Jump to content
Premed 101 Forums

Chance of getting an interview?


Guest GundamDX

Recommended Posts

Guest GundamDX

I just want to get some honest opinion from med students/ ppl who got interviewed... any feedback is appreciated. If I know for sure I don't stand a chance getting an interview this year then I'll start "executing" my backup plans...

 

Academics:

85% O/A

Previous 60 credits: ~86.0%

Pre-reqs: ~85.4%

MCAT: 29R

 

Non-Academics:

-Fouding VP of a student club, with 130 members last year, this year about 160

-Volunteered at VGH (~150 hours) and UBCH (~60 hours), just started at St. Paul's palliative unit in September, also volunteered at a "rural" (pop < 100,000) hospital for ~110 hours

-"companion" for a blind man, ~50 hours

-volunteered for Crisis Centre, making presentations on suicide awareness (for high school students)

-Played in ball hockey (with UBC REC) for 2 years, still playing, captained own team last year; also played in Summer soccer league with GSS for a summer

-Editor for student magazine (~2 years)

-Parent orientation leader X2, GALA (international student orientation) X2

-3 different research jobs (I am in Co-op), 1 NSERC award, 1 other research volunteering experience (3 months)

-part time job at psych lab since 2nd year (not continuous of course, but work when I got time)

 

That probably covers 90% of the things I put down... other things are one-time stuff that probably don't worth a lot of "points." As you can tell I am not a genius nor a superathelete.

 

I probably won't get super reference letters neither. Probably average to "good" letters.

 

Other "weaknesses" as I can tell are lack of travelling/outdoor/self-reliance experiences.

 

What do you think? As I said I'll appreciate any feedback anyone might have for me. If I'm still pretty far off then I better find something to do between the time I have graduated (this year) and the time I get in...

 

Thanks very much.

 

-Gundam

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest TKP 123

this sounds like a good CV for getting interview. Your experience looks pretty competitive to me.

 

I also work in Crisis Line too. It is a good experience.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

well, considering you would have 25/25 on your academic score, that would only leave you needing a 10/25 at the least for your non-academic to get an interview. uhmm... dont think that will be a problem!

 

hmm. now as for my chances... a little worried again...

 

:|

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest TKP 123

The interview plays a very important role at UBC. It can reject a candidate with an academic score of 25/25 or accept a candidate with 20/25. So, focus on your interview now as you can't do anything with your GPA after your application submission.

:D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
Guest adduction

Kudos for posting your CV. Knowing how competitive it is to get into medical school I know I'd have some hesitancy about publically announcing my qualifications.

 

With regard to focussing on your interview now I thought I'd share some advice.

 

A lot of students 'prepare' for the interview in the wrong way. My best advice is to treat it like a job interview. When you're getting interviewed by a prospective future employer you don't have memorized answers to their anticipated questions do you? The same goes for medical school interviews. Anticipate them asking questions of a general category, i.e. 'motivation for medicine' etc. but do NOT have an answer ready to go. You may think you're a good answer and are able to spit it out naturally, but interviewers are quite good at spotting that.

 

Why it's bad for memorizing answers was exemplified by my friend who interviewed at U of C last year. (Rather funny now but i'm sure it wasn't at the time). In his words: "I stalled when they asked me where I saw myself in fifteen years because I memorized the answer to the 'ten year' question!".

 

Best of luck to those of you who applied!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest GundamDX

thanks :) I was hesitant at first too. But when I realized that by posting my CV here has no effect on my applicatin I glady posted it... Kupo and others have been great giving me feedbacks. Besides, re: competition, no one can take these things away from me AND if that gave anyone ideas to do something similar, that's great! Coz most of these things are worthwhile to do anyways... like working on a student meg or volunteering at a hospital. And ppl who are involved would know, it's not easy to GET a volunteer placement even if you WANTED to get involved... there are interviews, training sessions... etc. On top of that one must balance school with all these things (something I didn't do so well last year). At the end of the day, what you do really defines what kind of person or what your interests are, and what you can learn from these experiences :) but ofcoz sometimes easier said than done!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Jochi1543
My best advice is to treat it like a job interview. When you're getting interviewed by a prospective future employer you don't have memorized answers to their anticipated questions do you?

 

 

LOL, actually, I do, and it has worked marvellously for me.:P :rollin

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
Guest muchdutch

Gundam, are you a BC resident? As far as I know this fact weighs in big time. I recently met a guy who applied from Alberta to BC and he had a 24/25 on his interview and did just as well on the other parts (or so he said - must've been pretty good because he did get an interview!) and was not accepted. He said the feedback on his file was that he was weak in his interview! Perhaps I don't know the whole story (which is likely), but from this it seems pretty hard to get into BC as an OOP applicant.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Kirsteen

Hi there,

 

It doesn't seem to correlate that an applicant (from any province) would receive a 24/25 on the interview and be rejected based on a weak interview. Once an applicant reaches the interview stage, they are rated relative to their cohorts, e.g., in-province or out-of-province. So this OOP applicant would have been assessed relative to the other OOP applicants. A score as high as 96% on the interview should stand an applicant in good stead.

 

However, in previous years UBC had a box on one part of an applicant's form that could be checked if the assessor strongly thought, for some reason, that this applicant should not be admitted to medical school. I would assume that this would count as a very big black mark against the applicant in the admissions process. Perhaps, if UBC still have this tool, it was used for this applicant?

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest leviathan

GundamDX,

 

Your stats pretty much coincide with that of the average matriculant for UBC. Your MCAT just meets the average for some schools, but UBC of course doesn't care much about it. I was talking to a UBC med grad / resident a while ago who said she got a 29.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...