Your opinions on an Interview Question that left me "WTF?"

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laurengirl

laurengirl

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So yesterday I had my very first interview, at my top choice school...!😀:scared: And this was the last scenario they asked me:

"Your great uncle dies and bequeaths to you 100 000 ping pong balls with free storage for 1 year only. After 1 year, if you still want to store the balls, you pay $1 per ball per day. What do you do?"
It really boggled my mind, I had never ever heard or this question before!

I was so shocked and confuzzled but proud that I was able to come up with something as fast as I did.
I said "I wouldn't store the balls at all, as I have no use for 100,000 ping pong balls, I would donate them to a variety of different community centers/gyms/day cares and schools for the underprivileged.

Now, my questions to you guys:
--What would you have answered?🙄😛
--WTF do you think the reason for asking this question was? What is implicit in it?! Creativity and divergent thinking? 😕
--Have you ever heard of such a question before?
 
Haha... your answer is close to what I would have said. I wouldn't have thought to bring in the underprivileged thing. I'd just donate them to some hardcore table tennis players for training. 🙂
 
McGill pre med. (the program for students who haven't yet done an undergrad university degree)
 
I think this question is trying to test your creativity and ability to think on your feet...I am sure they liked your "good pre-med" answer just fine.

Things I can think of

a) Fill my coworkers cubicle with them

b) Write an encouraging message on each one (i.e. "Do something nice for someone today" or "Today is your lucky day") and dump the whole lot from the roof in a town square

c) build a castle made of ping pong balls and a lot of glue

d) lay them out in a straight line to see how far you get

e) plug 100,000 car exhausts ('tis my evil side talking)

f) go to the tallest skyscraper and let them all roll down the staircase from the top floor

g) play ALOT of ping pong until they are all broken

h) make a raft out of ping pong balls

ok...that's good for now...
 
I would've hosted the world's largest multi-player ping pong tournament in my uncle's honor. 👍

The underprivileged angle seems a bit contrived IMO.
 
MsKrispyKreme said:
I would've hosted the world's largest multi-player ping pong tournament in my uncle's honor. 👍

The underprivileged angle seems a bit contrived IMO.
Click to expand...

lol.

I was about to post the exact same thing!

Don't keep those ping pong balls in storage -- in shame. Use them! Celebrate! Ping pong ball tournament in his honor!

(I would have nailed that question.)

😀
 
BlueElmo said:
My apologies.
Click to expand...

s'ok, I understand why you'd wonder. The Med-P interviews run later, and I actually was on the last day of interviewees. 😱

Silverhide and JonathanMD: those are GREAT answers. Wow creative!

Afterwards I thought I would have wanted to add "...and keep 1 ball in my uncle's honor/to remember the good deed I did! Hindsight is 20/20 and no answer is perfect..😎

Yeah the underprivileged thing is a cliche, but I hope they won't hold that against me because my reasoning was to put them to use/give to people who would actually benefit from them as opposed to storage (useless) or me (useless, as I have a)no ping pong table and b) suck at ping pong ANYWAY:laugh:)
 
Why isn't my name among the bolded in your post, Lauren Girl? 😡

I wantz mah kudos. 🙁
 
MsKrispyKreme said:
Why isn't my name among the bolded in your post, Lauren Girl? 😡

I wantz mah kudos. 🙁
Click to expand...

omg SORRY! I definitely thought of you when writing that, though. Large scaled ping pong tournament = 👍👍👍
WHILST playing Beer Pong, of course.😀
 
I like the donation angle, but I would have added that I would have used the empty storage space as an office to run my free-ping pong ball charity or internet start-up or sublet it to another person for cash.
 
world's largest beer pong tournment with wet tshirt contest.

wait, you werent interviewing for Maxim?
 
buy multiple ping pong tables.
buy tons of paddles.
travel to an impoverished country.
introduce thousands of young'ens to table tennis.


👍
 
Ok, so first you have to realize that it's not like a warehouse full of balls. The balls should fit in a space smaller than a 6 foot cube. So the storage rates are kind of irrelevant, because you could just move them into your basement.

I'd sell them on ebay by the boxful, but that's just me I guess.
 
Azadre said:
The wrong answer is beer pong.
Click to expand...

See, if I were an adcom, the RIGHT answer would be beer pong...
I don't suppose that would be a particularly good med school though...
 
I'm not sure that charities take ping-pong balls. I'd sell 99,999 of them for a penny apiece to anyone who wanted them. I'd use the money to buy a ping-pong table and paddles, plus store the last ball for the rest of my life as an homage to my late uncle.

People don't bequeath things to other people in the hopes that it will all be given away to people they don't know, right? If the uncle had wanted all the balls to go to charity; he could have done that. 🙂
 
KeyzerSoze said:
Ok, so first you have to realize that it's not like a warehouse full of balls. The balls should fit in a space smaller than a 6 foot cube. So the storage rates are kind of irrelevant, because you could just move them into your basement.

I'd sell them on ebay by the boxful, but that's just me I guess.
Click to expand...

I actually think that's a good answer. "One year would give me plenty of time to clear out the corner of my basement."

How about holding a one year essay contest to determine the best use of 100,000 ping pong balls. The prize: 100,000 ping pong balls.
 
" I will not store them, I'll just give them away to my children and grandchildren." lol
but I might laugh at such a question though, do u think they will like it if I laughed? 😛
 
Azadre said:
The wrong answer is beer pong.
Click to expand...
Wrong answer? It's obviously the only right answer. Hold a huge beer pong tournament, with up to 50,000 games going on at once. Donate the proceeds to charity.
 
