The stupid things you said at the interview

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I was debating on whether or not to post this story, but here it goes:

I was at UDM, and it was my first interview of the cycle. I was a little nervous, but not too bad. The interview had started off well, and then I got the "How would your friends describe you" question. When I was asked that at a mock interview, my mock interviewer told me to always add examples to every characteristic. This resulted in the following exchange:

UDM Interviewer: So, how would your friends describe you?
Me: Smart, funny and kind
*Proceed to explain smart and funny characteristics, because they are self explanatory, but then stall at kind so I kind of just stopped talking and hoped they wouldn't notice*
UDM Interviewer: Why would your friends say you are kind?
Me: *Freeze and stare at his face for what seems like a solid 5 minutes* Well... whenever there are bugs that get into my apartment, my roommates always want to kill them... but I always save them and throw them outside.
UDM Interviewer: ... *awkward chuckle as he looks at the other interviewer and then asks next question*

I got accepted tho, so whatevs. Hooray for saving bugs.
 
tcufrof824 said:
Total interview lasted about 30 minutes. 15 of those minutes talking about alcohol and fake IDs and another 5 talking about how I'm apparently not going to graduate.

Dec. 1: Wait listed.
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Screen Shot 2015-01-28 at 7.04.16 PM.png
 
Had one interviewer really push on the fact that I was only working part time. Kept persisting on helping my grandparents more. Never mind the fact that you're often given part time hours in order save on benefits.
 
tcufrof824 said:
My first interview was with 4 ADCOMs. I disclosed 2 different underage drinking instances on my application, one of which was my RA finding my fake ID in my dorm room. They brought up the drinking violations right away and I explained what happened, how I was stupid, what I learned, etc., hoping to move on so I could talk about some more positive things on my application. One of the interviewers then asked me everything about the fake ID: where I got it from, whose picture was on it, whose address, what state I was from. So I explained how me and a group of friends got on some Chinese website and ordered these IDs. At this point I was really hoping we could get over this whole thing, but then he asks me exactly how many times I used my fake ID which I answer 5 or 6 times just to get into bars. Finally, a different interviewer chimes in "How about you tell us what you like to do in your free time other thank drinking beer?" That got a laugh from everyone and broke some tension. I was hoping for smooth sailing in the last half of the interview.

5 minutes later, a different interviewer is looking at my transcripts and asks if I'm going to graduate in time. I only took 12 credits in the fall semester, and I'm currently enrolled in one 3 credit upper bio class that I need to graduate. I answer yes I'm graduating in May 2015. He looks back down at my transcripts and says "I don't think you have enough credits." I tell him something like "I don't know if there is a problem with the transcripts you have, but I'm 100% sure I'm graduating in May." I try to explain how I took physics over the summer at a different university and how I brought in a bunch of Spanish credits, but he remained concerned.

Total interview lasted about 30 minutes. 15 of those minutes talking about alcohol and fake IDs and another 5 talking about how I'm apparently not going to graduate.

Dec. 1: Wait listed.
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=0 Ruuude-uh!
If you ended that story with 'then they turned on a really bright light and started blowing cigarette smoke in my face', I wouldn't be surprised.
 
At UW we had 3 separate interviews. My first interviewer asked me ,"What is amalgam?" It was my 7th dental school interview, so I thought I pretty much heard every question possible to ask, but no one before had ever asked specific dentistry questions, so it was definitely a curveball and I was not expecting at at all. I spent 5 minutes describing alginate, because it was the first thing related to dentistry that came to my mind that started with an "A". He looked at me like an idiot and then moved on. Mid-way through the interview I realized what amalgam was, but it was too late for me to revert. With my second interviewer, he asked me, "What are the two most common types of fillings?" I said, "Amalgam and composite, of course." He said, "Great! It is surprising how many people don't know the answer to that question!" I just laughed...I felt like SUCH and idiot for blanking out during the first interview on something so damn basic... I interviewed in Oct and I still haven't heard back from them. Lol oh well. Gotta live and learn I guess!
 
Dunno if it's a stupid thing I said.

But anyways, I was in the middle of an interview, talking about the hardships of not having any papers when I went to college (immigrated back in the 90's though). The interviewer (older aged gentleman) cuts me off and says

"Oh yeah, I read that. You were an illegal immigrant."

Umm...okay? Not exactly the title I liked hearing. Especially since I grew up hearing things from folks saying "go back to your country." Kinda hoped I wouldn't run into that problem in dental school. So, I try talking to him about what he's done in the past. He mentions going to Peru and volunteering. So I perk up and go

"Oh, wow! Do you speak Spanish? haha"

And he replies "un poquito (a little). But this is America and we speak English here."

