Most UNEXPECTED INTERVIEW questions...

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Has anyone gotten the infamous.." so what are you going to do if you don't get in?" Talk about a blow to your self-esteem right during the middle of the interview!

Dogirl, my interview at Nova was the worst interview I think I have ever had. I wouldn't worry about it. They still accepted me!
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Hi...tell me about ureself:

A: revolved around my statement and some additions

Interviewer: stop with the rehearsed answer
 
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Dr. Jeddah -- I had nearly the same response to my 'tell me about yourself'. Was this at GW? The guy basically didn't stop rolling his eyes during the entire interview.

assholio.
 
during my interview at Georgetown, my interviewer asked me the long awaited "so tell me why you want to be a doctor" question. halfway through my answer the guy looks up at from his paper and interrupts me asking, "do you have any pets?" i guess i was glad not to have to answer the doctor question anymore but i was certainly thrown off quite a bit.
 
mine was "who picked out your suit?"

I got worried for a second because I wasn't wearing the standard black or navy blue suit most girls wear, but he said he asked that to all his interviewees

and no it wasn't hunter green :D
 
This was for a residency interview, but still pretty weird...

We sit down in this guy's office and, after some light chatter, he says "This interview will go on as long as you keep talking. When you are done talking the interview is over. Go."
 
Fourth year med student interviewing me very competitively and aggressively:

"who looks better in a suit?" (we were both wearing suits)
Me: "Me"
Him: "wrong answer". Ouch. --Trek
 
one interview:
interviewer: "Are you married?"
me: "No"
interviewer "Why not, are you gay?"

other interview:
"What's the point of living if you live in St Louis?"
 
Asked by an old, somewhat sketchy male doctor:

"So how *do* you meet guys at Bryn Mawr?"

(bryn mawr is an all women's college, btw...)

:rolleyes:
 
"Estimate the number of mammograms performed in the United States in one year."


:eek:
 
I had one interviewer at UCSF ask several questions about my cat. He apparently has this cat that the entire neighborhood loves, and my cat is the neighborhood bully.

So, at the end of the interview when I was leaving and we were saying our farewells, he said "Oh, and I am sorry you have such a mean cat".
 
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I was asked what I knew about the Trent Lott situation and how one of my state senators responded to him. :eek:

I was also told that girls like me often worry about the safety of the school and the risk of getting mugged. He assured me that security was very tight there and that I would be fine. :laugh:
 
Int: "What do you do to relieve stress?

Me: "I love to run" (I have run several full and half marathons--nothing as refreshing an an hour long run through the forest.)

INt: "Well. ...YOUR NOT going to have time to run in Medical school.
 
>>"Estimate the number of mammograms performed in the United States in one year."<<

Not enough!
 
Originally posted by phil413ru
INt: "Well. ...YOUR NOT going to have time to run in Medical school.
Click to expand...
Absolute b.s. by the way. I was in the best shape of my life in medical school.
 
So, what sort of drugs do they do at your college?
 
"Do you have friends?" TOTALLY out of the blue--I was shocked. he had a pretty thick accent, too, so I asked him to repeat the question because I thought I had misheard him.
 
Originally posted by Desdemona
"Do you have friends?" TOTALLY out of the blue--I was shocked. he had a pretty thick accent, too, so I asked him to repeat the question because I thought I had misheard him.
Click to expand...

Poor thing he must not have any...:D
 
interviewer: "Why do you want to do emergency medicine? ER docs are so incompetent"
me: "Um...I like the so and so...etc"

him: "so no other specialty interests you?"
me: "well...there are others, but i'm most interested in EM"

him: "how many specialties are there?"
me: "i dunno...maybe around 40?"

him: "name them"
me: "um..ok..emergency medicine, general surgery, neurosurgery, cardiology, derm, radiology, pathology, etc" (I listed around 20)

him: "so you don't like surgery?"
me: "not really, training's too long"

him: "what about all these specialties you just named...how long's the training for those?"
me: "EM is 3 or 4 years...blah blah blah"

him: "surgery's only a couple years longer, what's a couple more years?"
me: "$400,000" (just kidding..i didn't say that..even though I wanted to cuz I was so frustrated with the questions I was being asked"
 
Here's a few interesting ones for ya (all same interview): "So, do you believe the Bible word for word?" Certainly wasnt expecting that one. Then: "Do you think homosexuality is wrong?" Then: "Do you think alcoholics are bad people?" There were more, but I have since forgotten (or selectively removed them from memory). Very strange interview.
 
Originally posted by the_equalizer


As for the oddest question I was asked:
How the HELL did they convince you to go to (the school I ended up doing my undergrad at)!?
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Oh my! What school do you go to, if you don't mind me asking. Or what type?
 
asked by the interviewer, who was simultaneously looking at my transcript:
"i see here...'introductory geophysics' as a premed requirement? what's that? like a gut class?" (*gut class = easy A) he then laughed. well, it was more like a snicker.

"actually," i said, "it's a pretty hard class."

"i figured," interviewer says back, somewhat defensivey, "since it says here you got an A-."

i got waitlisted. :(
 
I just came back from a University of Florida interview. My interviewer was a psychiatrist. He didn't ask me anything about myself. He kept asking me random fact questions and strange hypotheticals. The worst thing was that he would tell that there are no right answers and then proceed to tell me whether my response was right or wrong after I had answered his question.
Weird...

In any case...

Here were some of the random fact questions:

"Who is Judith Miller"
(A New York Times Journalist)

"Who is Condileeza Rice"
(The National Security Advisor)

"Name one medical journal?"

"What is the CDC?"

Here were some of the hypotheticals:

"Would you give a patient a smallpox vaccine if he requested one?"

