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my interview had the good cop bad cop thing. is there ANY standardization for these interviews????? the bad cop was absolutely TERRIBLE. nothing i said could draw a positive response. the other two seemed to be ok with it. but one was just outright mean.

 

does this mean bad news??

 

Not at all. I know people who felt they were grilled nonstop, and others who had incredibly friendly interviews. It all comes down to how they mark you...answering a hostile question well is a lot better than answering a friendly question unsatisfactorily. If anything, friendliness might create a false sense of security...I'm suspicious of how friendly my panel was. It was almost like "This guy isn't getting in, so let's go easy on him". In reality, there's really no way to tell and I'm sure the "friendliness" of your panel has nothing to do with how you are marked.

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Not at all. I know people who felt they were grilled nonstop, and others who had incredibly friendly interviews. It all comes down to how they mark you...answering a hostile question well is a lot better than answering a friendly question unsatisfactorily. If anything, friendliness might create a false sense of security...I'm suspicious of how friendly my panel was. It was almost like "This guy isn't getting in, so let's go easy on him". In reality, there's really no way to tell and I'm sure the "friendliness" of your panel has nothing to do with how you are marked.

 

Haha, yeah...

People I think we discovered "interview palliation". Make his journey as comfortable as possible :(

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It was a horrible interview experience and I still have no insight as to what I should have done (and because two of my interviewers had taught me before, I thought they should have said something, especially one I saw often at my research institute, but they didn't!).

 

So I really have no advice but to keep your cool and try not to let it get to you if it happens (I was waitlisted, nonetheless). ;)

 

Wait so you KNEW 2 of your interviewers?? Isn't that a situation that shouldn't have happened? Or by 'know' you mean you've been taught by them in a 500+member classroom or something like that?

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I've heard a couple of anecdotal stories from a couple of friends at U of O about this happening. I don't know how they administrate the interviews at U of O, but I know that at U of C, we're asked if we know anyone who's applying when we apply to be interviewers to try to avoid these situations.

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Wait so you KNEW 2 of your interviewers?? Isn't that a situation that shouldn't have happened? Or by 'know' you mean you've been taught by them in a 500+member classroom or something like that?

 

One of them taught me in a classroom of about 100 people the year before, so this person may not have recognized me (they also ended up correcting my honours' thesis the same year after my interview, so this person has had way too much influence on my life, IMO :) ).

 

The other one taught me in a class of approximately 50 people also the year before but we worked at the same research institute. We would often see each other and have quick chats. So I thought this person should have said something! They definitely knew me.

 

One of my friends was supposed to be interviewed by a first-year prof we'd had in a class of more than 300, and this person declined to interview my friend.

 

I now know you can ask to know who's interviewing you when you check in for the interview so you can deal with any conflicts with those administering the process. They try not to schedule you with profs who may have taught you but I guess it still happens.

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The bad cop's purpose is to test your ability to handle stressful situations and to see if you can keep your cool, right? Would it be wrong to reason with the bad cop, or should one simply acknowledge their negative comments and move on without making ignoring.

 

I just had my interview and it was with someone really high up in the faculty. This is my 4rth interview and my worst so far by far. It was horrible, I was attacked, insulted and degraded....

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I just had my interview and it was with someone really high up in the faculty. This is my 4rth interview and my worst so far by far. It was horrible, I was attacked, insulted and degraded....

 

Damn...was it the faculty member who was doing this to you?? If you care to elaborate, I'm just curious about the way he was attacking you? Was he confrontational with your answers to questions or did he start pointing at things on your sketch and going to town on them??

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I just had my interview and it was with someone really high up in the faculty. This is my 4rth interview and my worst so far by far. It was horrible, I was attacked, insulted and degraded....

 

 

 

Hippie, it is unfortunate that you did not have a positive interview experience, but hey, as everyone else says, you never know if it's because they wanted to test you, push you a bit further 'cause they saw the potential in you :-)

 

I have some questions ... I'm preparing for my interview next weekend

 

1) Did they know it was your 4th interview?

2) Do you know if the French Interviewers are the same as the English stream?

3) How exactly did they attack you and in your opinion, what would be the best way to deflect that negativity and not lose too much time in the argumentation?

 

 

Now go eat a giant tub of icecream and enjoy the 1st day of spring.

 

Thanks for your help,

 

Mas

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Off topic,but follows general theme:

My uncle interviews engineers for his company and he also grills them in similar manner...he says sometimes he tries to be question applicants' answers in such ways that he appears like a raging jackass...

His reason for doing so is to test how strongly the candidate feels about the topic at hand. If candidate gets freaked out, this means he does not know enough about the topic. If candidate just remains cool and emotionless, it means he seriously does not care about the issue being discussed. Apparently, best candidates respond via body language and facial expression, yet they have a counterargument ready, wishing to continue debate, while the "super-cool dudes" use some sort of terminator. Does this related to med school interview? Who the 'ell knows!

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Damn...was it the faculty member who was doing this to you?? If you care to elaborate, I'm just curious about the way he was attacking you? Was he confrontational with your answers to questions or did he start pointing at things on your sketch and going to town on them??

