Kansas State Interviews

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ncbelle said:
Has anyone from NC gotten a letter? This wait is driving me crazy but I am nervous to e-mail.
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I think if you e-mail now you'll receive a message saying she's out of her office. I think all our e-mails finally broke her. 😛
 
Accepted! It came in a big manila envelope.

Think I'll be turning them down though.
 
guess they went through dallas and completely bypassed austin
 
I went to check the mail today (pretty sure the mail guy thinks I'm a creeper for how often I've gone to check my mail the past few days) and I had nothing but an empty box. 🙁

I came back to my room and five minutes later, my brother walks in with a package slip that got stuck in his mailbox for me...containing an ENVELOPE, which means it was too big to fit in my regular mailbox. That could only mean one thing!

Sure enough, I signed for my envelope and saw the KState logo and maybe squee'd just a little.

Yay!

I'm in Maine, by the way, if that helps anyone still waiting.
 
Accepted!!! 😀 Haven't been able to post in a couple of days because the snow storm knocked out my power.
 
I am from Texas and I got wait-listed. I also applied to Texas A&M, but I really fell in love with KState when I went for my interview. I fear that if I get into my in-state school, I will have to accept that offer before I would get a call from the wait list anyway.

Anyone know if they will start calling alternates before April 15th if they get declines before then?
 
Accepted!!! WHOO HOO!!! I can't express in words how excited I am!!!😀😀😀!!! K-State became my top pick after visiting the school for the interview... I was so excited to see the letter with my own eyes that I got a paper cut trying to open the huge manilla envelope that I found in the mail box yesterday!!! THIS IS GREAT!!!!
I can't wait to meet all of you who are soon to be my fellow class mates!!!
 
Congrats drkitty!!!! I just read your story on the other thread and I am soooo excited for you. You deserve it!!!
 
I got my acceptance letter on 2/12. 🙂 Unfortunately I will most likely be declining. I really liked KState when I interviewed, much more than I thought I would. It's one of the farther away places for me (I'm in NY), and I didn't know if I would like it all that much. But after going there, I would be so excited to go if I hadn't gotten into Cornell. I wish everyone luck for the KState class of 2014!!
 
rtoddo09 said:
Anyone know if they will start calling alternates before April 15th if they get declines before then?
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That would be nice to know. I'm on the alternate list too. I fell in love with Kstate during the interview so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they will get pretty far down the alternate list. :xf: I believe they have in the past so there is still hope!
 
Did anyone else think that the acceptance letter was really impersonal and jumped too quickly into business? The first sentence talks about it being conditional and the second paragraph is already talking about tuition and fees. My Michigan State acceptance letter had all kinds of congratulations and spoke about your qualifications and how successful you will be and spoke of the code of ethics and things like that and then the other papers went into the details. It was just a much more personal and well written acceptance packet in general I thought. Just wondering if anybody else felt the same way?
 
scubblescully said:
Did anyone else think that the acceptance letter was really impersonal and jumped too quickly into business? The first sentence talks about it being conditional and the second paragraph is already talking about tuition and fees. My Michigan State acceptance letter had all kinds of congratulations and spoke about your qualifications and how successful you will be and spoke of the code of ethics and things like that and then the other papers went into the details. It was just a much more personal and well written acceptance packet in general I thought. Just wondering if anybody else felt the same way?
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as long as it said i was accepted, i wouldn't really care how it was stated.
 
scubblescully said:
Did anyone else think that the acceptance letter was really impersonal and jumped too quickly into business? The first sentence talks about it being conditional and the second paragraph is already talking about tuition and fees. My Michigan State acceptance letter had all kinds of congratulations and spoke about your qualifications and how successful you will be and spoke of the code of ethics and things like that and then the other papers went into the details. It was just a much more personal and well written acceptance packet in general I thought. Just wondering if anybody else felt the same way?
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<insert cynical comment here> 🙄
 
I didn't take it that way at all - and they were more than nice at the interview!
 
How about-
"You're special and talented and intelligent, just like the other 100 students that were admitted."


Things aren't really sugarcoated in vet school, so I'd get used to it.


