Should I request a second interview?

[medsrchr]

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Hi, I'm hoping you experienced SDNers can offer me some suggestions regarding whether or not I should request a second interview. 🙂 I recently interviewed at a school where the interviews are known to be conducted in a conversational manner. According to SDN, they generally last about 45 - 60 minutes.

I'm not sure if my interview was a special case but mine lasted only 30 minutes and it wasn't conversational at all. My interviewer was clearly tired (perhaps she had been on-call?) and she asked mainly three questions: why medicine, why <insert name of school>, and if I could summarize you in a few sentences, what would they be? Most of what I said wasn't written on her notepad.

At the 20 minute mark, she asked me if I had any questions for her and I had to painfully drag out the interview with question after question about the school, curriculum, research opportunities, etc.

So, the question is...should I request a second interview? The school offers second interviews with no questions asked, but I have no idea if she'll be a good advocate for me. I was the only person she interviewed before she left the office quickly so it's not like she has other people to compare me with.

 

[XerxesMD]

Do you know if the interviewer actually sits on the committee/will be actively involved in the decision on your application? Or will she just turn in a summary/evaluation of the interview into the admissions committee? The reason I ask is I think the answer to whether you should seek a second interview varies based on this distinction.

If she is actively involved in the committee, then I would ask for a second interview because she might not have enough information or drive to argue on your behalf in person.

If she is not, I wouldn't ask for a second interview...because the odds are she was really tired or having a bad day and will feel bad about not giving you a good interview experience. In this case, she quite possibly might give you an excellent evaluation to make up for any guilt she feels about the crappy interview. The only reason I say this is because I had an interview very much like yours. Mine also lasted 20 minutes and I dragged it out for 5 minutes at the end with some BS that I won't go into here. Anyway, I thought it was my worst interview ever, and I wrote that school off as one that would reject me. Well, much to my surprise, I was accepted. And the reason for this, I think, was that the dude was clearly having a rough day, wasn't in the mood to talk and just wanted to get done with the interview so he could chill out a bit. I have no way of knowing for sure, but he must have given me a good interview eval either because he had made up his mind before meeting me (open file interview), or because he felt bad about the nature of the interview he conducted.

So my answer is, it depends. If she will just be writing an eval and you could tell that she was tired for whatever reason during the interview, I would just go with the first interview and trust that humans (the vast majority of them anyway) are fundamentally good and will seek to right any wrongs they have perpetrated, in this case conducting a shorter than normal and non-conversational interview.

I hope that helps.

 

[namsoon]

I haven't gotten in anywhere yet--so take this how you will--but I think it's really difficult to judge interview performance. At one school, I thought one of my interviewers didn't like me. Of course, that could have just been because he was sick and coughing up a lung during the entire interview, but I just got this sense. I found out later that he gave me the highest ranking possible for the interview. (That interview was also shorter than the typical one for that school).

As for asking for a second interview: although your case is different, I did MMEP (I think it's called SMDEP now, or something along those lines) at Columbia, and one of the deans there told me that one girl came out of her interview bawling and asked for a second interview, which was granted. The dean then took a look at the first interviewer's remarks, which were actually really positive, and then began to question the maturity of the candidate (not so much because of the asking for a second interview, but more because of her emotional response to the interview). It's anecdotal, yes, and again you don't seem to have that same emotional response that one girl did, but just beware that it might look bad if your first interviewer actually gave you a good review.

 

[njbmd]

Hi, I'm hoping you experienced SDNers can offer me some suggestions regarding whether or not I should request a second interview. 🙂 I recently interviewed at a school where the interviews are known to be conducted in a conversational manner. According to SDN, they generally last about 45 - 60 minutes.

I'm not sure if my interview was a special case but mine lasted only 30 minutes and it wasn't conversational at all. My interviewer was clearly tired (perhaps she had been on-call?) and she asked mainly three questions: why medicine, why <insert name of school>, and if I could summarize you in a few sentences, what would they be? Most of what I said wasn't written on her notepad.

At the 20 minute mark, she asked me if I had any questions for her and I had to painfully drag out the interview with question after question about the school, curriculum, research opportunities, etc.

So, the question is...should I request a second interview? The school offers second interviews with no questions asked, but I have no idea if she'll be a good advocate for me. I was the only person she interviewed before she left the office quickly so it's not like she has other people to compare me with.

If you totally feel uncomfortable with the manner in which your interview was conducted by all means take advantage of the second interview if this option is offered to you. I will caution you to not place too much stock in your perceptions of what you believe to be the interviewer's perceptions of you. In 99% of the cases, you are quite wrong.

One of the first things that anyone in medicine learns to adjust to is being able to function when tired. The second thing is that you are far too emotionally involved in the actual interview process to be objective. Most people leave the interview and attempt to rehearse every word, every gesture and everything that was said in their mind. The problem with this is that things that seemed to be a huge issue take on more significance than necessary.

Again, if you feel that a second interview is crucial to your acceptance and you have the option, take it but overall, it is likely not going to matter as much as you would believe. The important thing is to act quickly if you are taking this option. Good luck!

 

[custard]

I wouldn't. This is not so abnormal. I've had several interviewers like this. You can't really compare your interview to what you think usually goes on based on SDN since there are typically a lot of interviewers and this may very well be normal for this particular interviewer at that school (and if so other adcom members may very well know this and take it into a account). At one school where I interviewed they have a similar no-questions-asked policy but they said that we would pretty much know if we needed a re-interview (because the original interview went so badly etc).

Plus, though no formal questions will be asked about your second interviewe I'm sure people (particularly your original interviewer if she is on the adcom) will wonder. Personally, I wouldn't want this negative attention.

 

[DrBowtie]

Pretty standard. Not every interviewer is an amazing conversationalist.
I had one interview that was supposed to be 30 minutes last about 5 and I got in so don't take the length into account. Interviewers have different styles/questions.

As said many times on SDN, if something goes terribly awry the first time, say something during the interview day before you leave if you feel like you need to be reinterviewed.

 

[medsrchr]

I don't think my interviewer is actively on the committee. The interview was open-file and when I sat down, she mentioned that I had an impressive portfolio. However, if I were an interviewer, I'd probably say that to everyone to put him/her at ease.

I probably won't ask for a second interview. Although I didn't get to say everything that I wanted to say, I don't think most interviewees do. I hope she understood that I was very excited about the school. I'll write a letter of interest and hope they accept me.

Thank you everyone for your advice and good luck with your interviews!