lostintime Posted April 7, 2008 Report Share Posted April 7, 2008 Well I guess the cat's out of the bag ( we really shouldn't say technicallyy....) But anyhow, I liked it =D It was really fun...Now that I think back, it's the question I think I performed the best on and I have ZERO ZERO experience in that field. After all my lame answers for everything else, it's ironic how that turned out to be my best answer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lostinHP Posted April 7, 2008 Report Share Posted April 7, 2008 Haha, were you in M026? You just described my interviewers to the letter. An hour and ten minutes? Good God. I was done early. Did they ask you follow-up questions, or what? I kept throwing out topics but they never asked me to tell them more. I think it was a combination of me talking a lot and them also throwing in comments here and there. My community members would sometimes start talking about her experiences living in a rural area, etc. I guess my interview was more of a conversation, but I still had to answer all the same questions you all did. Toward the end, at about 50 minutes, they realized we were already over the time limit and we still had about 3 or 4 questions/the surprise you guys are talking about lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lostintime Posted April 7, 2008 Report Share Posted April 7, 2008 I wonder if we're graded on how well we answer a question or they're trying to get a sense of our EC's. If it's the latter, I'm SCREWED. Because I really tried to focus on answering the q's and hardly had a chance to mention my EC's/experiences in detail at all =( =( =( I tried to give the most relevant examples, and most of the time, I felt a lot of my answers were opinion-based. And now I just remembered, I missed out on a BIG BIG one. Damnit. Darn....and they don't even look at the sketch right? My brain was already working at full speed to answer their q's..I don't think I had enough room to try and squeeze a second agenda to get out my EC's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vallinar Posted April 7, 2008 Report Share Posted April 7, 2008 I think it was a combination of me talking a lot and them also throwing in comments here and there. My community members would sometimes start talking about her experiences living in a rural area, etc. I guess my interview was more of a conversation, but I still had to answer all the same questions you all did. Toward the end, at about 50 minutes, they realized we were already over the time limit and we still had about 3 or 4 questions/the surprise you guys are talking about lol. For me it was mostly me talking... i don't know if thats a good thing or a bad thing. I was really trying to describe some of my ECs and expereiences when ever possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastriss Posted April 7, 2008 Report Share Posted April 7, 2008 I think it was the answers that counted most lost! seems like it went ok..i think the first question was the ECs thing..probably to get an idea of what you are involved in. HP - seems like you really connected with your interviewees - good going! I have a question about UWO. Are they all about rural and rural alone? How research oriented are they? I expressed my interest in research and the fact that i drew upon it a fair bit of times shows that I am - but I also expressed my newfound interest in rural med. I finally asked the doc/student about whether rural med and academic med/ research can be balanced and he said it would be really tough because rural docs are often very busy. Maybe im second guessing - i hope i didnt come off as a bad fit for the school tho. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Superking25 Posted April 7, 2008 Report Share Posted April 7, 2008 Everyone is going to second-guess their answers and question their feelings of confidence after walking out of that room. It's hard to do, but you have to let it go for now - it's out of your hands and you did your best. Learn from any "mistakes" you think you might have made for future interviews *knock on wood* that I hope you never have to worry about. Don't forget, that all of us who got to interviews are well-educated, intelligent people. And I'm sure that 80% of us were articulate, intelligent interviewees, so there is a bit of a crap shoot element to it. There are about 2500 seats for the 10000 applicants who apply to Canadian med schools, so it's becoming a norm for people to apply more than once, and believe me, that experience makes a big difference at giving a good interview and hopefully, *knocks on wood* getting in this fall. Don't fret about the length, unless they kicked you out. Some are longer, some are shorter. Noone here really knows what exactly they're looking for (referring to your ECs? focusing on the questions?), so don't stress about it for now. We've got almost 40 days to wait, and it'll be some of the most anxious days of your life - if you're not done school, focus on finishing your degree, your volunteering/work, etc. One piece of advice: work on your application for next year now (as gloomy as it sounds) by building on your ECs, as it is better to be working now than to wait until May/June to try and make big improvements for apps in October. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastriss Posted April 7, 2008 Report Share Posted April 7, 2008 Everyone is going to second-guess their answers and question their feelings of confidence after walking out of that room. It's hard to do, but you have to let it go for now - it's out of your hands and you did your best. Learn from any "mistakes" you think you might have made for future interviews *knock on wood* that I hope you never have to worry about. Don't forget, that all of us who got to interviews are well-educated, intelligent people. And I'm sure that 80% of us were articulate, intelligent interviewees, so there is a bit of a crap shoot element to it. There are about 2500 seats for the 10000 applicants who apply to Canadian med schools, so it's becoming a norm for people to apply more than once, and believe me, that experience makes a big difference at giving a good interview and hopefully, *knocks on wood* getting in this fall. Don't fret about the length, unless they kicked you out. Some are longer, some are shorter. Noone here really knows what exactly they're looking for (referring to your ECs? focusing on the questions?), so don't stress about it for now. We've got almost 40 days to wait, and it'll be some of the most anxious days of your life - if you're not done school, focus on finishing your degree, your volunteering/work, etc. One piece of advice: work on your application for next year now (as gloomy as it sounds) by building on your ECs, as it is better to be working now than to wait until May/June to try and make big improvements for apps in October. Bang on...and i think the fact that there is a difference between a good interview and acceptance is the fact thats so scary - its a crapshoot in its own way - but thats why the numbers game has to be played. In any case, lets try to enjoy the weather and finish up them exams, perhaps we will pick this up around may when the countdown begins. