Mediocre or Bad Interview?

[MDCali]

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Does anyone know of stories about people who had poor interviews yet still got an acceptance? I didn't have the greatest interview at Drexel, so I was wondering. Thanks!!

 

[tomorrowgirl99]

Does anyone know of stories about people who had poor interviews yet still got an acceptance? I didn't have the greatest interview at Drexel, so I was wondering. Thanks!!

What happened in your interview? Just wondering.

 

[Shredder]

Does anyone know of stories about people who had poor interviews yet still got an acceptance? I didn't have the greatest interview at Drexel, so I was wondering. Thanks!!

im sure it happens considering that for med school interviews are mandatory, even though some ppl are highly qualified and would get in without them. so theyre just a formality

 

[MDCali]

What happened in your interview? Just wondering.

Nothing terrible really. Just fumbled around on a few questions, especially about why I got a C in a specific class my soph. year. It just wasn't a smooth interview, and I felt like I made no connection with the interviewer.

 

[Elastase]

im sure it happens considering that for med school interviews are mandatory, even though some ppl are highly qualified and would get in without them. so theyre just a formality

👎

I don't think it matters if you are highly qualified. If you can't articulate your thoughts/feelings then you might just be rejected/waitlisted, etc.

Its not a formality, its another test...

 

[Shredder]

👎

I don't think it matters if you are highly qualified. If you can't articulate your thoughts/feelings then you might just be rejected/waitlisted, etc.

Its not a formality, its another test...

nah, as long as you dont bomb or say something inappropriate im sure some interviews matter very little. you might even be able to get away with a little of that if youre credentials speak for themselves. schools would like to have good students just as much at vice versa. undoubtedly certain interviews, especially at super backup schools, are formalities where the schools simply want to impress/woo you

 

[Ithilia]

I posted a thread just like this about a week ago, so I know how you feel! The interview I was worried about was ok, I didn't really feel like I did anything wrong really, but like you said, there wasn't really a super connection with the interviewer/no real great conversation got going. I was so unsure as to whether I was going to get in. But I did!
The general consensus of the thread that I posted was that you can never tell. Some people have what they think are great interviews, then get waitlisted, and some people have crappy interviews and get in. Its a toss-up I think!
Hope all goes well for you! Keep us posted.

 

[Law2Doc]

nah, as long as you dont bomb or say something inappropriate im sure some interviews matter very little. you might even be able to get away with a little of that if youre credentials speak for themselves. schools would like to have good students just as much at vice versa. undoubtedly certain interviews, especially at super backup schools, are formalities where the schools simply want to impress/woo you

You can believe what you want but many people with solid stats who treat the interview as a formality and have a lukewarm one, end up rejected or waitlisted. By contrast there are people with more moderately competitive stats who manage to wow the interviewers and vault past some others. Much of medicine is relating to people and interpersonal skills (just the first two years is largely coursework), and thus most adcoms take the interview quite seriously. I seem to recall that there were a few examples of people on SDN with strong numerical stats who had many interviews and no acceptances.

 

[MDCali]

I posted a thread just like this about a week ago, so I know how you feel! The interview I was worried about was ok, I didn't really feel like I did anything wrong really, but like you said, there wasn't really a super connection with the interviewer/no real great conversation got going. I was so unsure as to whether I was going to get in. But I did!
The general consensus of the thread that I posted was that you can never tell. Some people have what they think are great interviews, then get waitlisted, and some people have crappy interviews and get in. Its a toss-up I think!
Hope all goes well for you! Keep us posted.

Hey thanks your kind words!! And congratulations on getting in!!!

Hopefully my interviewer liked me more than I think he did! I suppose it is a toss-up really, considering how everything else in this process can be so random. Thanks again and wish me luck!

 

[zurned]

Hey thanks your kind words!! And congratulations on getting in!!!

Hopefully my interviewer liked me more than I think he did! I suppose it is a toss-up really, considering how everything else in this process can be so random. Thanks again and wish me luck!

ask on the allo thread, i asked the same question there a couple of months ago and some ppl said they got in despite bad interviews.

 

[funshine]

I think the general answer is that schools definitely take really bad or really good interviews into account, but still look at your whole application. They have a whole numerical system worked out that rates each part of your application. Different schools will give diff weight to the interview.

