Guest DrNicki Posted January 22, 2006 Report Share Posted January 22, 2006 Howdy, all! For those of you lucky enough to have earned an interview at Queen's Medicine, I would like to extend many congratulations! We in the first year class at Queens Med are already busy planning what we hope will be an enjoyable and informative interview weekend for all you anxious/elated/so so nervous interviewees. We will do our best in the mean time to answer your questions on this forum, so please feel free to ask anything and everything that crosses your mind regarding the programme, the school, or Kingston in general. Cheers, n. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest McMaster Health Posted January 22, 2006 Report Share Posted January 22, 2006 Hey Dr Nicki, Thanks a lot for your offer. Do you know by any chance when are we going to recieve official letters/emails from Queen's? Would you kindly tell us about special features of Queen's curriculum? Can you tell us about your usual day at Queen's? Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest little endian Posted January 22, 2006 Report Share Posted January 22, 2006 Hi, I'm also a first year at Queen's and I can't answer when you'll recieve your official letters although I did recieve mine on January 23 in 2005. One of the different things about Queen's curriculum is that we have a whole first semester of basic science to allow everyone to catch up and be on the same page when we get into clinical stuff. Coming from an engineering background this was a lot of stuff i didn't know. We also did a full semester of anatomy. Some other schools only do a few weeks of catch-up time to get everyone up to speed. One of my favorite things about Queen's is that we started our clinical skills right away and by christmas we were able to do a full physical screening exam and full history. A typical day? Well, it depends on what day it is! If it's a thursday there's a morning of lectures from 8:30-11:30 and then clinical skills from 1:30-4:30 in small groups with two physician tutors per group. We do often get afternoons off in the week to study and catch up. Also, many students choose to do observerships that fill up their mornings/afternoons and are very encouraged at Queen's. This is when you contact a physician and basically go follow them around for the day. For example, I'm spending a whole day in the ophthalmology OR on Tuesday and a half day in the obstetrics clinic on Friday. I hope this answers some of your questions! Good luck on getting an interview. Kate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest lidia Posted January 22, 2006 Report Share Posted January 22, 2006 Thanks Kate and Nicki! I was wondering if you have any special advice about the Queen's interview in particular, for instance, what is different about this interview than those at other schools and how we should prepare for it.. especially if this is our first year interviewing. Queen's is high on my list right now, and I would love to be one of the 100 (or 150 with waitlist) people out of 500 that has the chance to go to Queen's! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dr3ni Posted January 22, 2006 Report Share Posted January 22, 2006 hey. i jsut saw on the queens site that the cGPA is 3.68 and the GPA of the best 2 years is 3.78. so if you can only meet the requirments for the 2 years would that be looked upon negatively at all? thanks 3ni Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ET Posted January 22, 2006 Report Share Posted January 22, 2006 Hey all! I'm also a class of 2009er here at Queen's. Just wanted to wish you all luck on the interview process (getting the interview and doing well if you do). I'll also try to help you folks through the experience and answer any questions I can. As far as the GPA goes, I had a @#%$ 4-year GPA but did well in my last 2 years... and I got in. So presumably they *don't* look down on you if you stink it up for a year or two and then manage to scrape up a good GPA. As far as prepping for the interview goes... it's a pretty laid back process with a Faculty member (clinician or researcher), a 2nd year student and a community member. They'll ask you about things you put on your autobiographical sketch. This means know your sketch well and be able to elaborate on the 20-25 words OMSAS generously alots for your sketch description when you filled in the application last fall. If nothing else, know your sketch. -Elisha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest RoseSmurfette Posted January 23, 2006 Report Share Posted January 23, 2006 I was looking at the Queen's curriculum and it seems to me that clerkship doesn't start until Jan. of the third year as opposed to Sept. in most schools. Is this true? And if so, what do you think are the advantages/disadvantages of this system? Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest coastalslacker Posted January 23, 2006 Report Share Posted January 23, 2006 The question regarding clerkship has been asked before, as have most questions. Take a quick look through old posts and it'll probably save you time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest little endian Posted January 23, 2006 Report Share Posted January 23, 2006 As for the interview, just relax and be yourself! I wasn't asked anything in my interview that wasn't totally expected i.e. why do you want to come to queen's, why medicine, etc. Sometimes current issues in health care are brought up in the interview so you might want to read up on those types of things but for the most part all of the questions in my interview were about me! My favorite thing to talk about! Oh, and also remember, everyone's interview is different because the interviewers have a certain amount of control over the questions they ask so don't base your expectations on other people's interview questions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ct401 Posted January 23, 2006 Report Share Posted January 23, 2006 when you guys got an acceptance last year, was it conditional? What kind of GPA do you need in that current year to be really accepted? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest siobhansiobhan Posted January 24, 2006 Report Share Posted January 24, 2006 Hi Kate - Your tag is cute - what nation are you? Siobhan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest C345 keeps the diaphram alive Posted January 25, 2006 Report Share Posted January 25, 2006 Your acceptance will always be conditional upon you maintaining the minimum cutoffs for that year. I can't exactly recall my GPA for all four years (and I'm too lazy to do the math), but suffice it to say I had lots of fun in the first two, and worked really hard in the last two. Besides, so long as you make the cutoffs, your GPA is really sort of irrelevant. Once you've made that cull, its the interviews that really count. That is where they separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, and that is what makes Queen's unique. Our emphasis on the interview results in an amazingly diverse group of people who are all suprisingly proficient at both academics and social interaction (read: work hard and play harder). Bottom line: marks are important, but they only get you as far as the interview. Hope that wasn't too off topic! