Questioned about Away Rotation

[Flick]

Hi everyone,
Was anyone questioned at their interviews about doing an away rotation at another institution? I had that come up at a couple of interviews, and it got me thinking that those places might not rank me as high since they might think that I am going to rank "the other program" as my #1.

Any thoughts?

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[johnnywalker]

Schools should realize that students are evaluating many, many programs, and that although they may have been your top choice at that time, they may not be now...and schools should also realize that students may be unable for one reason or another to do a rotation at their institution.

Many students at my school did away rotations close to their hometown, and used the rotation more for visiting back home and less for the rotation itself

i'd talk about how it was and what you learned there, and like any interview talk about how you are interested in coming to the program you are interviewing at (the program, the location, the residents)...

 

[14022]

No program would rank a good applicant lower because they think they may not be ranked very highly by the applicant. What would a program gain by doing that? It just doesn't make any sense. I don't know why they ask it, maybe to get a sense of what your looking for in a program. If you are worried about how it will look, you can always use the excuse that you have a good friend who lives in that area and you wanted to spend a month visiting them.