Most irritating fellow interviewee...

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Dr.LeoSpaceman

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I was wondering if anyone had stories about irritating people in your interview groups. I definitely had two such people in a group the other day. The first guy insisted on asking the director of admissions the most assinine and pointless questions during a small group meeting before the lunch and tour. He seemed to know all kinds on minutia about buldings being built around campus, etc. Apparently somoene donated money to the school and they named a building after him, which was completed recently. This kid knew that the donor had some collection of oil paintings, and was wondering if any of the paintings were going to be put into the building. It was a blatant attempt to kiss ass, and it made me want to run across the room and drop kick him in the face.

The scond guy just looked like he didn't care. His suit and tie were wrinkled, and it looked like he hadn't shaved in like 4 days...not enough for a well maintained beard, so it just looked nasty. He really had no excuse since he was currentl an undergrad at the same school. He also mentioned that he went out the night before and got hammered, so he was still incredibly hungover. I guess I shouldn't reall care, since the only person he was hurting was himself. However, it was a top 5 med school, and it pissed me off that he was probably taking the spot of someone who would love to have it, and going to take it seriously.

Sorry for the long rant, but the longer this process goes, the more things I find that irritate me.
 
I had a guy at one interview that was like the two persons you described put into one. He looked like he didn't care AND he asked endless irrelevant and assinine questions to the dean of admissions (he was an undergrad too at this particular school). Every one of us other interviewees were just looking at each other and smirking as this guy went on and on like a radio. What an asshat.
 
FaytlND said:
I was wondering if anyone had stories about irritating people in your interview groups. I definitely had two such people in a group the other day. The first guy insisted on asking the director of admissions the most assinine and pointless questions during a small group meeting before the lunch and tour. He seemed to know all kinds on minutia about buldings being built around campus, etc. Apparently somoene donated money to the school and they named a building after him, which was completed recently. This kid knew that the donor had some collection of oil paintings, and was wondering if any of the paintings were going to be put into the building. It was a blatant attempt to kiss ass, and it made me want to run across the room and drop kick him in the face.

The scond guy just looked like he didn't care. His suit and tie were wrinkled, and it looked like he hadn't shaved in like 4 days...not enough for a well maintained beard, so it just looked nasty. He really had no excuse since he was currentl an undergrad at the same school. He also mentioned that he went out the night before and got hammered, so he was still incredibly hungover. I guess I shouldn't reall care, since the only person he was hurting was himself. However, it was a top 5 med school, and it pissed me off that he was probably taking the spot of someone who would love to have it, and going to take it seriously.

Sorry for the long rant, but the longer this process goes, the more things I find that irritate me.

which school...maybe it was me? 😱
 
MWillie said:
I had a guy at one interview that was like the two persons you described put into one. He looked like he didn't care AND he asked endless irrelevant and assinine questions to the dean of admissions (he was an undergrad too at this particular school). Every one of us other interviewees were just looking at each other and smirking as this guy went on and on like a radio. What an asshat.

I was nervous and I just wanted to keep the mood up. What's an asshat?
 
FaytlND said:
Yale. And Psycho I hope it wasn't you, because that would make clowns cry.


it was a joke, don't worry. I'm not an ass-kisser.
 
What about the one interviewee that will invariably ask how many interviews you've been on, just so they can volunteer the fact that they've been on 17 other interviews... all ivy league of course... 😛 puhhhleese.

makes me afraid to open my mouth during my interviews, for fear of sounding just as irritating.

this leads to an interesting question though: How much does the attitude of the other interviewees at different schools affect your opinion of the schools? I find that I tend to rate schools where I liked my interview group higher than those where I disliked the group. This makes sense though, right? I mean, who wants the irritating ones as classmates?
 
FaytlND said:
Try it and get back to us???

Well, unless you're really, really flexible, it doesn't appear to be possible. I just tried it.
 
soprano said:
What about the one interviewee that will invariably ask how many interviews you've been on, just so they can volunteer the fact that they've been on 17 other interviews... all ivy league of course... 😛 puhhhleese.

makes me afraid to open my mouth during my interviews, for fear of sounding just as irritating.

this leads to an interesting question though: How much does the attitude of the other interviewees at different schools affect your opinion of the schools? I find that I tend to rate schools where I liked my interview group higher than those where I disliked the group. This makes sense though, right? I mean, who wants the irritating ones as classmates?
I definitely agree here. I really disliked Columbia, partially because of the school and their elitist mentality, but also because of the other people in my interview group. A lot of people that were self-important and way overconfident. When visiting med schools one of my most important criteria is what the students seem like...I could never go somewhere where people acted like, in the parlance of this thread, asshats. So I think that directly translates to what the interview group is like because some of those people will be classmates. And if there are some in our group, there are bound to be others.
 