Ouch.

On top of that, he simply read off the questions from the paper, asked me to repeat my responses like three times (he wrote what I said word for word), and he asked me how to spell a word. He also cut me off a few times to say "yeah I read that already" (referring to my profile). It wasn't the best experience.

But I did get accepted there, so go figure.
 
Thetoothhurts91 said:
Dunno if it's a stupid thing I said.

But anyways, I was in the middle of an interview, talking about the hardships of not having any papers when I went to college (immigrated back in the 90's though). The interviewer (older aged gentleman) cuts me off and says

"Oh yeah, I read that. You were an illegal immigrant."

Umm...okay? Not exactly the title I liked hearing. Especially since I grew up hearing things from folks saying "go back to your country." Kinda hoped I wouldn't run into that problem in dental school. So, I try talking to him about what he's done in the past. He mentions going to Peru and volunteering. So I perk up and go

"Oh, wow! Do you speak Spanish? haha"

And he replies "un poquito (a little). But this is America and we speak English here."

Ouch.

On top of that, he simply read off the questions from the paper, asked me to repeat my responses like three times (he wrote what I said word for word), and he asked me how to spell a word. He also cut me off a few times to say "yeah I read that already" (referring to my profile). It wasn't the best experience.

But I did get accepted there, so go figure.
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WOW...that is so rude! I would definitely not want to go to a school where the atmosphere was like that...you'd think these health professionals who have gone through so many years of schooling would know better than that...
 
oceanangel4 said:
WOW...that is so rude! I would definitely not want to go to a school where the atmosphere was like that...you'd think these health professionals who have gone through so many years of schooling would know better than that...
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Yeah I was pretty shocked/upset but I didn't show any sign of it. I kinda just chalked it up to old habits dying hard.
 
It wasn't so much what I said, but I did something pretty stupid.

I was very nervous before my NYU interview since it was one of my top choices. When I sat down in the admissions office to await my interview, I thought I had gained weight because my suit pants felt so tight. My pants felt very uncomfortable, so after my interview I went to the bathroom and realized I was still wearing my gym shorts that I slept in the night before. I was apparently so nervous when I got ready that morning that I mistook them for a fresh pair of underwear. I had nowhere to put them, so I kept them on and had to constantly "rearrange myself" the entire day.
 
On my interview with MUSC.
Interviewer: so do you have any questions for me?
Me: I heard that students at MUSC do not get a lot of root canal cases, can you tell me about that and can you explain briefly to me what the clinical education is like? (WTF? I didn't even know how to answer such a question myself!)
Interviewer, to my surprise, went on and talked for 10 minutes.
.............. 10 minutes passed......................
Me: Yeah, sounds good.

And I got in first batch.
 
zhou381OSU said:
On my interview with MUSC.
Interviewer: so do you have any questions for me?
Me: I heard that students at MUSC do not get a lot of root canal cases, can you tell me about that and can you explain briefly to me what the clinical education is like? (WTF? I didn't even know how to answer such a question myself!)
Interviewer, to my surprise, went on and talked for 10 minutes.
.............. 10 minutes passed......................
Me: Yeah, sounds good.

And I got in first batch.
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And you showed the interviewer that you can take the time to listen to future patients.
 
I remember that the interviewer brought up a question related to a time I felt out of place/out of my comfort zone and how I handled the situation. The only thing I could think of was when I studied abroad in Spain one time and got really drunk while going salsa dancing for the first time and talked about that for a few minutes... Got in first round.
 
edit:

Realized I am not supposed to say what happens during that interview experience
 
Last edited:
I had just retaken my DAT in case I needed to reapply.

My first interview shortly thereafter:
Interviewer: what do you like to do for fun?

Me: I actually haven't had fun for a while (wait WTF WHY DID I SAY THAT -MUST CORRECT), because I was studying for the DAT and recently retook it. However, in my study breaks I enjoyed watching Netflix (OMG NO WHY did i rly just say that)

Interviewer: (who is very nice) oh! What do you watch?

Me: I recently got into 'How to Get Away With Murder' (srsly, I couldn't have said any other non-murderous show?!) and *begins to explain synopsis*

Interviewer: Nice, I have recently seen...

I was lucky my interviewer recently binged watched a show & we were able to talk over it. At that point I got comfortable and was able to explain my other hobbies haha.
 
