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- Nov 15, 2015
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Hello all, thanks in advance for any feedback..
So essentially, a few weeks ago I had my first interview, and let's just say I walked in feeling as confident as ever, and walked out feeling not so great. The interview is at a solid school, and as a heads up, is one that is also big on non-medical volunteering (I say this because this piece of my app was brought in my interview). The interview is two separate one on one interviews with first a faculty member, and a medical student. Anyways, let's get right to it.
So, without going into too much detail, I've had some pretty significant family experiences that have led me to bust my ass to pursue medicine, and I have succeeded enough to feel confident about this application cycle, and obviously I landed an interview at a decent school. And so the first 15 -20 minutes of my interview (out of 30 min) with the faculty member, I felt fine about, discussing various family things and what I learned from it, why it'd make me a good physician, blahblahblah, didn't have any qualms with how I presented myself and generally felt fine. After this point, we start talking about my medical experience, which he initially told me he was happy with, showed that I had diversity amongst specialties, had good clinical volunteering, etc... But then he goes on to say how I should try to seek out more specialty experience, and makes suggestions to how I should get inpatient hours for my own benefit, just so I know what I'm getting myself into. Now at this point, I thought it was kind of strange, because it almost felt like a sort of advising session, he was suggesting on what I should be doing and where, not asking me about what I've learned, seen, etc... But I didn't think too much of it, and at this point there was probably about 8 minutes left in the interview, so I was very agreeable and told him I had plans to get more shadowing, and I said what he was saying sounded like a great idea, etc... basically just BSing and showing enthusiasm, trying to come across well (I wouldn't say it felt forced, I definitely did agree with what he was saying). So, at this point, I couldn't help but feel a bit strange, like this guy wasn't giving me much credit for what I've done, but let's move on.
So now comes the kicker is when we get into my non medical volunteering. I'll say this first, I have a lot of it. I accumulated over 500 hours for a program, but the thing is, this was something I did in my early college years. I had to cease this activity for several reasons, including moving 1000 miles away from the program and having to work 2 jobs in order to finance school. So, between moving away, working so much, and continuing to medical volunteer, TA, and keep up my grades, there were some days where I barely had time to eat for myself, let alone add on a new volunteering activity. So, while I know I shouldn't make excuses, volunteering regularly somewhere else in addition to my commitments was very difficult for the last two years before applying. And this guy made sure to point out I didn't serve at some soup kitchen in the past two years. In fact, he didn't seem to care at all that I worked two jobs, he barely even gave me credit at all for the volunteer hours I have accumulated. I remember at one point he scrolled through my app and pointed to my music EC (which I am very proud of BTW, I had a music YouTube channel with 100,000 views), and basically shot it down, saying how it seemed ridiculous (like it was some hobby where I watched videos? IDK but he was older so maybe he didn't understand it) and I could have spent more time volunteering instead of playing music. Needless to say, I didn't feel so hot at this point. This all happened within the last 7 minutes or so I would say.
We wrapped things up by me saying I had done several non medical volunteer activities in the last few months and he was interested in it, telling me to update them about it in a letter, which I did almost immediately when I got home. And I asked some q's about the school I had prepared, and before I knew it, an interview where I felt fine for 75 percent of it turned into something I felt screwed about. I talked to some doc's and they seemed to think he was pressing my buttons to see how reacted. If that was the scenario, I felt I handled it fine, but it didn't really feel like that at all.
Also, for a note, I felt fine about the medical student interview, nothing even close to similar happened with that one.
Sorry this was so long, but it's been driving me crazy for the last few weeks. So, what do you guys think of this? Anyone have a similar experience, or am I looking at a WL and I should hope to the Lord for some more II?
Thanks in advance again!
So essentially, a few weeks ago I had my first interview, and let's just say I walked in feeling as confident as ever, and walked out feeling not so great. The interview is at a solid school, and as a heads up, is one that is also big on non-medical volunteering (I say this because this piece of my app was brought in my interview). The interview is two separate one on one interviews with first a faculty member, and a medical student. Anyways, let's get right to it.
So, without going into too much detail, I've had some pretty significant family experiences that have led me to bust my ass to pursue medicine, and I have succeeded enough to feel confident about this application cycle, and obviously I landed an interview at a decent school. And so the first 15 -20 minutes of my interview (out of 30 min) with the faculty member, I felt fine about, discussing various family things and what I learned from it, why it'd make me a good physician, blahblahblah, didn't have any qualms with how I presented myself and generally felt fine. After this point, we start talking about my medical experience, which he initially told me he was happy with, showed that I had diversity amongst specialties, had good clinical volunteering, etc... But then he goes on to say how I should try to seek out more specialty experience, and makes suggestions to how I should get inpatient hours for my own benefit, just so I know what I'm getting myself into. Now at this point, I thought it was kind of strange, because it almost felt like a sort of advising session, he was suggesting on what I should be doing and where, not asking me about what I've learned, seen, etc... But I didn't think too much of it, and at this point there was probably about 8 minutes left in the interview, so I was very agreeable and told him I had plans to get more shadowing, and I said what he was saying sounded like a great idea, etc... basically just BSing and showing enthusiasm, trying to come across well (I wouldn't say it felt forced, I definitely did agree with what he was saying). So, at this point, I couldn't help but feel a bit strange, like this guy wasn't giving me much credit for what I've done, but let's move on.
So now comes the kicker is when we get into my non medical volunteering. I'll say this first, I have a lot of it. I accumulated over 500 hours for a program, but the thing is, this was something I did in my early college years. I had to cease this activity for several reasons, including moving 1000 miles away from the program and having to work 2 jobs in order to finance school. So, between moving away, working so much, and continuing to medical volunteer, TA, and keep up my grades, there were some days where I barely had time to eat for myself, let alone add on a new volunteering activity. So, while I know I shouldn't make excuses, volunteering regularly somewhere else in addition to my commitments was very difficult for the last two years before applying. And this guy made sure to point out I didn't serve at some soup kitchen in the past two years. In fact, he didn't seem to care at all that I worked two jobs, he barely even gave me credit at all for the volunteer hours I have accumulated. I remember at one point he scrolled through my app and pointed to my music EC (which I am very proud of BTW, I had a music YouTube channel with 100,000 views), and basically shot it down, saying how it seemed ridiculous (like it was some hobby where I watched videos? IDK but he was older so maybe he didn't understand it) and I could have spent more time volunteering instead of playing music. Needless to say, I didn't feel so hot at this point. This all happened within the last 7 minutes or so I would say.
We wrapped things up by me saying I had done several non medical volunteer activities in the last few months and he was interested in it, telling me to update them about it in a letter, which I did almost immediately when I got home. And I asked some q's about the school I had prepared, and before I knew it, an interview where I felt fine for 75 percent of it turned into something I felt screwed about. I talked to some doc's and they seemed to think he was pressing my buttons to see how reacted. If that was the scenario, I felt I handled it fine, but it didn't really feel like that at all.
Also, for a note, I felt fine about the medical student interview, nothing even close to similar happened with that one.
Sorry this was so long, but it's been driving me crazy for the last few weeks. So, what do you guys think of this? Anyone have a similar experience, or am I looking at a WL and I should hope to the Lord for some more II?
Thanks in advance again!
