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I was rejected after an interview the first time I applied to Western. I was a lousy interviewer. I took a year off of school to work, shadow, and volunteer a bunch. I was never interested in doing a Master's (I've done some research and it isn't my thing) and instead decided to focus on activities that I genuinely enjoyed. That way, I had meaningful things to talk about in my next interview. I also practiced interviewing EVERY night for about a month leading up to my second interview. Practice with people who are good at it! Find methods of structuring your answers without sounding rehearsed.  

 

I highly, highly recommend shadowing if you haven't already - you need to know that your heart is in this profession. If you genuinely want this, this setback will seem trivial, and your passion will show through in your interview. Dental school is difficult and you will experience failure, big or small. I guarantee that this experience will help you to grow as a person.

 

Best of luck! 

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You are extremely competitive stats wise considering you got multiple interviews, congrats! You may just need some more life experience to draw examples from in interview questions. Take advantage of the next year and do things you love to expand your list of experiences.

 

I don't have experience with MMI but for CDA I personally invested in prep courses and practiced questions every night with my mom (lol) at least 2 weeks before the interview. I also made a list of examples of conflicts/ethical dilemma's I've faced in my life and tried to apply them to any practice CDA behavioural questions I could find. I would say practice informally first using STAR method, then set up mock interviews if it's just the formality that chokes you up. It happens to all of us. 

 

Good luck!

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On 4/5/2017 at 6:41 PM, DDS.2019 said:

I was rejected after an interview the first time I applied to Western. I was a lousy interviewer. I took a year off of school to work, shadow, and volunteer a bunch. I was never interested in doing a Master's (I've done some research and it isn't my thing) and instead decided to focus on activities that I genuinely enjoyed. That way, I had meaningful things to talk about in my next interview. I also practiced interviewing EVERY night for about a month leading up to my second interview. Practice with people who are good at it! Find methods of structuring your answers without sounding rehearsed.  

 

I highly, highly recommend shadowing if you haven't already - you need to know that your heart is in this profession. If you genuinely want this, this setback will seem trivial, and your passion will show through in your interview. Dental school is difficult and you will experience failure, big or small. I guarantee that this experience will help you to grow as a person.

 

Best of luck! 

xx

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On 4/5/2017 at 7:17 PM, Dr. Drake Ramoray said:

You are extremely competitive stats wise considering you got multiple interviews, congrats! You may just need some more life experience to draw examples from in interview questions. Take advantage of the next year and do things you love to expand your list of experiences.

 

I don't have experience with MMI but for CDA I personally invested in prep courses and practiced questions every night with my mom (lol) at least 2 weeks before the interview. I also made a list of examples of conflicts/ethical dilemma's I've faced in my life and tried to apply them to any practice CDA behavioural questions I could find. I would say practice informally first using STAR method, then set up mock interviews if it's just the formality that chokes you up. It happens to all of us. 

 

Good luck!

xx

 

 

 

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Sounds like you know what you need to do. Once you have those experiences, it would maybe also help in your case to get critical feedback from a dental student that got into the schools you get an interview. I personally didn't know any recent students/grads so that's why I used a prep company. Even though I paid a couple hundred, it was a small price to pay for a great return in my case. In the end, you need somehow identify what your weak points are and importantly give yourself enough time to improve on them.

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lol we're in very similar situations...

I think it's important to take this as a learning opportunity and really gain some life experiences and interview practice over these gap year(s). 

It's definitely a crappy feeling, but I think it's important that you don't see this as a total failure and still find time to enjoy the remainder of your senior year, summer and year :) 

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Hi,

 

I have recently interviewed at UBC (MMI) and Toronto (CDA) and received rejections from both schools. 

 

I called Toronto and my interview was below average, and I'm sure my UBC MMI was below as well. I am a little choked, but at the same time I understand that it is going to require some growing on my part to become a more competitive applicant and just bigger person overall. 

Do any of you have tips with regards to moving forward in the face of post interview rejections? Maybe have experiencing with re-interviewing at schools? I understand that there is no one right way of interviewing/preparing, so I am looking more for just general stuff like maybe motivation tips, activities that helped you grow/avoid ruminating over rejection etc. 

 

However if you also have some interviewing advice I'm pretty open to that as well ;)

 

I am new to the forum so if these kinds of threads are inappropriate or need to be moved to a different subforum just give me a shout 

 

Thanks :) 

 

 

 

Hey! I'm sorry to hear about the rejections but I can tell you from my own personal experience that if you put your mind to it and practice, it can work out in the end! I was rejected last year from the schools I interviewed at and felt gutted about not getting accepted. At the moment, it felt like I should have applied to Australia/US or looked into other Masters programs but I knew for a fact my interview skills weren't good at all. I weighed my options and decided to take a gap year to work, do research, shadow, travel and improve on my interview skills. 

 

Specifically for CDA, I practiced my interviewing skills once a week by looking at random questions on TopStar/Dental Interview Plus and brainstorming ideas in my mind to see how quickly I could come up with points to talk about. I knew the structure for CDA was quite straightforward but to be able to nail the competencies and have personal experiences incorporated was lacking in my answers. I kept at it, week after week and eventually, things just started to click. I could talk for 4-5 min, incorporate the competencies and be more free-flowing/confident in my answers! Once I got that down, I spent the next month practicing in front of a camera, recording myself and seeing how I could be in a "simulated interview". Again, practice made things easier and I noticed improvement which kept me going. Closer to interviews (~1 month prior), I practiced with friends/family/dentists who could spare their time for 35-40 minutes and just told them to give me 7 random questions from the CDA bank. Turns out, I got real good at it and received positive feedback! For CDA, it's all practice and just becoming confident in your answers! Don't fret over it, I'm sure you'll get in next cycle to UofT :)

 

For MMI, I took a different approach. My structure was completely off and I couldn't gather my thoughts in a logical manner. Also, the answers needed to be more in-depth than CDA, which I found difficult at first but again, practice makes perfect! I started off looking at the big list of MMI questions, nailing them off one by one to see if I can gather talking points and argue both sides. Also, I read this forum topic: http://forums.premed101.com/index.php?/topic/90480-phd2mds-advice-on-interviewing-well/

 

I got better at tackling ethical/situational MMI questions, looking at how to approach questions and looking at feedback provided by my friends/family/dentists to see how they would approach the question. I saw that the best way to approach it was to actually put yourself in that position visually and see who are the stakeholders/ethical principles involved. For task/acting scenarios, I just told my friends to make up scenarios and surprise me. I got some weird stations from them but hey, it helped throwing myself into things I couldn't expect (which the MMI basically does)! There are tons of acting/task scenarios online posted by people on premed, student doctor network, etc. It takes a day to compile it and use it to practice. As for UBC, I'm not sure how to prep for the PBL but the other stations, its just a matter of staying calm and appearing confident in yourself. The best advice I got was "If you can walk in confident and calm, you've won half the battle. Practice this every time your practice interviewing". I did that for my MMI and I got a straight acceptance this time around, which was a complete turnaround compared to last year. Don't give up and push through B). If you have any other questions, feel free to PM me! Good luck!

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