Looking for resources for interview "policy" questions

[bananafish94]

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Hi everyone, I have my first true interview in about three weeks. Seeing as I may not get more and that this is one of my dream schools, I'm confronted with a "failure is not an option" situation. I'm pretty squared away on most of the standard questions, but I'm a little worried about nitty gritty questions regarding healthcare policy (i.e. Obamacare, HMOs, etc) and was wondering if anyone had any good resources where I can really sink my teeth into these topics. I'm moderately informed insofar as I read the paper and try to be apprised as much as possible but I really want to be able to speak intelligently about it. Any other advice for interviews would be much appreciated! Thanks!

 

[Krupke]

No school has asked me policy questions, so don't worry too much about having an in depth knowledge unless the school specific threads says that you need to know stuff. I used wikipedia to get the info I know, but I never ended up needing it.

For advice:
1) Know the school's mission inside and out. Many schools have non-specific missions, but the ones do have a unique angle make it easy to tailor your responses to that school
2) Be a person- I saw a lot of pre-meds on the interview trail who try way to hard to sell themselves when talking to faculty. i.e If you are musician, don't talk about much it taught you about discipline and hardwork- talk about how passionate you are about it. Give genuine answers
3) I'm a fan of letters of interest/intent. If after the interview it is still a dream school for you, let them know. I highly recommend sending one
4) I, personally, like to get to know my interviewers as much as they get to know me. I love learning about other people's lives and I found that all my interviewers love talking about themselves.
5) You are going to say things that you wish you didn't during the interview. Don't let it get to you because it probably didn't sound as bad to the interviewer as it did to you and no one expects you to be perfect.

Good luck!!

 

[bananafish94]

Thanks! I usually do pretty well interview situations because I'm a pretty sociable person by nature and I have a lot of practice projecting my voice and communicating ideas from my TA experience. But that doesn't stop me from being nervous AF for this. Just want to be as prepared as humanly possible!

 

[Lost in Translation]

Surprisingly, no one has asked me any ACA questions, either. At least, not directly. And that's good. We shouldn't be expected to know anything about this at this point in our lives.

 

[terra330]

I was never asked any policy questions either, even with a number of health policy courses in my transcript.

 

[frosted_flake]

I am terrified of getting a question like this... Too many details to keep track of on top of my many other commitments!