IMHO, and not at all trying to diss you.
 
Meh, it said something like "Congratulations! You're accepted to vet school you rock star you!" Might be paraphrasing a bit, I don't know. I stopped reading after the "accepted" part and only several hours later did I go back and see what the rest of the letter said.
 
Sorry, I really did not mean to upset anybody or make it sound like I was not incredibly excited to be accepted to such a wonderful school. I was just noting how interesting it was that my two letters were so VASTLY different in style and tone. If I had not been to Kansas State and seen how wonderful the school and the people there were I would have put it behind the other school simply based on the vibes from the letters. I guess I just figured all letters would be just about indentical and just wondered if anybody else had noticed what I had. Again, I'm sorry for how it came across.
 
Scubblescully, I know what you meant. I was thrilled to get in, but something about the phrasing made the tone of the letter seem slightly out of sync with the good news. There's no reason not to keep an upbeat tone and acknowledge someone's accomplishments, in the professional setting of vet school or beyond. It's not how I would have written the letter, but they probably just wanted to keep things appropriately businesslike.

Or perhaps they use that tone on purpose 'cause they want to spare us the repair bills for the walls we would otherwise knock down with our excited celebrations :laugh:
 
and to RUGBYCHICK,
I don't think I am at all complaining about it not being sugarcoated, nor do I expect vet school to be. I was just making an observation. Are schools not competing for OOS applicants? You make it sound like I'm ridiculous for even bringing it up. Some schools talk about the importance of the profession and what being a veterinarian means/entails and some schools even have the Dean call you personally. Are they sugarcoating things too much or are they simply adding personal touches that can have a big impact on an applicant's decision?
 
Are they competing for OOS applicants? You bet.


Is there a lack of OOS applicants. Not at all.

Like its been said before, everyone on the waitlist for a school is probably equally as qualified as those who got acceptances. Admittances can be pretty arbitrary, I think we all know that. Its a great accomplishment to get into vet school-be happy about it, not complaining about everything.

KS (and any other school that admits alot of OOS students) expects many students to turn down their acceptances because they got into their IS school, don't want to move to KS, etc, and knows they will go into the waitlist students.

So if the acceptance letter is the major factor in making you decide you did or did not want to go to this OOS school, I think you never really wanted to go there in the first place.


Our first day of pharmacology class, we were told "Not all of you will pass this class and be here next semester"
Harsh? yes, especially since all of us made it into vet school, passed first year, are generally considered to be of above average intelligence and hard workers.
The truth? absolutely, and you can't sugarcoat that. Thats life.


Again, not trying to attack you directly-its just a pet peeve of mine. Like alliecat, I'll keep the rest of my cynical comments to myself.
 
KAnsas State is my top choice. The letter would not be anything close to the deciding factor for me or hopefully anyone else. I do not know how asking others what they thought of the letter compared to other school's means I am complaining about everything. You do not know me or my history or how hard I worked to turn my life around to get into a wonderful school like K State and I think your making presumptions about me as a current K State student is the only truly bad impression of K State I have received thus far. I stated that I was much more impressed with another school's acceptance letter. That is all.
 
scubblescully said:
KAnsas State is my top choice. The letter would not be anything close to the deciding factor for me or hopefully anyone else. I do not know how asking others what they thought of the letter compared to other school's means I am complaining about everything. You do not know me or my history or how hard I worked to turn my life around to get into a wonderful school like K State and I think your making presumptions about me as a current K State student is the only truly bad impression of K State I have received thus far. I stated that I was much more impressed with another school's acceptance letter. That is all.
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Personally, I find what other schools do to be very interesting and I really appreciate your sharing. 🙂 KSU realizes that few people want to go to school in the middle of nowhere and they really make huge attempts to sell the personality of the school during interviews. Their attitude really is genuinely selling the school to YOU, rather than you being sold to them. Because of that, I'd bet the Dean's office would be interested to know the neutral-to-negative impressions such a letter gives an OOS student with offers from multiple schools. 🙂

My own cynical comments were regarding the school, not you personally--apologies for not making that clear. 🙂 Again, thanks for sharing.
 
rugbychick16 said:
Are they competing for OOS applicants? You bet.