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest little endian Posted January 25, 2006 Report Share Posted January 25, 2006 Hi Siobhan, My nickname is actually a computer nerd/engineer thing. Little endian is a way to organize data in computer memory which places the least significant byte at the lowest address... the term actually came from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift in which two countries go to war over which end of a hard-boiled egg should be eaten first -- the little end or the big end. I wish it had something to do with being native but I'm of Welsh descent. Kate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ct401 Posted January 27, 2006 Report Share Posted January 27, 2006 what percentage of the class got in after third year? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ZCH Posted January 28, 2006 Report Share Posted January 28, 2006 I think by my count there are about 10% from third year undergrad. (Including myself as one) -Zain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest nostalgia ganam Posted January 31, 2006 Report Share Posted January 31, 2006 here is my take on the interviews: -approx. 500 candidates invited -4 days of interviews - each day the adcom will have to 'go thru' 125 candidates -on a normal, 8 hour working shift, interviewing continuously (wow!) for 480 mins. a total of 125 candidates, each would get 3.84 mins or realistically, 3 mins! - now, if they go simultaneously (as they have to), they would increase interview time accordingly. 10 int. panels would increase time to say, 30 mins. is that really the actual length of the interview? any ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest BCSarah Posted January 31, 2006 Report Share Posted January 31, 2006 Interviews are about 30-40 minutes as far as I know - yup, the panelists are working hard, but there are many different groups that are doing interviews in a given day. Not everyone interviews with the same three people. But they are all very nice (from what I know!) and eager to get to know you better. The best advice I got was that if you got an interview invite, they know that you can do the work academically - now they just want to see whether you're the type of person with whom they would want to work, or would want to teach or would want to trust as a doctor. That's my take on why you get interviewed by a 2nd year student, a faculty member, and a member of the community. It's not so bad - just believe in yourself and believe in what you have to offer. The time goes by quickly if you TRY to relax and just have a conversation. Easy to say, I know... Good luck and we look forward to meeting you guys! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest nextstopmd Posted January 31, 2006 Report Share Posted January 31, 2006 I'd just like to add that interviews at Queen's tend to be a lot more fun than at some other places. The format doesn't seem to be as structured, and mine felt more like a conversation than anything else. Just relax, be yourself, and you'll be fine... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest little endian Posted January 31, 2006 Report Share Posted January 31, 2006 Wow Nostalgia, That post sounded a bit stressed out. As someone else said, interviews last about 40 minutes, some last longer and some shorter. There are enough interviewers to go around and I'm sure it's an exhausting process but interviewers do it because they enjoy it and they want to give back to the medical school community. The most important thing is to remember that 1) everyone is in the same situation 2) they're not going to cut you off and kick you out of the interviewing room because your interview went into minute 41 and finally 3) the interviewers are there to get to know a little bit more about you, not to ask you impossible questions to screw you up and make you look bad. Try to relax! The time for calculations has passed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest DrNicki Posted January 31, 2006 Report Share Posted January 31, 2006 Hey there, As far as I can remember, the interviews at Queen's are quite relaxed and nothing to get too wound-up for. Know your sketch and try to relax. Out of my 5 interviews, Queen's was by far the most conversational and natural. The med student, doc, and community member took turns asking questions about me -- my favourite artist, what I do to relax, why I took a year off and how I spent it -- and when our time was over, I felt they really understood me as a whole. Our class is composed of such interesting and multifaceted individuals, a true testament to Queen's selection process. Take a deep breath. Good luck. n. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ian Queens Meds 09 Posted February 1, 2006 Report Share Posted February 1, 2006 Hey everyone, just thought i'd enlighten everyone on my interview experience last year. They had a group of about 15 people who were scheduled for the same time slot as me all in a room for the 15 minutes before the interview, a couple of '08s were in there just trying to loosen everyone up. When they called my name i went into a room where three people began introducing themselves...we started talking about the weather (it was very bad that weekend) and they just eased me in to the interview. After that the time just flew by, I was one of the few interviews that actually went over an hour. The questions they asked didnt have wrong answers, they simply wanted to see how i interacted and what my thought process was. The bottom line is the interview weekend is more of an opportunity for them to get to know you in a relaxed environment...so dont stress out to much about it. It's not hard to be yourself! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dumbass Posted February 2, 2006 Report Share Posted February 2, 2006 Mine was not as easygoing as other people's interviews. I actually found it the most stressfull of all the inverviews I did last year. But.........thats only ONE case.....and it doesn't really matter cause I"m HERE! I got in! So just because you think the interview was tense, it doesn't necessarily mean it went bad. Either way, just be yourself.......be confident......and it doesn't hurt to throw in a joke once in a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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