Congrats HanD42! I'm glad they came through for you.
I just got back from Iowa. Travel on Friday was a cluster**** (I was stuck in O'Hare for 8 hours because they canceled my flight to Des Moines), and I ended up renting a car because I had missed the shuttle. Warning: the campus bus route does NOT go to the vet school on the weekends, and there are no sidewalks that I saw on the way to the vet school, so you would be hoofing it along the side of two-lane roads in the ice.
My GPS was a piece of crap and thought that 1600 SE 16th Street was in the middle of a cornfield, so I wandered around and ended up missing the welcome speech. Once I got there, though, everyone was super nice, and I loved the school! Their new LA facility is very spacious and functional.
The first presenter, the financial aid guy, was funny and very thorough. I ended up feeling like I didn't have as much time as I would have liked to talk to people at the school, but I guess they have a lot of applicants to bring through. I went to the room for coat sizing, talked to someone from the AAEP chapter for a while, saw the tablet PC (very cool, and they have a crazy warranty that comes with it), and talked to the professor they assigned to talk to research-oriented people for a while, and then it was time for my interview! I completely missed the student panel, and once I had done my tour and interview the day was done and everyone was gone. For spending more than $600 for travel and lodging, it would have been nice to have more time, but maybe I'm just too chatty.
🙁
My interview went better than I was expected. I was a bit nervous, but I managed to sort of relax during the interview, and the time really flew by. I still can't believe it was an entire hour -- it seemed like half that! My three interviewers were all private practice mixed animal vets who were alumni of ISU CVM, and they were really nice. The questions asked were pretty much along the lines of the questions already in the interview feedback, although they asked some slightly different questions to follow up on my specific answers. After we had talked about the "earning someone's trust" question, the female vet asked me if I was sure I had to go back to college, because she needed a tech and wanted to hire me!
🙂 That helped my confidence.
One thing a friend told me when I was freaking out on Friday (I went through a phase of "why the heck am I doing this?") was to remember that a) you have to have confidence in yourself in order to inspire confidence, and it will go more smoothly if you can put aside any misgivings you have -- they want you there for a reason, and neither side is committing to anything just by having an interview, and b) everyone has worked hard to get to this point, and they clearly see something in everyone that makes them invite you to interview. OK, that was two things. So sue me.