Is there a lack of OOS applicants. Not at all.

Like its been said before, everyone on the waitlist for a school is probably equally as qualified as those who got acceptances. Admittances can be pretty arbitrary, I think we all know that. Its a great accomplishment to get into vet school-be happy about it, not complaining about everything.

KS (and any other school that admits alot of OOS students) expects many students to turn down their acceptances because they got into their IS school, don't want to move to KS, etc, and knows they will go into the waitlist students.

So if the acceptance letter is the major factor in making you decide you did or did not want to go to this OOS school, I think you never really wanted to go there in the first place.


Our first day of pharmacology class, we were told "Not all of you will pass this class and be here next semester"
Harsh? yes, especially since all of us made it into vet school, passed first year, are generally considered to be of above average intelligence and hard workers.
The truth? absolutely, and you can't sugarcoat that. Thats life.


Again, not trying to attack you directly-its just a pet peeve of mine. Like alliecat, I'll keep the rest of my cynical comments to myself.
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While I certainly agree with you, my dad even made a comment about the acceptance letter to Missouri. They get right to the point with the $500 deposit.."Congratulations, now give us $500!" It's a little comical, but I'm absolutely elated to have been accepted there and I'll gladly hand over the dough!
 
Sorry, I don't mean to turn you off from K-State, that was just my initial reaction to your post. Its just the way I am-I don't want things to sound better or wose then they are-I'm more of a "tell it like it is and lets get down to business" person. (ex-just tell me I got the scholarship or I didnt, I don't want a big long letter about it saying I'm great or I suck)
Which is how I feel getting into vet school/starting vet school classes is-- "Congratulations. You're amazing. Now start paying lots of money and cramming tons of information into your head and let vet school start controlling your life most days"


Sorry if I'm terrifying any of the Class of 2014 members. Back to studying now.
 
rugbychick16 said:
Sorry if I'm terrifying any of the Class of 2014 members. Back to studying now.
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So yeah, speaking of that, just curious Rugby, do you know how many of your classmates did not make it through that Pharma class and disappeared the next semester? :scared:
 
lunajett said:
So yeah, speaking of that, just curious Rugby, do you know how many of your classmates did not make it through that Pharma class and disappeared the next semester? :scared:
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Since she's being good and studying 😉 and I am still procrastinating, here is a link to a thread where she and other students discuss it: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=699083

We lost a few to pharm as well but most are re-enrolled in rugbychick's class.

If you speak with enough vet students, you'll find each school kind of has its "weed-out" course(s) and a few people do fail. It happens. Most schools allow you at least one more try. Don't panic. 🙂
 
lunajett said:
So yeah, speaking of that, just curious Rugby, do you know how many of your classmates did not make it through that Pharma class and disappeared the next semester? :scared:
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Plus it's my understanding that that one semester course has now been split into two semesters - correct??
 
The student I spoke to at the dinner at the interview told me that they had split that class up into 2 semesters instead of one.
 
scubblescully said:
KAnsas State is my top choice. The letter would not be anything close to the deciding factor for me or hopefully anyone else. I do not know how asking others what they thought of the letter compared to other school's means I am complaining about everything. You do not know me or my history or how hard I worked to turn my life around to get into a wonderful school like K State and I think your making presumptions about me as a current K State student is the only truly bad impression of K State I have received thus far. I stated that I was much more impressed with another school's acceptance letter. That is all.
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Congratulations on your acceptance, Scubble 🙂

My theory is this-
I would guess (total guess) that perhaps 1-2 people draft/write the acceptance letters. I have my original acceptance letter somewhere back home, and a scanned copy - but not on this PC. I personally tend to notice semantics and tones in writing, too, so I get what you're saying. I don't recall my letter striking me that way, but, it was awhile back now, and, I was elated because of all the rejections I had already received!

With that said... I'm also guessing that the letter 'gets right down to business' because in the past, there were more (few, but some) options of obtaining in-state tuition/residency here, which is I believe absolutely posititutely NO LONGER the case. And with tuition being over $44k (?) now per year here, without living/eating expenses, it's big bucks we're borrowing from Uncle Sam.

