Q about interview scheduling

[Haybrant]

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Hi,

How does one meet a balance b.t scheduling an interview early b.c the school is rolling, and scheduling an interview after having experience. Should I schedule a school that is one of my top choices earlier (feb. 15) after having experience in one interview, or after having experience with a few schools (feb. 24). Doesnt seem like that big a diff in the number of days but being feb. maybe it makes a difference. Thanks!

 

[davidus]

Hi,

How does one meet a balance b.t scheduling an interview early b.c the school is rolling, and scheduling an interview after having experience. Should I schedule a school that is one of my top choices earlier (feb. 15) after having experience in one interview, or after having experience with a few schools (feb. 24). Doesnt seem like that big a diff in the number of days but being feb. maybe it makes a difference. Thanks!

depends on the school. How many weeks of interviewing are left? Any idea how many seats they've already filled? UCSF for example, from what I've gathered, accepts fewer initially so that they can take the best applicants that come down the pipe late in the season, so for a school like that definitely wait for a few to put under your belt first. UMich, on the other hand, as another example seems to be filling their class quite quickly and may be full before march. In this case, the experience may not be worth it. In general, I would tend to lean towards having more experience because a late very good interview definitely beats an earlier mediocre interview any day....

 

[davidus]

But then again, it depends on how confident you feel about your interviewing skills. If you are able to practice a lot with some friends/career counselors and feel comfortable and prepared, then maybe the experience of a real interview or two won't really improve your skills much further. Good luck regardless!!!

 

[Haybrant]

thanks for the info davidus; i think im just gonna prep with mock interviews and shedule this earlier; i just hope i dont look back and regret; we'll see 🙂 Good luck with ucsf!

 

[davidus]

thanks for the info davidus; i think im just gonna prep with mock interviews and shedule this earlier; i just hope i dont look back and regret; we'll see 🙂 Good luck with ucsf!

No prob, Haybrant. My advice with mock interviews is try one or two simulating the real thing as much as possible. Especially if you can schedule it with your pre-med/career counseling office so someone you're not familiar with is actually interviewing you. That way, you'll get some of the same pressures of the real thing. With friends, this is much harder to simulate because if you screw up, they'll let you mulligan. Maybe you could have a friend's older sibling interview you possibly. These mock interviews are especially useful when they give you feedback at the end about how you did, how you could've been better.

With friends, you have the luxury of having them re-ask you hard questions over and over and over again until you feel good about your answer. This doesn't mean you should memorize your response. But the more times you have to answer a toughie like "tell me about yourself", the less caught off guard and better prepared you'll be. You don't want to be canned, but you want to have the main points down that you want to discuss. This way, you'll be able to answer the question in a spontaneous manner, but building around major points you've already thought through.

My routine before each interview is to print out all of the interview feedback questions available (removing redundancies) and also the two pages of common interview questions from Kaplan's thin "guide to med admissions" that comes with the class, and then going through all of them (on the plane/in the hotel) and just writing down answers to each in note form. This jogs all of the issues through your mind the day before your interview so it's fresh in your head if your interviewer happens to ask you about it. Lastly, if you have a very good friend that can put up with you (in my case my lovely gf), have this person interview you over the phone briefly with stuff you might be worried about. If you combine this with mock interviews from days/weeks before, you'll be golden. don't forget to study up a bit on the school itself! Best of luck with Stanford! (Sorry for the long post)