But you know what, I think it's unhealthy to wonder excessively about whether you didn't get in because of a bad/mediocre interview. You can start taking the interview really personally--"Does the Dean not like me because I f*ckd up my question on malpractice?? If I had only thought for 2 seconds more, I could've answered so much more coherently!!" etc.--and it just leads to a lot of headache and agony. Instead, just say to yourself "hmm, numerically maybe I was 1.5 instead of 1 overall" so that's why I was waitlisted/rejected, and it feels soo much better. Trust me 🙂

 

[red dot]

Does anyone know of stories about people who had poor interviews yet still got an acceptance? I didn't have the greatest interview at Drexel, so I was wondering. Thanks!!

I can describe mine at Drexel as "tap water" or "lukewarm." I heard about others who had the same experience there, so maybe it won't hurt our applications...

 

[Pewl]

First off, how the hell would you know if you did ok or not at the interview? You have no idea exactly what they're looking for.

I do know a girl who thought she did well at BU but she got rejected there. She also thought she did absolutely horrible at Rosalind Franklin but she got in there. She said there was one point during the interview at Rosalind Franklin where she didn't really have any responses to the questions "What do you do for fun" and "What research did you do." The interviewer ended up asking her, "so.. do you do ANYTHING??"

HAHA But she ended up getting in so who knows =P

 

[jebus]

You can believe what you want but many people with solid stats who treat the interview as a formality and have a lukewarm one, end up rejected or waitlisted. By contrast there are people with more moderately competitive stats who manage to wow the interviewers and vault past some others. Much of medicine is relating to people and interpersonal skills (just the first two years is largely coursework), and thus most adcoms take the interview quite seriously. I seem to recall that there were a few examples of people on SDN with strong numerical stats who had many interviews and no acceptances.

Dude, read what shredder wrote. He qualified his statement so well and here you are poo-pooing it. Please, stop with the poo-poo.
He said "some", "certain interviews"... and I think he's right. For the vast majority of students interviews will matter. But for a select few, these interviews likely don't matter because the rest of the application is so strong. If someone has spectacular grades, scores, ECs, and LORs that say "this person would be the most fantasticically amazing physician in the greater tri-state region because of his/her spectacular interpersonal skillz", I'm sure the interviewers/schools will cut him/her some slack and allow a few mistakes or a "bad interview".
The amazing thing to me is that when you talk with psychology professors, for most jobs the interviews are the least predictive measure of a person's success. In medicine I guess the interviews really are predictive... or are they?

 

[funshine]

Dude, read what shredder wrote. He qualified his statement so well and here you are poo-pooing it. Please, stop with the poo-poo.
He said "some", "certain interviews"... and I think he's right. For the vast majority of students interviews will matter. But for a select few, these interviews likely don't matter because the rest of the application is so strong. If someone has spectacular grades, scores, ECs, and LORs that say "this person would be the most fantasticically amazing physician in the greater tri-state region because of his/her spectacular interpersonal skillz", I'm sure the interviewers/schools will cut him/her some slack and allow a few mistakes or a "bad interview".
The amazing thing to me is that when you talk with psychology professors, for most jobs the interviews are the least predictive measure of a person's success. In medicine I guess the interviews really are predictive... or are they?

"The amazing thing to me is that when you talk with psychology professors, for most jobs the interviews are the least predictive measure of a person's success."

Exactly! Interviews are so subjective and I don't see HOW they can legitimately use it to assess how well you're going to interact with patients in clinic. The environment/mentality in the interview room is totally different from that in the clinic. It's like asking judging the quality of piano teachers based on how well they perform one solo piece. There have been numerous threads about the same old tired topic, and you will find Law2Doc in all of them exclaiming how much the interview matters and how otherwise sparkling applicants may deliver a lukewarm interview and thus not get in. It's like he has a vendetta against people with superior stats.

 

[argonana]

I am sorry, but if interviews are sooooooooooo important, then why do some interviewers dominate 90% of the discussion?

I think the importance of the interview really depends on the school. I have absolutely no doubt that there are some schools where the interview (depending on the applicant, of course) is little more than a formality.

 

[Law2Doc]

"The amazing thing to me is that when you talk with psychology professors, for most jobs the interviews are the least predictive measure of a person's success."

Exactly! Interviews are so subjective and I don't see HOW they can legitimately use it to assess how well you're going to interact with patients in clinic. The environment/mentality in the interview room is totally different from that in the clinic. It's like asking judging the quality of piano teachers based on how well they perform one solo piece. There have been numerous threads about the same old tired topic, and you will find Law2Doc in all of them exclaiming how much the interview matters and how otherwise sparkling applicants may deliver a lukewarm interview and thus not get in. It's like he has a vendetta against people with superior stats.

