Scheduling interviews?

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JakeHarley

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I chose to post this here because I figured this forum would have more readers who've been through this...

I am applying to several schools this summer and trying to develop a plan for the next 1.5 years until I matriculate. I am planning on moving to the small island of Molokai (after getting my application out the door this summer) to pursue a small scale perma-culture public awareness project with my girfriend's father, who is an organic farmer there. I am hoping to devote the following year to this project, a lot of surfing :cool: , propagating fruit trees, and ROCKING my interviews.

My concern is that travel between the Hawaiian islands and the mainland is going to be pretty expensive. I will probably apply to 10 schools, including U. Washington in my hometown.

I'd like to find out if it is typically possible to arrange medical school interviews together time-wise in order to limit the number of times I have to fly across the Pacific. Is there generally any flexibility in scheduling interviews, such that I could get most of them done within a month's time and only have to fly back to the continental U.S. once?

Anyone have any experience with this?

Thanks,

Jake

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The short answer is no. Unfortunately diferent medical schools decide to send out their invitations at different times of the year and though some schools give you the option to choose practicly any date, a lot of schools will give you very few options. I've gotten lucky a few times and gotten some interviews on the same trip but for the most part you schedule the interviews as you get invitations. Interviewing later in the year can sometimes hurt your chances of getting acceptances. To give you an idea my first interview was the first week in November and my last one was the first week in March. Of course if you happen to get into your first choice school early on then that solves a problem

Also depending on how strong your application is, you might want to consider applying early decision if travel is a big concern to you and you have a clear number one choice.
 
Sometimes you can make it work. If you apply to a bunch of schools in an area and get an interview at one, it's quite common to call the others in the area, explain the situation and ask if they would be willing to interview you at the same time. This works best if you've already completed secondaries at those other schools, of course. The worst they could do is say no, you must wait until we contact you. Since it's a very common thing for applicants to do, I highly doubt it would place any weird mark on your application, just because you asked.
 
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Thanks guys for the replies.

I feel my application will be pretty strong. I will definitely apply for the early decision at UW, and probably just plan on dropping a lot of coin on traipsing around the country throughout the year if I am not accepted there.

I'm sure the frequent flyer miles will come in handy when its vacation time down the road! ;)
 
Thanks guys for the replies.

I feel my application will be pretty strong. I will definitely apply for the early decision at UW, and probably just plan on dropping a lot of coin on traipsing around the country throughout the year if I am not accepted there.

I'm sure the frequent flyer miles will come in handy when its vacation time down the road! ;)
 
The big interview season is Oct to early January. It may be conceivable to delay your interview offers until december, and then spend 1-2 weeks on the east coast, particularly new york and philadelphia. There are students who you can stay with. I don't think that delaying your interviews to Dec will significantly impact your chances. If you apply to 10 schools, you will probably have about 4-5 interviews.
That said, there are also middle-tier schools in the Midwest (SLU, MCW) that you may get interviews from, and that may complicate things.

Still, if it were me, I would just do each flight singly or doubly..you never know how many interview offers you will receive until March, you will feel the need to do them early. I would start making connections with friends who are travel agents. The MKK-HNL part may make things more inflexible. My guess would be at least $600 per flight to the east coast. It will be more painful when you factor in the 12-18 hours you waste travelling each direction (airport food, days off, etc).
I would think about other practical considerations too - do you have a good internet connection at this ranch?
 
I've heard UWashington is pretty flexible on interviewing times. A friend's brother was coming from Africa to interview, and he just called UWash (I believe after he was asked to interview), explained the situation and asked to reschedule his interview. They allowed him to do this, and he was recently accepted, so it shouldn't affect your chances. Good luck!
 
Molokai's a nice place. Definitely stick to one airline, like Hawaiian...rack up those miles!
 
carrigallen said:
The big interview season is Oct to early January. It may be conceivable to delay your interview offers until december, and then spend 1-2 weeks on the east coast, particularly new york and philadelphia. There are students who you can stay with. I don't think that delaying your interviews to Dec will significantly impact your chances. If you apply to 10 schools, you will probably have about 4-5 interviews.
That said, there are also middle-tier schools in the Midwest (SLU, MCW) that you may get interviews from, and that may complicate things.

Still, if it were me, I would just do each flight singly or doubly..you never know how many interview offers you will receive until March, you will feel the need to do them early. I would start making connections with friends who are travel agents. The MKK-HNL part may make things more inflexible. My guess would be at least $600 per flight to the east coast. It will be more painful when you factor in the 12-18 hours you waste travelling each direction (airport food, days off, etc).
I would think about other practical considerations too - do you have a good internet connection at this ranch?

Thanks for your thoughts.
 
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