Interviews when Overseas

[ChartaBona]

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I will be taking the MCAT this august, graduating from undergrad in January and most likely applying to medical schools next spring. In the year off, I was thinking I could do something like the JET program, being an English TA at Japanese schools.

The dilemma is that if Med schools want me to come in for an interview, I'll most likely be half-way across the world. Besides applying as early as humanly possible, how do you handle something like this?

 

[LizzyM]

I will be taking the MCAT this august, graduating from undergrad in January and most likely applying to medical schools next spring. In the year off, I was thinking I could do something like the JET program, being an English TA at Japanese schools.

The dilemma is that if Med schools want me to come in for an interview, I'll most likely be half-way across the world. Besides applying as early as humanly possible, how do you handle something like this?

Even if you apply as early as humanly possible, it is possible that no one will actually read your application until October The landslide of applications in July/Aug is such that it is months before we dig out from under. These days, with electronic listings, it is easy to cherry pick the best applications more efficiently than back in the day when we used paper exclusively so if you have very strong stats you might rise like cream to the top earlier than you would with average or below average numbers.

Almost every school is going to require a face-to-face interview before making an offer. You could plan to be in the US for four to six weeks either before Thanksgiving (a big gamble but if your gpa is >3.7 and your MCAT is >36 it may work) or during the month of January. Plan this up front and note it in your applications. Designate someone in the US to receive & open your mail for the rare schools that issue interview invites by snail mail (most do it by e-mail now). Once you get an interview offer, contact the other schools in the area (within 100-150 miles) and let them know you are interviewing "in the area" and would like, if at all possible, to bundle the interviews to make your visit to the states most efficient. If another school has already queued you for an interview (but hadn't gotten around to offering you a date) they might accommodate you but don't bet on it.

 

[krs881]

See the responses from me and others here and the other threads I linked to in that one. I didn't have the option of scheduling an entire 4-6 weeks in the US (I work full time) but despite numbers in/above the range LizzyM mentioned, had no bites from schools with my "i'll be in the area" emails. Instead, I had to push back interviews from the date offered me to a later time so that I could group them together. During one interview, the interviewer said "strange, looking at your app I would have thought we'd have interviewed you earlier in the season." So it goes, all in all it went great for me, no complaints!