LOL. I have no problem with people with great stats, but know of a few people who tanked their med school chances by treating the interview as a "formality". As I said in my prior post, believe what you want.

 

[Law2Doc]

Dude, read what shredder wrote. He qualified his statement so well and here you are poo-pooing it. Please, stop with the poo-poo.
He said "some", "certain interviews"... and I think he's right. For the vast majority of students interviews will matter. But for a select few, these interviews likely don't matter because the rest of the application is so strong. If someone has spectacular grades, scores, ECs, and LORs that say "this person would be the most fantasticically amazing physician in the greater tri-state region because of his/her spectacular interpersonal skillz", I'm sure the interviewers/schools will cut him/her some slack and allow a few mistakes or a "bad interview".

If you go back to his post preceding the one I responded to, it was not particularly qualified. Based on my personal observations (which, I admit, may be skewed toward certain schools), I happen to disagree with both of you about the formality and "cutting slack" issue.

 

[jebus]

If you go back to his post preceding the one I responded to, it was not particularly qualified. Based on my personal observations (which, I admit, may be skewed toward certain schools), I happen to disagree with both of you about the formality and "cutting slack" issue.

The post also wasn't particularly substantive - it was all of 3 lines. But he did say "certain schools" & "some interviews". That looks qualified to me. Especially on this forum.
Seriously, this isn't a legal brief. The language on this forum is often imprecise, short, and poorly articulated. What are you going to do when an hysterical patient comes in and doesn't say all the things you expect to hear? At what point do you allow context to play a role?
I understand that language plays a huge role in law. My brother is applying to law school and I've got the whole lecture from him. (Where the hell is the SDN for over-achieving pre-laws? He's got a PhD in Neuroscience and he's a post-doc at harvard and he got a 174 on his LSAT without studying. Oh yeah, he's much more eloquent than than I am, too.) If a person cannot properly articulate an idea they are in trouble. In law, if you can't say what you mean, you can't mean what you say. But this isn't law. It's a forum for pre-meds. Your perception is coloured by your experiences at certain schools, mine is coloured by my experiences with other schools and other advisors...
Frankly, arguing about this is silly. I see why you went into law. And why you want to get out.

 

[WholeLottaGame7]

I think what a lot of people are forgetting is that it is irrelevant how YOU think you did, what matters is how THEY think you did. You might think you just gave some hot **** answer to a question, but they hated it, and you might think you really screwed the pooch on another one, but they loved it.

I think interviews are important: schools typically interview at least twice the number of people they're going to accept. Since a school probably wouldn't interview you if they didn't think you could handle the material, there has to be something to distinguish the accepted half from the non-accepted half.

Granted, an applicant with better numbers has a little more leeway than someone with mediocre numbers, but I've heard plenty of stories of anti-social geniuses getting rejected for various reasons, mostly due to poor people skills. Like people have said, it's important to be able to interact with the patients, but at all of my interviews, the ability to interact and fit in with your fellow students is equally important.

 

[MDCali]

I think the general answer is that schools definitely take really bad or really good interviews into account, but still look at your whole application. They have a whole numerical system worked out that rates each part of your application. Different schools will give diff weight to the interview.

But you know what, I think it's unhealthy to wonder excessively about whether you didn't get in because of a bad/mediocre interview. You can start taking the interview really personally--"Does the Dean not like me because I f*ckd up my question on malpractice?? If I had only thought for 2 seconds more, I could've answered so much more coherently!!" etc.--and it just leads to a lot of headache and agony. Instead, just say to yourself "hmm, numerically maybe I was 1.5 instead of 1 overall" so that's why I was waitlisted/rejected, and it feels soo much better. Trust me 🙂

You hit it right on the money. I've been analyzing every little detail of my interview. And you're right, it's not healthy. There's nothing I can do now except have a positive attitude, for the sake of my sanity! 🙂

 

[UCLAstudent]

I had a terrible interview at UCLA and am attending school there. Conversely, I had (in my opinion) really good interviews at Temple and OHSU but didn't get in. Don't analyze it too much.

 

[red dot]

then what, exactly, are med schools looking for in an interview? whether or not your interviewer likes you? how well you answer your questions? how articulate you are? whether or not you have the "right" ideals? whether or not you can walk that fine line between being realistic and idealistic? sometimes i feel like i walk in there like i can say "look i can sing i can dance i can bake i can be anything you want me to be."

and it's so exhausting. eventually i end up trying to be myself instead... but then i leave agonizing about whether or not "myself" was "my best."

