Questions to Ask at Your Interview

[aminoacid]

For the amount of money you will pay in tuition, you have to start looking at this like the business decision it is. These are some the questions you should be asking your school:

How stable is your faculty? What is the average length of time the average faculty member has taught here?
How many full-time clinical staff do you have?
What are your clinical facilities like? Please elaborate. (Be very wary if they hand you literature or read literature to you. They should know this off the top of their heads).
How much do you pay the hospitals for allowing students to rotate there? (Be wary of secrets). Since you don't have an attached hospital, I'd like to know where my tuition money would during clinical years.
How much do you pay preceptors for teaching your students? Again, I'm trying to figure out where my tuition money would go during my clincal years. (Preceptors are free labor-it's considered unethical for preceptors to take money to teach medical students).
What is the OMT exposure during clinicals? If it varies from site to site, please elaborate on the different sites.
What are students allowed to do on rotations? (All rotations and preceptors are not created equal. Again, the advantage of having an attached teahing hospital).
How are didactics structured?
Who are some of the speakers that have been at grand rounds at the different sites? How often are grand rounds? (At a typical teaching hospital, this occurs weekly.)
What are the strengths of your rotations?
What are the weakness of your rotations?
How do you respond to students' conerns about their core sites or rotations?
What type of board preparation do you offer?
What provisions do you have in place for away rotations that are suddenly cancelled? (Again, the advantage of having a teaching hospital-you always have a home base if something like this happens).
What type of help does staff offer if someone does not match? Elaborate as much as possible, a hypothetical scenario would be great.
Could you provide me with a list of students that would be willing to speak with me about their experiences. I'd like to speak with several people per class, and graduates within the past 3 years. I'd prefer not to speak with any ambassadors, any scholarship recipients, or anyone at the top of the class, but an "average student." (your goal is to seek to most unbiased opinion).

Be wary of a school that will not allow time for you to ask them questions. (What are they hiding? Why so controlling? Do you really want to give these people your money for 4 years?)

If anyone else has questions that should be asked at every interview, please add them.

Do not let these schools delude you into thinking they are doing you a favor. Regardless of how much you want to be a physician, do not settle. They are getting something out of this too. It's time for these DO schools to be held accountable, since the AOA has chosen quanitity over quality. You're investing a lot of time and money in this pursuit-you deserve the best. My advice is to make them earn your business.

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[DadOf2Boys]

While you are there, ask current students what they like and what thy don't like about the school.

Ask interviewers if they could change anything about the school, what would it be.

 

[BCLumas]

How stable is your faculty? What is the average length of time the average faculty member has taught here?

How much do you pay the hospitals for allowing students to rotate there? Since you don't have an attached hospital, I'd like to know where my tuition money would during clinical years.

How much do you pay preceptors for teaching your students? Again, I'm trying to figure out where my tuition money would go during my clincal years.

Although I think SOME of your questions are understandably valid, several of them seem to lack a bit of.. I cannot even place words to it. These 3 I found rather pointless to ask during your interview, especially because it depends on who interviews you. If you have two physicians interviewing you that deal with teaching, they will have no idea what to say when you ask them these questions. In fact, the majority of the questions that you posted I would ask of the financial aid office in an email or by phone. I am sure an email would be preferable so that the information could be given to you in the most detailed way possible. Also, so what if this information does not come straight from memory. Honestly, I would be surprised if most people at any school knew this information off hand.

Although I agree this is a business transaction, a majority of the questions you've said as "important questions" are those that can be asked to people who actually have access to the information you seek. Asking your interviewers might not yield this kind of in depth information.

Good luck this cycle.

 

[aminoacid]

Although I think SOME of your questions are understandably valid, several of them seem to lack a bit of.. I cannot even place words to it. These 3 I found rather pointless to ask during your interview, especially because it depends on who interviews you. If you have two physicians interviewing you that deal with teaching, they will have no idea what to say when you ask them these questions. In fact, the majority of the questions that you posted I would ask of the financial aid office in an email or by phone. I am sure an email would be preferable so that the information could be given to you in the most detailed way possible. Also, so what if this information does not come straight from memory. Honestly, I would be surprised if most people at any school knew this information off hand.

Although I agree this is a business transaction, a majority of the questions you've said as "important questions" are those that can be asked to people who actually have access to the information you seek. Asking your interviewers might not yield this kind of in depth information.

Good luck this cycle.

Actually, everything I know about the inner workings of clinicals I found out from physicians I worked with. I have to disagree with you, these are very valid questions, because these questions were raised to me by these physicians. Interviewers are carefully chosen by schools for a reason, so do not underestimate what they know about their schools. They are not your friend. They are there to sell you their product. They just may or may not be willing to share this information with prospetive students.

I've already been through the process and only sharing my thoughts as I reflect. Take them for what you think they're worth.

Good luck with school.