Thanks for trying it CarlosMielefan, I think we'll all just take your word on that. . .
 
Thankfully, I haven't had anyone overly irritating at my interviews. Everyone seemed so nervous that they hardly said anything at all. But interviews aren't over yet so I'm sure I'll encounter a few.

However, I do get annoyed by people who won't talk to me when I try to break the ice. They act like having a friendly conversation will somehow affect their chances of admission as if I'm probing for info to sabotage them. Does anyone else know what I'm talking about?
 
the negative 1 said:
However, I do get annoyed by people who won't talk to me when I try to break the ice. They act like having a friendly conversation will somehow affect their chances of admission as if I'm probing for info to sabotage them. Does anyone else know what I'm talking about?

That's super funny. I am more concerned about people checking my outfit out. It's like, dude, I better not see you at an interview dressed exactly like me.
 
soprano said:
What about the one interviewee that will invariably ask how many interviews you've been on, just so they can volunteer the fact that they've been on 17 other interviews... all ivy league of course... 😛 puhhhleese.

:laugh: That's a good one.
 
arierty said:
Thanks for trying it CarlosMielefan, I think we'll all just take your word on that. . .

Don't just take my word. How will you truly know unless you try.
 
I have a GREAT one!

At one interview, the admin building was kinda hard to find. Me and a few other suits found each other and started wandering together. Eventually, we got close to the place and a friendly young man approached us and said, "You here for the medical school interviews?" And then he gave us directions to the office. Nice young man.

About half an hour later, as the day was set to begin, the nice young man appeared again. "Are we all here?" he said. And everyone kind of mumbled, because how were we supposed to know? Then he said, "Why don't we start by going around the room and saying our names, and where we're from. You start," he said, pointing to some girl.

So we got about halfway into doing that and the Director of Admissions showed up. This schmuck was just another interviewee! Another guy actually blurted out, "So wait, you're not admissions staff?" It was super annoying. And he stayed super-annoying, trying to have personal conversations with the dean, the financial aid woman, the tour guides whoever. "Great tie, is that Polo?" It was like he had to make it clear that he was more like the AdCom than the other interviewees. I hate that guy. If he's in my MS1 class, I may vomit.
 
RunMimi said:
My pet peeve is when applicants think their undergraduate school makes them too important to talk to an applicant from such as lowly school. I want to say, please, we're all going to be classmates soon, so get over your ego!

I agree - but I also think it's stupid for adcoms to make everyone wear nametags with the our name (duh) and school listed. I know it's just meant to bring some context to a person - and to facilitate conversation - but the same goal could be achieved by listing an applicant's city and state. Oh! At Columbia (and I'm certain at other schools; I haven't had ample interview opportunities!), they just listed the names of the schools on the outside of the door! "Today's schools represented are:" or something like that. So some applicants were treating it like a match game - trying to figure out which applicant went with X university. A little funny. A little sad. And very unnecessary. In my humble opinion, of course. 🙂
 
akimbo said:
I have a GREAT one!

At one interview, the admin building was kinda hard to find. Me and a few other suits found each other and started wandering together. Eventually, we got close to the place and a friendly young man approached us and said, "You here for the medical school interviews?" And then he gave us directions to the office. Nice young man.

About half an hour later, as the day was set to begin, the nice young man appeared again. "Are we all here?" he said. And everyone kind of mumbled, because how were we supposed to know? Then he said, "Why don't we start by going around the room and saying our names, and where we're from. You start," he said, pointing to some girl.

So we got about halfway into doing that and the Director of Admissions showed up. This schmuck was just another interviewee! Another guy actually blurted out, "So wait, you're not admissions staff?" It was super annoying. And he stayed super-annoying, trying to have personal conversations with the dean, the financial aid woman, the tour guides whoever. "Great tie, is that Polo?" It was like he had to make it clear that he was more like the AdCom than the other interviewees. I hate that guy. If he's in my MS1 class, I may vomit.

:laugh: I kind of like that guy. It looked as though he was trying to make everyone feel comfortable through the whole process. I'd rather have him then the ones that sit there and tell you all of their "gunner" traits and grimace when you even say one thing about yourself as if they are trying to make you feel self-conscious like you can't get in even if a miracle had happened. I call them the "Beauty Pageant" interviewees. 😀

Because they act exactly like Beauty Pageant meanies that just want to intimidate you, so you'll trip up or something. Ugh!! That brings back memories: one tried to slice my nylons. 😡 😀
 
I had an interview with one guy who used the word "f#ck" a lot while we were talking in the admissions office. The admissions people weren't around, since it was downtime for us, but I still wanted to strangle him.
 