I think the letter is probably trying to not sugar-coat that fact.

And, as Allie and Ruby implied, yes, I too could say more cynical things about where that tone may come from. I think a big big chunk of our school is run based on those out of state dollars coming in. I sure wish I didn't have to borrow the amounts I have and will to be here, but, I honestly will always be ever-grateful to this school for accepting me, when 12 other schools flat-out didn't, and didn't even offer me interviews either.

Focus on the positive... which I know you have and are. There's hundreds of eager folks out there wishing that they had gotten that 'Golden Ticket' in the mail too. 😉 Yes, I wrote 'Golden Ticket'.

Regardless of the letter's tone, I'm glad we made a good first impression on you.

Perhaps at some point in the future, you'll be able to give some feedback on the letter, because, I think it's a valid point. If more than one school is courting you, well, it'd be nice if the letter gave you a warm fuzzy feeling... even if you're going to dig yourself a nice little debt hole by RSVP'ing 'yes'. :laugh:

But unless you're an in-state student here or elsewhere (and not all in-states are as inviting $$-wise as others) -- then most of us ARE borrowing big bucks to pursue this crazy dream.

Congrats again!

:luck:
 
Since I was put on the alternate list, I wrote the admissions office for a file review in case I should be working on things for next year's application (if I decide to re-apply). Dr. Elmore (Associate Dean) replied that I was deemed an alternate versus being accepted because of my "lower than average interview score."
Even though this was my second cycle, this was actually my first interview because Colorado doesn't interview its residents and I didn't apply anywhere else last year. So, I admittedly went into this blind.

I am still really hopeful that my interview doesn't ruin everything for this year and that I might get to "use" my alternate spot but just incase, I thought I should ask around and see if these are things I can improve upon.

I was just wondering if anyone knew really "what" they scored on???????

And I guess, since I am not currently enrolled in school I would be considered non-trad.......does anyone have any ideas on how to improve interivew skills without the resources of say a university and clubs..etc????

THANKS
 
turquoisewolves said:
I am still really hopeful that my interview doesn't ruin everything for this year and that I might get to "use" my alternate spot but just incase, I thought I should ask around and see if these are things I can improve upon.

I was just wondering if anyone knew really "what" they scored on???????

And I guess, since I am not currently enrolled in school I would be considered non-trad.......does anyone have any ideas on how to improve interivew skills without the resources of say a university and clubs..etc????

THANKS
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hey. kansas was my first interview ever too and i thought i did ok overall and made the cut. the way i practiced was just look at the interview feedback, googling general interview questions online, and lastly watching some videos on youtube. i then practiced aloud (sometimes in front of a mirror) enough to not memorize word for word, but ready enough to talk about it if i had to. also practiced in front of friends to get feedback. i was pretty nervous though before the interview..i'm not sure how you felt. i tried to work off some of that energy by doing some pushups and listening to some house music to pump me up, but the ride to the school was quiet like a funeral.

how did you feel about your interview? any questions you thought you bombed? i thought i was ready for most of the questions although some of my answers could have definitely been more polished.

there's a lot of good resources online and it's good to practice with friends just to get an idea of what you're in for. of course afterwards, i went and broke down every little thing i did wrong in the interview, but i used this to improve myself western's, which i thoght went quite well...I was very relaxed...if anything, too comfortable with the interviwers. at the same time though, western's was easier imo because it was a different kind of interview.

anyhow, hope this helps and i hope things work out for you w/ kansas! maybe we'll be classmates in the fall. :luck:
 
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turquoisewolves said:
Dr. Elmore (Associate Dean) replied that I was deemed an alternate versus being accepted because of my "lower than average interview score."
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If the interview was what held you back, I'd say you're lucky because (assuming you are not a complete social misfit) the interview is probably the easiest area to improve in - as opposed to say a GPA or GRE.

Get all the lists of interview questions you can, and practice answering them yourself. Then take it to the next level - are there people in your life, roommates, coworkers, s/o, whoever - who support you in this goal? Give them some lists of random questions, and ask them to just randomly, without warning throughout the day, stop you and hit you with a few questions. That way you get used to quickly shifting gears from what you were doing or thinking, speaking out loud and intelligently to another person, and formulating your thoughts so they make sense to others. Ask the others if your answers made sense, have them critique you, honestly and harshly.

