I know we are supposed to be enthusiastic about the ECs in our interviews if we are asked about them. I can do this for the majority of my ECs because I genuinely enjoyed them. However, I have no enthusiasm for the research I did. I only did the research because some med schools use lack of research as a way to weed applicants out, but I hated it. Did anyone else have this problem? If so, how did you muster up enough enthusiasm to talk about a hated EC in a positive light at interviews (without sounding like a fake)?
Showing Enthusiasm for a check the Box EC
- Thread starter kk123
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Just tell them the truth. Tell them that you learned a lot about research, but it isn't for you. No need to fake liking something you don't enjoy. They'll appreciate the honesty and won't hold it against you.
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From my perspective as an interviewer, I'm looking for applicants who have communication skills such that they can take what is a complicated thing (research) and explain it in a way that a lay person (me) can understand. Someone with that skill has at least one skill we look for in med students. If you were really enthusiastic about research, you might be applying to grad school rather than med school. So, focus your efforts on being able to clearly and concisely provide definitions and describe what you do.
Good to know! This is very helpful!
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I also did research simply as a check-box item. It was short-term summer research. For my interviews, I was ready to explain the basic details if they asked. But what I would actually do is tell them how you did research, but saw that you prefer the clinical environment much better. If the school has a clinical focus and doesn't care much about research, then you can actually turn this into a strength. It didn't really come up, but I was ready to tell ADCOMs how I preferred the clinical side of medicine, and knew that due to my clinical ECs and short-lived research experience. Now if you're applying to schools that want to see research, then you'll need to really up your BSing skills. No one can help you with that but yourself.
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From my own experience, interviewers rarely ever want to talk about the ECs that everyone else does (research was probably the only exception). In general, my interviewers always wanted to talk about the more unique/different things in my app, and I suppose that's the case with other applicants.
