McGill Interview

[laxman]

Hey,

 

This is for all the people interested in applying to McGill. Yesturday all of the out of province interviews were carried out - there were approximately 50-60 interviewees which were each interviewed by a panel of 3 interviewers - a student, a faculty member and a practicing dentist (who may or may not be an instructor).

 

The night before the interview there was a dinner put on by the McGill dental students society where all of the interviewees were invited and most showed. There were a number of dental students from all years who provided lots of information including one who gave insight on how the top 10 applicants were ranked from the out of province pool. This 4th year student who was also one of the interviewers said that there are 10 groups of 3 interviewers who interview 5-6 of the applicants. These applicants are then ranked 1-5(or 6) and basically the top interviewee from each group will be accepted into the program. He said something about how this method is not the best but it works for McGill and that the top applicant maybe not always get the first round acceptance but it is generally the case.

 

As for my personal interview - it lasted 25 mins then I was asked if I had any questions. The interview felt like it started and then it was finished in no time - it was crazy how fast it felt. I made up a litst of all of the questions i was asked - and I was asked a lot - either I gave clear concise answers or I didn't put enough meat in my answers. I really don't know; however the admissions people said that results should be out within 3-4 weeks. Anyways my questions were as followed:

- tell me about yourself

- why dentistry

- ethical – student cancels morning clinic because of exam that afternoon…calls patient and says that there is no instructor available to aid at the clinic – comment on what you think

- parlez-vous francais?

- Would you be comfortable with treating a French speaking patient?

- What do you fear most about getting into dentistry?

- References said you were a funny guy – tell us a joke.

- What do you do outside of school?

- You talked about repetition in dentistry – what will you do if you end up getting bored with what you are doing?

- You talked about sports – indicate your role as an individual and as a team player.

- Explain the concept self regulation as it pertains to dentistry.

- Do you have any questions for us?

- After all the questions I asked, they asked - Do you think you are one of the top applicants?

 

Overall it was pretty relaxed; however I didn't find it to be as much of a conversation as everyone said it was but that could've been me or the interviewers.

 

Words of advice - be confident, be yourself and doing some practice interviews.

[FullMetalDS]

hi laxman,

 

cool of you to share your interview experience on the board :]

 

sounds like you had it tough compared with my interview last year. i would've been thrown off by a few of those q's...like self-regulation? wut the...!? (though i think i have a pretty good answer to that, given the time to think about it )

 

so yea, we first years were never invited to the dinner the night before, most of us did not know anything was happening at all. i guess they did not want us to eat all your food...and there happened to be enough first years who volunteered to hang around the conference room and bring interviewees to their interview rooms before i did, so again i was not needed there. you may have met tonick though

 

aitez, hope you had an overall positive experience at mcgill and that you didn't mind the bitter cold. 1 month and counting, good luck!

[laxman]

Hey Fullmetal,

 

For all the information that you guys have provided me with I thought I should share my experience for future users of this site.

 

The interview did seem a little more intense than I was expecting but I assume that it was just the interviewers that I ended up getting. So I would assume again that the people who interviewed with the same interviewers that I did must have gotten similar questions.

 

I didn't meet Tonick; however I found out who he was cause he was talking along with another first year to an interviewee and I just so happened to hear that he got into NYU which is said on the boards somewhere a while back and that he was waitlisted #7. His initials are NM if i'm not mistaken.

 

Overall the interview was a positive experience and I really liked McGill. All of the students were friendly and the interviewees seemed pretty cool too. I would definitely attend McGill unless I got into UWO where I would be torn between the too. It would come down to a gut feeling I think.

 

I will keep anyone who pays attention to the McGill topics on this forum of what happens in 3-4 weeks time when I found out how everything went.

 

Thanks for the well wishing!

[Gsman]

hey laxman,

 

thanks for your posting. It is generous of you to do so. I didnt apply to mcgill but I was wondering if that interview u had was based on the CDA interviewing format. Are those possible CDA questions? or is mcgill different from all the other canadian schools?

 

Thanks.

[Orchid]

- References said you were a funny guy – tell us a joke.

.

 

Talk about being put on the spot! ;-)

[wishywish82]

wow I wish I got interview questions like that, totally straightforward nothing like the CDA types

[laxman]

Hey Gsman,

 

McGill does not follow the CDA stlye of interviewing. The CDA style is a behavioral/situational type of interviewing and so you would get questions like - tell us about a time when or give us an example of ... mix those type of questions with situational based questions like - what would you do if (and they provide you with a situation).

 

If you scroll back through the 60 some odd pages of threads there are examples of the behavioral/situation type questions.

 

Orchid - I was kinda taken back by that one too - but I think I got through it alright by explaning what I think the referee meant by saying that.