And most of all, know yourself and you application and goals very well. Truly, WHY do you want to be a vet and what makes you think you can be a good one? I'm not sure, but I think you might lose points in this question if you mention the phrase "love animals." Obviously that's part of it for all of us, but there better be a lot more rational, concrete reasons why you can do this.

This is my second cycle, and Kansas was my first interview and I got accepted, so I guess I did OK. But I think my being very non-trad (42 with a whole other totally unrelated career and degrees) gave me a big advantage in this area. Maybe my only advantage, because my grades are def on the low end of the range. But I'd done a lot of interviewing in my previous life, I'm used to talking to people in a professional setting, some public speaking/presentations, using good eye contact and expressions, being direct, etc. I was actually looking forward to the interview, I thought it went great, and I would have enjoyed talking to these people for a few hours. Mostly, I think that came from just knowing myself very well and why I am doing this, and I am eager to share that with others. It helped to give me a certain confidence that probably is harder to pull off when you are early-20's.
 
Thanks jesiah and lunajett.

You guys gave me some great ideas.
I think I was prepared with the preliminary work of research because every question I was asked, I had actually found on SDN Intervew Feedback. And in theory I had prepared responses to say (I have a huge binder filled with written responses, lol) but I'm thinking it’s my presentation that like one of you said probably wasn't "polished." I need to find some YouTubes or something that I can watch to be able to visualize it all.

When I came out of my interview I knew something was wrong cause they actually said "well, it looks like we are done" after only 20 minutes 😕.

I think its something that can definitely be improved upon because I don’t think I would be deemed much of a social misfit. I think my reclusive lifestyle of living out on a ranch may have exaggerated my introverted personality, along with not practicing people-skills on a daily (or even weekly sometimes) basis. So it appears that this may have been evident in the high-pressure setting of my interview. I think my main problem might be that I just don’t say enough.

Always something to work on!
 
that's good. it seems like you were/are already on the right track. it's def. different when you write something down and say it though (i wrote it down too to start) any questions stump you? curious to see what other people were asked haha. i think the one i fumbled on a bit was they said some students see school as a job...they go in and out. how do you see it as?
 
jesiah said:
any questions stump you? curious to see what other people were asked haha. i think the one i fumbled on a bit was they said some students see school as a job...they go in and out. how do you see it as?
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WOW.....that question would have caught me off guard as well. I think I fumbled most of my answers now looking back and replaying it in my head the last couple of days. And to be honest, in only 20 minutes we went through a lot of questions; so I know it must have been my short answers that really ruined it.

When I first walked in they asked, "So why are you here?" (This is where I nervously rambled and almost think that I answered a different question...oopps). Then they asked about what I thought good qualities of a vet would be (here I think I answered things too much in a list and not elaborating well at all). After that they asked me to tell them about a time I overcame a hardship and a time I thought I displayed leadership. I had on my application that my family Trich tests our bulls and they asked me to explain the disease. Then one of them brought up the issue of horse slaughter and my opinion. Then we went back to why K-State and if I thought I could handle vet school courseloads and how I felt about their system of not tracking vs. CSU (my IS) that does.

I had my interview in the late afternoon and I can understand that these people had interviewed all day....but they kept fumbling up their questions and looking at papers and apologizing for mis-wording things saying that "its been a really long day"; so I think that may have rattled me (not to add excuses). Since it is so subjective, some of it is just luck of the draw I suppose 🙂
 
When I did my first mock interview I couldn't articulate myself and I had very short answers. The counselor suggested I use the STAR system to prepare my answers. 1. Describe a situation or task, 2. describe what action you took, and 3. describe how the situation was resolved. The system works really well because it helps you organize your thoughts and gets all the information out. Try to smile and maybe crack a joke as well. My interviewers wanted to address my age (I'm almost 40) but were uncomfortable about. I told them it was OK, they could say I was old 😛 and that broke the ice very well.
 
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