UT Southwestern: Second Interview

I noticed that a lot of people on the interview thread have had interviews for UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and many people already are scheduled for the second interview on February 9th, 2005. This school has probably interviewed a lot of people, if not the most, since they started interviewing in early September.

For many people the interview cycle will be winding down at about that time, and this interview will be one of the very last if not the last one. How are people feeling about this interview? What does it mean?

I believe the statistic given is that the school invites 50 people for a second interview and then 35 receive letters of acceptance. If you want to go there, being one of the remaining 15 could be heart breaking.

A lot of peole that I talk to have never heard about this school, but that's probably because it has somewhat recently come out of no where and emerged as a world class institution. The legitimacy of that claim is usually substantiated with the fact that they have four Nobel Prize winners currently associated with the medical school, more than any other medical school alone. The school does suffer from a major prestige problem. It also is technically a state school, but does receive a lot of private funding. The quality and integration of the program, however, trumps any prestige problems for me anyways.

For people going to the second interview, who is anxious to meet Ross Perot? Are they recruiting us now, or are we trying to convince them that we are not one of the 15 to get a thin envelope?

For others, why did you or why did you not consider UT Southwestern? How much does prestige of the institution matter?

 

I would definitely call and ask. You wouldn't believe the number of schools that I thought I was complete at and in fact they were still missing something I know I had sent to them. There is an entire other thread just for those issues, especially those involving Virtual Evals. What is a long time ago, though?

UT Southwestern interviews well into January, so there is still a chance. Hang in there!

 

Well there is a distinction here. UT Southwestern claim is that they have 4 Nobel Prizes actually within the medical school faculty itself. This is partially because the entire university is basically a medical school.

If you want to go on total aggregate Nobel Prizes, the place to be is the University of Chicago (Pritzker School of Medicine). 78 associated nobel prize winners:

26 have won in Physics, 23 in Economic Sciences, 15 in Chemistry, 11 in Physiology or Medicine and 3 in Literature.

14 in the last decade.

1st American to win a Nobel Prize.

They have the highest within the United States, and second by a slim margin to Cambridge in England.

http://www-news.uchicago.edu/resources/nobel/

Admittedly, Rockefeller has more in Physiology or Medicine and perhaps more on faculty in the sciences at the very moment.


Some of the Rockefeller's faculty seem like they might be emeritis already, whereas UT Southwestern's are all actively researching.

Do these numbers matter that much? Probably not. Nobel Prizes do confer some legitimacy to claim world class status though..

Over all, I agree. The general prognosis is that UT Southwestern is on its way up.