waters. Apply broadly. Try some reach schools. If you don't have a strong location bias, apply all around the country. Interview season, for me, doubled as a whirlwind primer to U.S. travel. If I hadn't thrown out applications to all corners of the country, who knows when I would have gotten to see San Francisco, NYC, Seattle, Nashville, etc., for the first time? Even if it ends in a rejection, you will take home some sweet memories.
Interviewing advice. Okay, here's the big category. MD applicants blanch when they learn that instead of 2/3 interviews over one afternoon, their MD-PhD counterparts endure as many as 8-9 interviews over 2-3 days. Maintaining composure, grace, enthusiasm, and eloquence over the course of an interview weekend can be challenging. Here are the main types of interviews and how, in a nutshell, not to bomb them.
Faculty members - The bread and butter of an MD-PhD interview day. Faculty interviewers are sometimes handpicked by the applicant, sometimes by the program director, and sometimes totally at random from a pool of willing faculty. They will almost certainly ask you The Big Two questions: 1) Why do you want to do an MD-PhD?, and 2) Tell me about your research. If you can answer both these questions well, you're 90% of the way to a successful interview. But every applicant can put together some cogent response to these questions. How do you make yours stand out? The key is to be communicative in non-rhetorical ways. Anybody who watched the televised 'apology' Tiger Woods made this past week (Feb. 19, 2010) knows that his speech fell flat because his inflections and body language were completely nonexistent. Despite contrite language, Tiger's voice was lifeless and jilted, and thus incredibly unconvincing. You don't have to be a research robot to get into an MD/PhD program; be a vibrant, passionate human being! Your interviewer will be more likely to stay engaged (though some will probably nod off no matter what you do). And instead of offering an awkward verbal explanation of how passionate and excited you are about science, they'll be able to see that passion for themselves.
MD/PhD student - Some programs utilize these, some don't. They are a GREAT opportunity for you to get a sense of what a program is like from the students' perspective - take advantage of this! But on the flip side, don't treat these interviews as less important than your others, because they almost never are. Be yourself, and be professional.
MD/PhD administration - At most schools, program leadership will want to get you one-on-one for at least a short while. Whether it's the director or an associate director, this will always be your most important interview of the day. They will probably start off by hitting you with the Big 2 questions, and then try to assess whether or not you are a good 'fit' for the program. This might have slight variations from school to school, but generally has to do with making sure you are seriously committed to a research career and have a sense of how you would take advantage of the university's resources. You are a research investment in a very real, financial sense (some programs make this more explicit than others) and the job of program administrators is to craft a portfolio that will yield returns.
Medical school interview - The second most dreaded interview type for MD/PhD applicants, who are deathly afraid of being asked questions like "If you had $1 billion, what would you do?" or "Tell me about a time when you were compassionate". Smile, make a good first impression, and have a few clinical anecdotes at the ready just in case your interviewer tries to assess your "motivations for a career in medicine". Remember, your goal is to make your interviewer (likely a physician) feel like they are talking to a future colleague.
MD/PhD committee interview - Invariably the most stressful interview type. Only a few schools (e.g. Washington, WashU, Harvard HST) utilize committee interviews. The committee interview has an obvious advantage for the program (every applicant gets evaluated in a standardized setting by the same committee), but for the applicant, sitting at the head of a table surrounded by 10+ faculty can be terrifying. And when applicants get nervous, they ramble. For this reason, your #1 goal in a committee interview should be precision of speech. Be articulate and confident, and say what you want in one or two different ways, not seven or eight. I found these interviews to be most manageable if I ignored the ten sets of eyes staring at me and addressed the questioner directly. The upside of the committee interview is that it is generally quite short (10-15 minutes), so it'll be over before you know it.
Most applicants don't need this advice, as they're mostly well-adjusted, intelligent, personable individuals. But I can see how reading something like this might assuage the nerves of an applicant in the nascent stages of the cycle. To these people: good luck and have fun!!