Steeler7588 said:
Wrong answer? It's obviously the only right answer. Hold a huge beer pong tournament, with up to 50,000 games going on at once. Donate the proceeds to charity.
Click to expand...
Or donate the proceeds to holding another awesome beer pong tournament. You may even be able to recycle some of the ping pong balls.
 
MsKrispyKreme said:
I would've hosted the world's largest multi-player ping pong tournament in my uncle's honor. 👍

The underprivileged angle seems a bit contrived IMO.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't it cost a lot more than 100,000 ping pong balls to host that kind of a tournament? Assuming ping pong tournament coordinators do not accept ping pong balls as payment, you may be approaching the $100,000 mark anyway.
 
I like the ping pong ball fort idea. Or make a big ping pong ball pit...those were always fun as a kid.

Beer pong? Wrong answer? Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.
 
im gonna have to say that you gave the most uncreative answer possible. it shows no depth in your personality. you should have said something funny and interesting.

the ridiculous answers that other people are offering here are the ones you should have said. but donate them? WTF?
 
I would ask interviewees what to do with them.

Or I would ask SDN what to do with them.
 
volume of a ping pong ball is almost exactly 2 cubic inches.

you could rent them out to manufacturers to ensure that their products are being made according to the correct specifications. soft things that are hard to measure the dimensions exactly... like a backpack manufacturer or something.

i guess water would work too, but ping pong balls would be more fun and wouldn't get things wet.
 
You could sell one of them on eBay and use all the other ones as packaging for that one.
 
Go to different college campuses and sell them to pre med students there 🙂 you get money AND free ethanol
 
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Write a will and bequeath them over to my children and then die of not-so-natural causes.
 
KeyzerSoze said:
Ok, so first you have to realize that it's not like a warehouse full of balls. The balls should fit in a space smaller than a 6 foot cube. So the storage rates are kind of irrelevant, because you could just move them into your basement.

I'd sell them on ebay by the boxful, but that's just me I guess.
Click to expand...

I think your math is off. If each ping pong ball is about 2 cubic inches and you take a 6 ft cube (10368 cubic inches) you can fit about 5000 ping pong balls in there as long as you neglect the wasted space that will be between the balls. So you would need about 20 "6 ft cubes" to store these balls. I think that kinda space requirement is closer to a warehouse than a basement.
 
i have a dog that for many years i would give her these little raw hide chew sticks... and in seconds it would be gone... i always thought that she had been quickly eating them as a treat... then one day i start cleaning under my bed, and there behind a couple of Hawaiian shirts was a stash of about 50 raw hide chew sticks... maybe the great uncle is like my dog... just a clepto with OCD... everytime he sees a ping pong ball he starts to twitch, plans an elaborate heist and executes... who knows, the FBI may have a file on this guy filed with all the cliche nicknames... well, i am no law expert, but selling these things for charity, though good in nature, may be committing countless felonies... i know what you are going to say, "freeze, you got it all wrong... my great uncle wasnt a clepto, he was just the owner of a ping pong ball factory which closed down after his death... after liquidation, all he had left was a warehouse filled with ping pong balls..." which i have to ask, how do you survive in this economy selling nothing but ping pong balls... this has central american drug trade written all over it... go ahead, sell a ping pong ball for charity... chances are, when you crack that ball open you are going to find some primo 99% pure black tar heroin...

so i guess what i am saying is that when given a gift filled with obsurdity, prepare to kiss your medical career goodbye because your great uncle just sold you out to the feds...
 
I would try to resurface a small boat that's gone underwater by pushing the ping pong balls through a hose underwater underneath said boat.
 
richse said:
I think your math is off. If each ping pong ball is about 2 cubic inches and you take a 6 ft cube (10368 cubic inches) you can fit about 5000 ping pong balls in there as long as you neglect the wasted space that will be between the balls. So you would need about 20 "6 ft cubes" to store these balls. I think that kinda space requirement is closer to a warehouse than a basement.
Click to expand...

Six cubic feet is 72 in x 72 in x 72 in. Using the legal size of a ball (~1.6 cubic inches) and factoring in the empty space among the balls, over 100,000 would fit into the cube.
 
um no 6 cubic feet is exactly what it is...6 cubic feet. not 6 ft by 6 by 6 lol.

but yes, you are are right, a 6x6x6 will hold the balls.
 
I would have pulled a Dwight from The Office.

"Question, what material are these balls made out of? And what are the aesthetic and market values of the balls? If they're redeeming enough, I'd start my own business to sell the ping pong balls at 50% of their market value. This way, causing my competitors like Wilson to dry away. And with the remaining money, I'll invest in a ping pong company."
 
I think the real question is, "why does my uncle have 100,000 ping pong balls?"

Some random ideas....

1) donate the ping pong balls to starving children in Africa.

2) Start your own extreme lottery (you think the odds to win are bad now?)

3) Fill each ping pong ball with food and the next time a flood/katrina/tsunami occurs, air drop them in.

4) Put a picure of Obama on each ping pong ball and the next time a flood/katrina/tsunami occurs, air drop them in.

5) Fill your carry on luggage with a large amount of them. Also, have ping pong balls placed all over your body....and I do mean all over. Now walk through airport security.

6) Fill one large box with several of them making sure the bottom of the box is not properly secured (hold it shut with your hands). Walk into your organic chemistry class 15 minutes late and allow the box to open up from the bottom. Now proceed to try and pick up every single ball while the professor is still lecturing.
 
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Ever see that episode of Mythbusters where they try to raise the boat with ping pong balls?

Titanic, here I come...

::runs back to pre-pharm forum::
 
A "6 foot cube" is a cube with dimensions 6' * 6' * 6'. I don't see how it could be confused with "6 cubic feet".
 
I would create a "choking hazard ball-pit" for all the neighbor kids.
 
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