 

Yes the faculty member was the meanest. I don't know how much I should elaborate because I really don't want to breach my confidentiality ageement.

I didn't have any single traditional med school question in my whole interview. First he was confrontational with every single answer I had and I was really comfortable at first because I was able to elaborate more and didn't change my mind.

However the thing that I didn't tolerate well, was him picking up something from the sketch and drilling me over and over about it and questioning my choices in life...I ended up laughing on one of his comments, but didnt feel that well after the interview. I don't know why I feel this way, it's maybe because I expected it to be easy because I thought I already have experience or maybe because Ottawa u is my home school and maybe I expected some favouritism as I know the faculty, most of the teachers and heck even many of the doctors, as I have had jobs in every single one of their teaching hospitals.

 

Maserati,

 

1) no

2)it looks like it

3)see above

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I had my interview at Ottawa about a month back, and I must say that it was a pretty good experience (in terms of them putting you at ease, at least). I interviewed for the French Stream and my interviewers were extremely polite and friendly, we even had a few good laughs and I came out feeling a pretty positive vibe, although this might not be any indication of how well I actually did :rolleyes: .

But I also remember seeing a girl after my interview who was utterly upset about hers. She had hers in English I believe, and had been interviewed by "a high faculty member" (my guess is that it is that same person ppl have mentioned in this thread before) who grilled her for half of the interview about something she had said regarding one of the ethical scenarios :eek: .

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Off topic,but follows general theme:

My uncle interviews engineers for his company and he also grills them in similar manner...he says sometimes he tries to be question applicants' answers in such ways that he appears like a raging jackass...

His reason for doing so is to test how strongly the candidate feels about the topic at hand. If candidate gets freaked out, this means he does not know enough about the topic. If candidate just remains cool and emotionless, it means he seriously does not care about the issue being discussed. Apparently, best candidates respond via body language and facial expression, yet they have a counterargument ready, wishing to continue debate, while the "super-cool dudes" use some sort of terminator. Does this related to med school interview? Who the 'ell knows!

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the input! Definitely helps to clear things up.

 

Now, I have been in interviews where I am very interested and passionate about a topic and would love to continue the discussion however, I simply don't know enough ... So I would just tell the interviewers, frankly and honestly.

 

I hope that wouldn't categorize me in the "cool dudes don't care" section.

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doesn't ottawa auto-reject you if you've interviewed more than 3 times? or do i have the wrong school... i remember reading on some official statement that "due to the heavy weight of the interview, candidates who have interviewed 3 times will no longer be considered" or something like that...

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Had an interview at Ottawa earlier this week. It was my third interview, and very different from the previous two - I got grilled and attacked, as well. I got challenged about everything that I do - he even attacked my research and continually provided counter arguments to my responses. He would randomly interrupt me and ask me the most random questions out of left field - I wish I could repeat them on here because they are funny looking back on them. I think I kept my cool and would argue at times with him when I really did disagree with him, but in a respectful way. I imagine he does this to everyone (at least I hope so!). It leaves you with a weird feeling, hard to know how you did. The funniest part was that the community member tried to put me at ease at the beginning, saying that they just wanted to get to know me better and we were just going to have a friendly conversation for 40 mins -he had obviously never interviewed with that faculty member before.....

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doesn't ottawa auto-reject you if you've interviewed more than 3 times? or do i have the wrong school... i remember reading on some official statement that "due to the heavy weight of the interview, candidates who have interviewed 3 times will no longer be considered" or something like that...

 

4th interview in the season, 1st in ottawa u. And yes in Ottawa u r only allowed to interview 3 times.

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Had an interview at Ottawa earlier this week. It was my third interview, and very different from the previous two - I got grilled and attacked, as well. I got challenged about everything that I do - he even attacked my research and continually provided counter arguments to my responses. He would randomly interrupt me and ask me the most random questions out of left field - I wish I could repeat them on here because they are funny looking back on them. I think I kept my cool and would argue at times with him when I really did disagree with him, but in a respectful way. I imagine he does this to everyone (at least I hope so!). It leaves you with a weird feeling, hard to know how you did. The funniest part was that the community member tried to put me at ease at the beginning, saying that they just wanted to get to know me better and we were just going to have a friendly conversation for 40 mins -he had obviously never interviewed with that faculty member before.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope this infamous " BAD COP " is not part of the French stream interviews.

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when I interviewed in the french, I got the bad cop situation... but I anticipated it from the interviewer... grilled me but just poking you to see if you really know what you are talking about, definitely some left field questions but I mean you're bound to get some of those in an interview right?

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You guys/girls had better get used to being challenged. Once you're on the wards and start answering questions you get grilled (even if your answer is correct). Just be confident with your answer(s) and don't flip-flop like 0T6 on what GQ outfit to wear for the day!

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Just had my second interview on Thu in Ottawa. I felt very good about my interview but i felt pretty disgusted about the good cup bad cup thingy they had set up. It was funny though that the bad cup continued asking me so much stupid questions back and forth that when I was thinking about his last question the Doctor interrupted and started asking his own question and did nt let the bad cup open his mouth except for a very short civilized question. Guys keep confident and dont let the set up distract u always be YOURSELVES.

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