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Interview Chances Ontario's MCAT-THREE


Guest artef

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Guest strider2004

Koggetsu, you are right. I once asked a classmate during interview lunchtime how the morning went for him. He said "I am still looking for that star". Geez, what's that all about? I just tried to see if those people would be cool people to hang out with. I remember one person was a lot like a good friend of mine. I thought heck, this guy's just like a classmate. I think he'd fit well into the class.

 

Fitting the 'medicine mold' isn't too hard. The tough part is that you're up there with so many other people who are just as qualified. The interview isn't just meant to weed out all the bad people. It's to RANK everybody, and the top 230 or so get into school. It's not like the interview panel decides who should be in medicine. However, they do decide if one person deserves it more than the other. I don't like the interview process because a lot of people I feel should have gotten in, won't get in because there are so many other good people.

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Guest aneliz

Artef,

 

I agree with you....by adhering to strict cuts, the MCAT three limit the pool of people by GPA and MCAT alone....which is not necessarily a good thing...and then, because they are in competition with each other, they end up letting in some of the crackheads that have a good GPA and MCAT as they go down the waiting list....I can think of one crackhead that managed to slip through the cracks into my class right now. If the cuts were more relaxed, we would interview more people...which is logistically more difficult but would enable us to pick the 'non-crackheads with the slightly though not statistically significantly lower GPA' to fill the class rather then the 'crackhead with the 3.70+ GPA'. I totally agree with you....and it has already been stated at a UWO admissions committee meeting that they wished that we had the resources and the time to interview ALL 1600 applicants and then decide from there who would get in.

 

I agree with Strider...interviewers aren't looking for 'brilliance', they are looking for 'humaness' (it that is even a word!) and are trying to make sure that you don't have an antisocial type personality disorder....I think that many student interviewers *are* looking for people that they feel comfortable with and that they feel they could hang out with and that would fit in....hence the joke at UWO that all 'odd year classes' (2001, 2003, 2005) are alike and all 'even year classes' (2002, 2004, 2006) are alike....because the incoming class is usually predominantly interviewed by the class that is two years ahead of them.

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Guest artef

Raid -- no, proud Canadian on the second day. How did you like Queen's -- pretty cool place eh?

 

Stryder and Aneliz -- My whole approach was to NOT to prepare and go off the cuff. My responses weren't as refined -- you know, in retrospect you think, I could've worded that better, or used that example...I even thought for about 20 seconds to the first question, "Tell me about yourself" -- but I'm 100% sure they saw the 100% of the real me, as if any three people I'd just met would.

 

To get deep and philosophical briefly: It seems most people are worried about how they should appear in an interview -- there's a HUGE thread about clothing -- and how they should talk, how they should structure their arguments -- see both sides, then SYNTHESIZE! etc.; the concern for them is "how DO I represent myself?" (As if any natural representation would lower their chances.)

 

Many people, med students included, reply to these types of questions as if that _should_ be the concern. I've gone with what some other relies say: "Just be yourself." For me, postinterview is a very unexpected type of feeling: Because I feel like I've demonstrated who I am really well, I wonder, "is who I am good enough for these people?" The result is surprising: I've found that's actually a harder thing to swallow than worrying about how good your responses are. Stryder's post really reminds me of this, that your success is utterly contingent on the judgement of three people (not a good sample) whom you've never met and who may or may not like who you are.

 

Is my "humaness" (forget the OED, aneliz, I like the word too) good enough??? ...We'll find out in three months. Which is way too long btw. :)

 

 

Yours

 

Art

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Guest Raid123

Ya, I liked the place a great deal . . . even more so than when I last interviewed there. My interview could have gone better. There were times when i could have worded stuff better and coming out of the interview i felt that, overall, I could have left the interviewers with a better (truer) impression of who I am.

 

The process is inherently flawed as it is quite subjective but considering the dynamics of supply and demand for med school applicants, it is probably the only solution. And in any case, we as applicants can't really do anything about it. Looking from the outside (i.e. not in medschool yet), i can't help feeling this way about the interview process.

 

Finally, i know exactly what you mean when you say that postinterview you just can't help wondering whether or not you were good enough for these people. Again, you can't really do much about this so you shouldn't really give much thought to what these people think (at least thats what i try to tell myself). If you have come this far than you probably have the ambition, dedication, and the desire to become a good physician. And if these three people don't think so, all that means is you are not good at playing The Game cause that is what this process is pretty much.

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