There was this one dude from Pomona at one of my interviews and he came off as the biggest asshat. He exuded this "I am from CA look how frickin cool I am" attitude that made me want to curb kick him.
 
I know the people at interviews are rough and can make you either a) feel like you're stupid and have no chance of getting in anywhere or b)make you want to strangle them they're so dense. All I have to say is a) you're under a lot of stress so I find that these people tend to be more irritating than they actually are but b) you're going to be seeing these people later. I wish it weren't true, but I have a guy in my class who has to let me know that he interviewed ONE day before me. They have a way of weeding themselves out though, so don't you fear.
 
I am one of the students that gives tours to interviewees @ Wayne. I think it is hilarious seeing this from the other side. I gave a tour not long ago where all but one were from UMich, the last one was from a school in the same league (can't remember what tho...) and invariably one of them asks me where I went to undergrad. I replied Oakland U (smaller school in Rochester, MI...only about 12 students a year there end up going to med school). So for the rest of the day most of them seemed like "well if she could get in from such a $h!t school, then "I" should have no problem" A couple of them even started comparing EC's and then asking me what I had done ***rolls eyes***
 
After the interview day ended I was riding in a shuttle back to the airport with three other interviewees. We were all saying how we had a ton of work to do and how missing school was starting to takes its toll. Then one cocky ivy punk decides to tell me that since I'm heading back to my small liberal arts college in florida I might as well write my essays in crayon. I must say that the urge to send him flying out the door of a moving vehicle was quite hard to resist.
 
davidthegnome said:
After the interview day ended I was riding in a shuttle back to the airport with three other interviewees. We were all saying how we had a ton of work to do and how missing school was starting to takes its toll. Then one cocky ivy punk decides to tell me that since I'm heading back to my small liberal arts college in florida I might as well write my essays in crayon. I must say that the urge to send him flying out the door of a moving vehicle was quite hard to resist.

since this occurred after the interview, you should have sat right beside him after the comment and elbowed him in the head (preferably the face). then moved to another seat and act like nothing happenned. that would have been so satisfying.
 
rayzer said:
since this occurred after the interview, you should have sat right beside him after the comment and elbowed him in the head (preferably the face). then moved to another seat and act like nothing happenned. that would have been so satisfying.

I agree, I would have a hard time not breaking his nose.
 
[conversation is about how hard it is to get into medical school these days]
girl1: "Well, i think if you just try hard enough, ANYONE can get in."
me: "If you look at the numbers though, statistically, a good number of fully qualified applicants don't get seats and have to re-apply"
girl1: "If you have to apply a second time, there's probably something wrong with you."

I wanted to slap her. Badly. It's my first time applying, but I wanted to tell her it was my fourth time, just to see what she says. that and, I have good friends who are re-applicants.

As much as I hate the dump-on-Ivy-grad mentality that's here (because I'm an Ivy-grad also), I have to admit that there's some truth to what you say. This second girl added that she already had 15 interviews, and her nose was so high in the air that I could've shoved my pencil up it. Then she kept bringing up her Ivy League heritage as if she were royalty. I had to point out that technically speaking, Duke wasn't Ivy before she'd shut up.
 
stinkycheese said:
I had an interview with one guy who used the word "f#ck" a lot while we were talking in the admissions office. The admissions people weren't around, since it was downtime for us, but I still wanted to strangle him.

get used to it... i hear doctors use even more crude language all the time.
 
lightnk102 said:
[conversation is about how hard it is to get into medical school these days]
girl1: "Well, i think if you just try hard enough, ANYONE can get in."
me: "If you look at the numbers though, statistically, a good number of fully qualified applicants don't get seats and have to re-apply"
girl1: "If you have to apply a second time, there's probably something wrong with you."

I wanted to slap her. Badly. It's my first time applying, but I wanted to tell her it was my fourth time, just to see what she says. that and, I have good friends who are re-applicants.

As much as I hate the dump-on-Ivy-grad mentality that's here (because I'm an Ivy-grad also), I have to admit that there's some truth to what you say. This second girl added that she already had 15 interviews, and her nose was so high in the air that I could've shoved my pencil up it. Then she kept bringing up her Ivy League heritage as if she were royalty. I had to point out that technically speaking, Duke wasn't Ivy before she'd shut up.

haha, duke is so pseudo - they're total wannabes.
 
Why are you so obsessed with other people? I don't understand why it would irritate you that one guy happened to get drunk and the other guy knows a lot of stuff about the school. Who cares?

