MD/PHD interviews

[chattkis]

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Has anyone on here been through the 2 days of MD/PHD interviews? Did the researchers grill you for hours or was it more laid back? just wondering...

 

[jjmack]

First of all try this in the MD/PhD forum. From my experience it varries from school to school, but none are that bad.

 

[scrappysurfer]

actually, you get treated a little better since they take you out to dinner. some schools fly you out and most put you up in a fairly nice hotel. think lakeside with a california king sized bed and a view.

usually you come the day before and have dinner. the days are longer (think 8-5 or 8-6) and you have more interviews, but they are one on one. one thing though, by nature of the fact that you have more interviewers your chances of getting someone who is an antagonistic ass looking to take out that day's frustrations on you definitely increase.

actually, except for some weird, wierd interviews at my alma mater (will NOT be going there after that) the most difficult and intimidating interview i had was an MD-only panel interview (gulp).

if you have any more specific questions, just pm me. also, apply to ccclm. its rad

 

[Mitro]

Has anyone on here been through the 2 days of MD/PHD interviews? Did the researchers grill you for hours or was it more laid back? just wondering...

Like jjmack said - go to the MD/PhD forum. As for grilling you, some people will - you just gotta hope you don't run into too many of these people. Generally, people want to get an idea that you know your research and can articulate it well. Most of the interviews are low stress. Two notable panel interviews are at WashU and UWash - you and 12 or so people around a table. Anyway, check out the combined degree forum - or www.intransit.us.

 

[PTPoeny]

You generally only have 30-50 mins with each researcher. In all of my interviews they spent the first 20 mins selling me on their research. Then we discussed my research. I had one quiz me on the primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary levels of protein structure, but that was as in depth of quizzing I ever got. The MD people and the administrator interviewers will ask you why MD/PhD why not one or the other and you better have a good answer to that.

 

[bluegrass_druid]

yeah, the md people are far more likely to be hard on you, but the MD/PhD interviewers can be somewhat tricky. in general, you get special treatment across the board and most of the interviews are very collegial and friendly. if you know what you want to research and know something about it, you'll be fine. usually the toughest questions you get are to explain your research past, its relevance, your research intentions, and again their relevance. the hardest situation i was put in by a MD/PhD interviewer was when he directly challenged the application of my research, citing financial impracticalities for big pharma, and asked me to defend it. otherwise, many of them are super people with whom you have some great conversations.

 

[scrappysurfer]

the hardest situation i was put in by a MD/PhD interviewer was when he directly challenged the application of my research, citing financial impracticalities for big pharma, and asked me to defend it.

I'll second this. The hardest question I was asked was about whether or not the FDA would ever let tissue engineered products go to market. I did not get into this particular school (although, in this case, my grades/MCAT are likely scapegoats). This was an MD interview panel for a research-based MD program where most applicants were MD/PhD candidates for other schools.

 

[PostalWookie]

The MD/PhD interviews are pretty laid back. First of all, most programs will let you pick inteterviewers beforehand based on research interests, plus they may add some people who are on the adcom and are familiar with your research area. You have to be prepared to explain your research over and over again, and then to answer questions about it. I've had guys criticize some of my experiments and the model I chose, but I also had people suggest ideas that I ended up trying after i got back to the lab. For the most part, your interviewers will be genuinely itnerested in your work, and they may also be flattered that you are interested in their work.

Now given that, you still get some hard questions. One guy asked me "I do a lot of FRAP and FRET experiments. How would you use these techineques in your research?" That was a bitch of a question. Otherwise, it's fun. People will show you powerpoint presentations of their work, let you see new manuscripts that are about to be published, etc. Defnitely more enjoyable than the MD-only interviews I've been to.

 

[Habari]

this faq answers this genre of question:

http://www.intransit.us/faq/#14