"What do you think about medical marijuana?"
 
One interviewer switched into Spanish mid-interview and asked me how to say "Where is the restroom" in Tagalog. I guess they wanted to see if I really spoke Spanish and Tagalog ;)
 
Just thought of another...At one school the interviewer, after asking me what other schools I applied to, actually said that he noticed all the schools I applied to were mid-range and then asked me why I didnt apply to any better schools. I asked him to clarify and said "do you mean harvard and yale or something?" and he said "yeah, you probably could get into better schools than the ones you applied to." I thought it was odd for him to sort of put down his own school.
 
" tell me a joke" at uc davis, if you go there, must prepare a good joke!!:)
 
For all you "cry-babies" out there....Suck it up!

The "off limit" interview questions typically only apply to employee-employer situations, not school interviews.

If you think you have been screwed in some way, then sue the school and see if you ever get in anywhere?????

Why don't you spend your time improving your GPAs and overall application instead of wasting your energy complaining...just answer the questions freaking and move on!

If you are that sensitive to these questions then how will you ever make through professional school; you won't!!!!

The basis behind most of these questions are to see how the applicant responds under pressure; and personal questions are usually more difficult to bull**** through...
 
whoa chill out ewsmith, people are just posting the questions out of fun, and to prepare other people for what to expect, why the harsh words?
 
The questions are great as they are entertaining and hopefully will help others during the interview.

However, people complaining about "non-PC" questions really need to take a look at themselves...

Do you think a 25 yo from Russia/Bosnia would complain about questions if they were given a chance to interview for medschool in America???

No way! They would be excited just to be given a chance....

We need to remember how fortunate we are to be in America and "suck-it-up" when things do not go our way!!!!

We need to think about how we can make a difference in our World instead of complaining b/c someone asked us a question about our family, spouse, ect....
 
Originally posted by ewsmith1
For all you "cry-babies" out there....Suck it up!
Click to expand...

well, I enjoyed this thread as just fun till this...I'm really getting tired of some of the negative/aggressive attitudes...oh...and welcome to SDN :rolleyes:
 
Originally posted by the boy wonder
...I'm really getting tired of some of the negative/aggressive attitudes...oh...and welcome to SDN :rolleyes:
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Right on Boy Wonder.
I can't believe what a pissing contest this board turns into with everyone trying to feel better by putting others down. I mean come on, don't start that stuff with your first couple posts. Theres already enough a$$es around here. If everyone keeps fighting, they're gonna take SDN down for like 3-4 days and then move the server across country and we don't want that do we?
 
Originally posted by Moskeeto
If everyone keeps fighting, they're gonna take SDN down for like 3-4 days and then move the server across country and we don't want that do we?
Click to expand...

:laugh: thanks, I needed a laugh...now I should go to bed while I'm in a good mood ;)

sweet dreams folks
 
Originally posted by ewsmith1
For all you "cry-babies" out there....Suck it up!

The "off limit" interview questions typically only apply to employee-employer situations, not school interviews.

If you think you have been screwed in some way, then sue the school and see if you ever get in anywhere?????

Why don't you spend your time improving your GPAs and overall application instead of wasting your energy complaining...just answer the questions freaking and move on!

If you are that sensitive to these questions then how will you ever make through professional school; you won't!!!!

The basis behind most of these questions are to see how the applicant responds under pressure; and personal questions are usually more difficult to bull**** through...
Click to expand...

This is a bit behind but I only came across this post yesterday.

There are certainly other ways to test how one deals with pressure rather than an illegal/improper question so I don't buy this claim that it's a good test.

It's a question of human rights legislation here I believe so indeed certain questions cannot/should not be asked. However, different jurisdictions will likely have different statutes/legislation, so I hestitate to make a all encompassing statement.
 
Thanks for the bump, Medici. I was really enjoying this thread until ewsmith1 started spewing his venom.

Most of us here WOULD suck it up and try to answer the question diplomatically. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be able to talk about our frustration. I don't know ewsmith's gender, but the fact is that there still ARE a lot of men on adcoms who think women will inevitably leave medicine to have babies. It's quite a legitimate concern that biology (women are the ones who have the babies) could influence our opportunities in medicine. (IMHO, I think medicine itself benefits tremendously from our increased presence.)

(And BTW, at this point, there's not much any of us can do to improve our GPAs and application, as ewsmith1 suggests we do as an alternative to discussing this valid concern.)
 
I think the questions about life/family plans are perfectly legitimate for both men and women. If I were interviewing, I would want to know that the applicant had thought long and hard about their priorities and plans for the next few years. Childbearing and raising kids are extremely time- and energy-consuming. I would expect an applicant to be able to tell me how they planned to deal with those demands; if they didn't want to talk about it, I would expect them to be able to gracefully deflect the question and not freak out on me.

If you think those questions are inappropriate in interviews, wait until you are an unmarried 40-year-old woman, and near-strangers are asking you why you haven't got any kids and whether you plan to have any and are you sure you made the right decision because you might really regret it. Now that's rude.
 
MeowMix--

Yes, nosing in a stranger's business is rude. I wouldn't have as much of a problem with the questions if they were asked to both men and women. How doctors expect to handle their family lives is important, but people don't seem to worry about men as much ... Also, you never know whether you're being interviewed by someone whose family never sees him or her ... medicine before all else, etc.

Incidentally, when I got these questions, I just told them that my husband and I had discussed options, which included HIS staying at home for a while.
 
Originally posted by indo

anyway, If I were an interviewer I would ask medical students, "If I told you that there were 600 applicants just like you, how would you convince me that you should be accepted?"
Click to expand...

Yeah, most of us got that one, too.
 
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