Yeah I've experienced the interview one, that can be annoying. I just talk about all the schools I've been rejected from to break the ice.
 
ive had some pretty annoying ones...its really annoying cause you want to say something back to them but you gotta bite your tongue...
 
I had an amusing conversation w/ a fellow interviewee while sharing a taxi to the airport. For some reason, he must have thought that I was an inferior and scrubby candidate, and he kept talking on and on about this "great" interview at a "great" institution that he just had a few days ago. I kinda wanted to tell him that I had already gotten into this school where he interviewed at, but I played along for the sake of not killing the conversation 😛 . It turns out that other than his superiority complex and his obsession w/ a certain school, he wasn't too bad of a person.
 
krelian said:
I had an amusing conversation w/ a fellow interviewee while sharing a taxi to the airport. For some reason, he must have thought that I was an inferior and scrubby candidate, and he kept talking on and on about this "great" interview at a "great" institution that he just had a few days ago. I kinda wanted to tell him that I had already gotten into this school where he interviewed at, but I played along for the sake of not killing the conversation 😛 . It turns out that other than his superiority complex and his obsession w/ a certain school, he wasn't too bad of a person.

Wait, was this at Yale? Are you the guy from Columbia? Is this annoying person me?
 
The females from LA that I have encountered seem to be really clueless and annoying
 
my fellow interviewees at WashU were really cool! i really liked them i could totally see us being friends if at teh same school. ive only had good experiences. one guy looked really pompous, but in a hot way LOL.

at OSU, we didnt really get a chance to talk so that sucked. but i do look at my other interviewees and first years in deciding how much i like the school. the hospitals and other stuff really have no impact on my decisions.... 😱
 
I should add that most of the people i've interviewed with have been really nice. However, I've interviewed at less pretentious schools (i.e. less ivy interviewees). Come to think of it most of the pretentious interviewees have been from Duke...go figure :laugh: :laugh:
 
constructor said:
get used to it... i hear doctors use even more crude language all the time.

Believe me, I use the f-word far too much myself, but what kind of idiot finds it appropriate to drop the f-bomb in the admissions office on an interview day? It just said to me that he was either a) really stupid or b) really cocky and didn't care about getting in to that school. He made sure to tell me about his interviews at Cornell and Pitt, too 🙄 and how the NJ public schools suck, and he would never be caught dead going there. He's a dork.
 
This thread is funny :laugh:
 
CheckMate said:
What I can't stand are applicants on SDN who don't have the decency to reply to a PM.

By the way, only one person has done this out of the 100 PMs I have sent and yes, that is supposed to be a backwards jab...

Giving advice to another applicant or telling them the structure of an interview day is not going to hurt your own chances of acceptance. Grow up.

Did you private me? Is it me? Wait, why is everyone picking on me?
 
Cerberus said:
I should add that most of the people i've interviewed with have been really nice.

Yeah the one feeling I've had over and over again is "Wow being an adcom is really hard". I usually find that the other people around me are decent human beings with competitive applications.
 
RunMimi said:
So is that supposed to be some backwards jab at me or what?!?

nah, i don't mean it as a jab at duke students at all, sorry if you took personal offense to it... i just think the fact that they recruited kobe bryant (who ended up deciding not to go) and other such athletes whose scholastic achievements are sub-par to non-existent is ironic since they claim to recruit only the best student athletes. you don't see that at the ivies or at stanford, so i just think duke is one-of-a-kind in how they have double standards and yet claim otherwise... that's the only thing i meant by "pseudo".
 
stinkycheese said:
Believe me, I use the f-word far too much myself, but what kind of idiot finds it appropriate to drop the f-bomb in the admissions office on an interview day? It just said to me that he was either a) really stupid or b) really cocky and didn't care about getting in to that school. He made sure to tell me about his interviews at Cornell and Pitt, too 🙄 and how the NJ public schools suck, and he would never be caught dead going there. He's a dork.

maybe he's just being honest, although he's probably not the most tactful of all human beings in this world.
 
i drop the f-bomb quite a bit in my day to day talk (basically I sound like i'm from ****in long mutha ****in island). I really have to be careful when i'm at interviews.
 
Cerberus said:
There was this one dude from Pomona at one of my interviews and he came off as the biggest asshat. He exuded this "I am from CA look how frickin cool I am" attitude that made me want to curb kick him.
Uh-oh. So, uh, where was this (asks the Pomona student)?
 
At one school (a top 5), the admissions staff told us we could wait in the medical students' computer lounge ahead of lunch.

There were a bunch of male medical students in there talking about how Condolezza Rice was "hot," especially compared to Madeline Albright. They said Rice was "worth doing."

Disguisting 👎
 
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