Scumbag_Steve said:
I wore a brown belt with a black suit at my last interview at Michigan. I didn't know where my black belt went and just had to hold the pants up. Nobody said a word... Accepted

Also I was chewing gum accidentally at my Columbia interview. It was the first interview I had where they took place before lunch, and I was thrown off. I didn't realize it was in my mouth until I had already started talking to my interviewer, and I panicked and stuck in under the table when she wasn't looking. She definitely noticed.

I wasn't accepted on December 1st and withdraw my app shortly thereafter to attend another school. I can't help but think that this had something to do with not getting accepted. Lol.
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Are you saying she noticed that you were chewing gum, or that you stuck it under the table?
Did you leave it there or take it away with you?
Why didn't you just swallow it?
 
strep mutans said:
Are you saying she noticed that you were chewing gum, or that you stuck it under the table?
Did you leave it there or take it away with you?
Why didn't you just swallow it?
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Bro it takes seven years to digest gums:yuck:
 
sweetpeeas said:
I had just retaken my DAT in case I needed to reapply.

My first interview shortly thereafter:
Interviewer: what do you like to do for fun?

Me: I actually haven't had fun for a while (wait WTF WHY DID I SAY THAT -MUST CORRECT), because I was studying for the DAT and recently retook it. However, in my study breaks I enjoyed watching Netflix (OMG NO WHY did i rly just say that)

Interviewer: (who is very nice) oh! What do you watch?

Me: I recently got into 'How to Get Away With Murder' (srsly, I couldn't have said any other non-murderous show?!) and *begins to explain synopsis*

Interviewer: Nice, I have recently seen...

I was lucky my interviewer recently binged watched a show & we were able to talk over it. At that point I got comfortable and was able to explain my other hobbies haha.
Click to expand...

OMG TOO FUNNY! THIS exact scenario happened to me...

Interviewer: What do you like to do for fun?

Me: I enjoy playing sports... watching movies...

Interviewer: "Oh yeah? what's the last movie you've seen...

Me: I was so nervous that I ended up saying " How to Get Away With Murder"

and after I said it, in my head I thought "out of all the movies I could have mentioned, I mentioned "Hot to get away with murder" which isn't even a movie, but a documentary ... and about a murderous show!

Me: Trying to save myself... "Have you seen it?"

Interviewer: Nope!


--- Accepted.
 
BrazilianRider said:
I was debating on whether or not to post this story, but here it goes:

I was at UDM, and it was my first interview of the cycle. I was a little nervous, but not too bad. The interview had started off well, and then I got the "How would your friends describe you" question. When I was asked that at a mock interview, my mock interviewer told me to always add examples to every characteristic. This resulted in the following exchange:

UDM Interviewer: So, how would your friends describe you?
Me: Smart, funny and kind
*Proceed to explain smart and funny characteristics, because they are self explanatory, but then stall at kind so I kind of just stopped talking and hoped they wouldn't notice*
UDM Interviewer: Why would your friends say you are kind?
Me: *Freeze and stare at his face for what seems like a solid 5 minutes* Well... whenever there are bugs that get into my apartment, my roommates always want to kill them... but I always save them and throw them outside.
UDM Interviewer: ... *awkward chuckle as he looks at the other interviewer and then asks next question*

I got accepted tho, so whatevs. Hooray for saving bugs.
Click to expand...
LOLLLL that was a very smart, and funny answer lmaoo (maybe cause i'm reading this at 3am in the morning, but that was quite a laugh for me, thank you for making my night)


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile
 
Not a dental school interview experience, but in my interview for a research assistant position in college:

PI: So, why science?
Me: Uhhhh (mind goes blank) I don't like anything else...

Accepted that night 😀
 
Not a dental school interview but my pre-health committee interview 2 days ago:

Everything was going well. Really well tbh. Until I got these 2 questions:

Interviewer (5 total): "How do you expect to provide dental care to the underserved? How will you go about building a dental clinic without sacrificing your income and time?"

Me: "We need to consider that the purpose of dentistry is to ultimately provide care to all walks of life and that uh...Well. You have to educate them on the um... I think that toothpaste... ."

*silence for about 15 seconds*

Here were my thoughts in those moments of silence:
"C'mon think of something!"
"I went over this so many times! They are waiting for an answer!!"
"Wow... I am at a lost. Can they see me sweat? It's actually kinda hot in here so maybe they are sweating too. Maybe they won't see."
"I can't wait to watch Batman vs Superman tomorrow. 2 hours and 30 mins of superhero action!"

Me: "Yes."
 
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