Multi - Interview planning??

[Scooby Doo]

Okay,
I am on the west coast...and I have a couple interviews towards the East. Is there any way to call other schools in the mean time to speed up their application process to see if I can just make one long trip to hit like 3 schools at once? Has anyone done this? Do you recommend it? I wouldn't mind the trips but my boss is kind of irritable lately and this is going to cost a fortune if I have to keep going back and forth from West to East.

Also, I made a reservation on cheaptickets.com and now I found out I should have made done it differently! however, the ticket is nonrefundable and all that crap. So are people shelling out more money to get refundable tickets or tickets that can be changed in case another interview comes up??

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[C U in MD school]

hey ScoobyDoo, a friend of mine who is in med school now told me never rush the school. so, with all the amcas bull, i wouldnt put any extra pressure on them. i would spent the money and play it safe. and if you ever end up going to a east coast schoo... will this few extra dollars wont seem like much compared to ur out of state fees. good luck on your interviews!

 

[AJM]

I would have to respectfully disagree with CU. I applied from the West Coast as well, and by calling up schools I hadn't heard from yet, I was able to take combined interview trips to the East Coast. This made the cost of interviewing so much cheaper, and was so worth it. I didn't really know anyone who actually would take a trip to the East Coast for just one interview if they could help it.

Admissions committees often can be very helpful in this regard. They understand the financial strains of travelling to visit just one school, and will often work with the applicant. Sure, there are always going to be the few admissions committees that don't work with you, but you never know unless you ask. For the most part trying to coordinate worked out well for me and my friends applying my year.

The tricky thing about asking is how you word it. You should not in any way ask an admissions committee to "speed up" your application so that you can get your interview when you want it. You will be seen as obnoxious and overly self-confident. Instead you should basically say something like "I'm applying to your school from the West Coast, and I will be in your area around X time. If you are considering granting me an interview, would it be possible for me to get an interview for around that date?"

So basically, I agree that you shouldn't tell them to speed up, but you can hint that to them by telling them that you'll be around their area then. That's pretty much the way I asked, and for the most part I got very positive responses from schools. The schools that didn't work with me basically just told me that they wouldn't have completed reviewing my application by then or something to that effect.

 

[AJM]

Oh -- for airline tickets, this is what I did: I would make sure an airline had an upgrade option, and then would buy the cheaper ticket. If another interview came up and I had to change my flight, I would then upgrade my ticket and change it.

If the airline charges a huge price to upgrade their tickets, or if I was worried about those higher-priced seats selling out, then I would buy the higher-priced seats. Your travel plans are often very much in flux. Unless there's a huge price difference, I would go with the more expensive tickets so that you can change your flights (or go with the first option I mentioned if the airline lets you do it that way).