Hi gowings1:
Here is an e-mail I had sent a friend about my interview at ICO. Good Luck!
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I interviewed ICO in September on one of the first days they gave out interviews. The interview procedure is very relaxed at ICO, and I felt very welcome there by their professors and students. I will tell you a little bit about the day I had at ICO, but they may have changed it because you have a later interview than me and there may be several more students there interviewing at the same time with you. When I was interviewed, it was only I and another student from Illinois.
The interview day is fairly long at ICO, you are expected to be there from around 9:00am to almost 2-3pm (depending on how long your tour of the campus takes). Also, it's always advisable to show up 15 minutes early to any interviews you may have. You will be placed in a lounge area with other interviewers and then several people will take you out of that room when they speak with you.
At first, you will probably get to select what you want for lunch. ICO is one of the nicer schools that actually gives you the choice of having a sandwich for lunch. =). From then, you will speak to an admission counselor about the status of your file. They will let you know if you need to complete any remaining courses, if you should retake the OAT, or anything else that may concern them. It is a great opportunity to ask them about your chances in getting into ICO. When I was there, Aisha Davis reviewed my file, and she was very friendly.
From there, you will go back to the lounge room and they will "surprise" you with a writing assignment. You are given around 15 minutes to write a few paragraphs answering one question. The question I received was: ICO has a very dynamic student population. What could you contribute to that? I have one suggestion; remember to write with a pencil that has an eraser (everything will be supplied). I made the mistake with writing with a pen because I thought they had whiteout (which they didn't).
After your writing sample, they will bring a financial aid officer into the room and they will address any questions you have about tuition, etc. They will provide you with a folder of all these good information about financial aid, and you can write notes in the margins.
After meeting with financial aid, I was taken away by a professor to be interviewed. My interview was considered a blind interview because the professor was not part of the admission committee and did not have access to my file. However, the other student who was interviewing the same day I was, she was actually interviewed by Aisha, so her interview was open-filed. The professor I had was a biochemistry teacher, and we had an interview in her office. The interview took about one hour (you should try to make sure that all your interviews around one hour or longer), and she only asked me 3 questions. #1: Tell me about yourself. (She actually answered the question for herself first - where she grew up, where she went to school, hobbies, etc. - so I just followed her model and phrased my answers the same way. #2: Tell me about your volunteer experience in regard to optometry. I volunteered for an optometrist for a while, and I also volunteered at a school for the blind, so we were able to talk a lot about that. I also talked about the HSEP/Optometry program at UCI, and how I was a coordinator for the class. #3: With all the time you have spent volunteering, have you had any time to join any pre-optometry club at your school, and what kind of leadership position have you taken? I was able to answer this question fairly well, but the professor had also remarked that the admission committee is very familiar with the U SEE EYES club at UCI because they have spoken to the club many times over the last several years, and there are several students from UCI at ICO who were all members of the club.
Finally, you will eat lunch with several current ICO students and you can ask them any question you want. They have no say in whether you get in or not.
After lunch, you will receive a tour of the school, the clinic, and their residential dorms. After your tour, you are free to leave.
Also, ICO has a stay-over-program which allows you to spend the night before at a dorm with a current student. I would highly recommend this because you can speak with the student and get to really know the school. Also, they can prepare you really well for the interview.
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Best wishes,
Rosanna
[email protected]
http://spirit.dos.uci.edu/useeeyes