 

[javert]

so theyre just a formality

not true... possibly at some schools, but def not at penn... i wonder who interviewed you... i'm interviewing end of nov

 

[argonana]

I've been wondering how important the Penn interview is. Do you know? I'm going next week, but I feel like my GPA (not bad but lower than their average) has already doomed me.

 

[javert]

I've been wondering how important the Penn interview is. Do you know? I'm going next week, but I feel like my GPA (not bad but lower than their average) has already doomed me.

Its definitely important. You'll have a student and a faculty interviewer, both of which count equally. If you look at my class (and I'm sure its a trend in the other years), Penn does a really good job of picking intelligent but really down to earth people. Everyone is so chill and cool and humble.. we don't compete, everyone sends out study guides to the whole class, its just such a good learning environment and I think the interview is a big part of how this happens... anyhow, its not about answering ethical questions or explaining well why medicine.. its about making sure you're a person we'd want to be in class with.. in fact, they ask us that... when you evaluate your interviewee, ask yourself if this is someone you'd want to have in your class... as long as you're relaxed and you're yourself and you're a cool person, then you don't have much to worry about.. its very low stress purposely. A few people in my class mentioned that they'd specifically turned down a higher ranked school (i won't bias anyone) because of the fact that when they went to revist weekend at this other school, the people were exactly not the way people are here... very uptight... Anyhow, keep that in mind when you're interviewing and good luck!

 

[argonana]

Great! Thanks. 🙂

 

[Law2Doc]

then what, exactly, are med schools looking for in an interview? whether or not your interviewer likes you? how well you answer your questions? how articulate you are? whether or not you have the "right" ideals? whether or not you can walk that fine line between being realistic and idealistic? sometimes i feel like i walk in there like i can say "look i can sing i can dance i can bake i can be anything you want me to be."

and it's so exhausting. eventually i end up trying to be myself instead... but then i leave agonizing about whether or not "myself" was "my best."

Schools will tell you that they are looking to see if you can demonstrate maturity, if you are well thought out in your decision to go to medical school, if you know what you are getting into, if you appear to have solid interpersonal and conversational skills, can address hard or ethical questions with poise and clarity, and if you would be a "good fit" for the school. Being yourself is a good idea if you happen to be these things, if not, try to be the future professional you strive to be. 😀 Good luck.

 

[DrHuang]

personally, i agree with law2doc's opinion as I've heard from different adcoms at different schools that the interview is much more than a formality.

Schools will tell you that they are looking to see if you can demonstrate maturity, if you are well thought out in your decision to go to medical school, if you know what you are getting into, if you appear to have solid interpersonal and conversational skills, can address hard or ethical questions with poise and clarity, and if you would be a "good fit" for the school. Being yourself is a good idea if you happen to be these things, if not, try to be the future professional you strive to be. 😀 Good luck.

 

[Shredder]

personally, i agree with law2doc's opinion as I've heard from different adcoms at different schools that the interview is much more than a formality.

for pride's sake how could they be expected to say anything else. they would bend over backwards to accept some candidates, God knows they offer enough money to some as it is. everything they say cant always be taken at face value

 

[medstylee]

Does anyone know of stories about people who had poor interviews yet still got an acceptance? I didn't have the greatest interview at Drexel, so I was wondering. Thanks!!

i'll second what others have said about drexel - a LOT of people seem to feel like their faculty interviews were just "eh." i think they make it a point to be very straightforward about everything. my interviewer was all business. no impressions were given away. and, while i feel like i did just fine answering the questions, it still felt very unsettling. anyway, good luck.

 

[Jaider]

A friend of mine who works in admissions told me that he gives two types of interviews.

The first type is a more laid-back interview for the applicants with stellar applications. It's focused on getting to know the applicant personally and to give them opportunties to screw up-- to come off as arrogant, inarticulate, or disrespectful to the office help, etc.

The other type is for the type of applicant who is almost perfect, but raises a few questions regarding their fit for the school. For example, the applicant earned some bad grades or has a GPA/MCAT mismatch. So, in interviewing those applicants, he'd be giving them an opportunity to prove themselves-- to explain any deficiencies and to show their motivation.

He also told me that if you're personable, that will go a long way to help you out. Like others have said, you have to be the type of person that the interviewer would want to work with, teach, etc.

Does that help anybody?

 

[Shredder]

jaider that sounds right on the money