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr.chuck Posted April 7, 2008 Report Share Posted April 7, 2008 I wonder if we're graded on how well we answer a question or they're trying to get a sense of our EC's. If it's the latter, I'm SCREWED. Because I really tried to focus on answering the q's and hardly had a chance to mention my EC's/experiences in detail at all =( =( =( I tried to give the most relevant examples, and most of the time, I felt a lot of my answers were opinion-based. And now I just remembered, I missed out on a BIG BIG one. Damnit. Darn....and they don't even look at the sketch right? My brain was already working at full speed to answer their q's..I don't think I had enough room to try and squeeze a second agenda to get out my EC's. I think a lot of us went through the same experience...I for one went off on tangents and actually forgot the question half way through my answer a couple of times, so I had to stop to ask them to repeat the question again,lol. I definitely gave some weak answers, and thinking about them now, I missed some obvious points and am kicking myself for it. The role playing was interesting, although it was hard to block out the scrutinizing stares of the interviewers right beside me. Overall my interview felt a little awkward. It wasn't very interactive, no one followed up on any of my answers so I rambled a bit. Definitely didn't sell myself and all my EC's. The faculty member seemed really uninterested and I swear I caught him rolling his eyes a few times, lol. The med student had her poker face on. I really liked the community member, she was the only friendly one of the three. The campus was beautiful though, and the first year med students were awesome, loved the video. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lostintime Posted April 7, 2008 Report Share Posted April 7, 2008 My interviewers were generally quite friendly although I felt like sometimes they were going wtf at some of my responses. But what I really liked about the Western interview was that they didn't grill you, so my confidence didn't break. During Queens, I kinda got grilled sometimes, and although I didn't break down or anything, but it made me more nervous. In Western, I felt like I was given a full opportunity to say whatever I wanted (I'm sure some of it was really bad though), but at least I got to say it without feeling like I was on trial. Maybe that's why I had the misconception that it went well when I walked out lol. Haha, did anyone find the set-up really funny? Waiting outside the door? It REALLY felt like a scene from a movie.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastriss Posted April 7, 2008 Report Share Posted April 7, 2008 I think a lot of us went through the same experience...I for one went off on tangents and actually forgot the question half way through my answer a couple of times, so I had to stop to ask them to repeat the question again,lol. I definitely gave some weak answers, and thinking about them now, I missed some obvious points and am kicking myself for it. The role playing was interesting, although it was hard to block out the scrutinizing stares of the interviewers right beside me. Overall my interview felt a little awkward. It wasn't very interactive, no one followed up on any of my answers so I rambled a bit. Definitely didn't sell myself and all my EC's. The faculty member seemed really uninterested and I swear I caught him rolling his eyes a few times, lol. The med student had her poker face on. I really liked the community member, she was the only friendly one of the three. The campus was beautiful though, and the first year med students were awesome, loved the video. I missed a lot of good points too. Its not the same when your spending many hours of ur day reflecting on that answer vs giving an answer to them in 10 seconds and under pressure. But remember you are competing against people to get in and the fact that we all miss points puts us on level playing ground. Besides if you dont miss any point ur probably going to be considered a freak and just not admitted Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocky222 Posted April 7, 2008 Report Share Posted April 7, 2008 My interviewers pretty much fit the same mold. Student was pretty much stone-faced. Physician was kind of ambivalent. Community member was all smiles and nodding and really into everything I had to say. Which was good and reassuring when I made some good points, but I could see her body reaction to some stuff that may have not made much sense or sounded a bit off to her which was sometimes a bad thing. But man I was so nervous that I knew I rambled on and on. In fact that was probably why they had to cut short a few questions as they had to get to the last part of the interview before time ran out. I definitely didn't get a chance to sell myself in terms of my ECs. I got some of them out there during the first question, but didn't mention a lot of them. I thought that maybe I could integrate some of them into future questions but actually just used the ones I mentioned at the start over again. It's funny how they said it would be more like a conversation because it certainly didn't feel that way to me. They kind of read out their question and sat back and let me do all the talking without any back and forth type flow. It almost felt like a test especially after some of the questions were answered they thanked me for my response. I think my physician was the only one who kind of put me on the spot one or two times when my answer to one of the community members questions prompted him to cut in and ask a followup to something I had said. But they were definitely a friendly bunch trying to make me feel at ease but I just couldn't help it. I think they got the picture after I went through about two bottles of water. Yikes! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MillerTime Posted April 7, 2008 Report Share Posted April 7, 2008 Haha, did anyone find the set-up really funny? Waiting outside the door? It REALLY felt like a scene from a movie.... I was the first slot of the day and was one of the last two interviewees to be called into their rooms, when one of the med students decided to make a joke that the last person to be called into their room automatically gets rejected. Then I told him that last year when i interviewed there, I actually was the last person to be called into their room, and guess what, I was back again after not getting in. He was kinda like, oh..... I don't think he expected that, hah, but luckily i was the second last person to go in this time, so i guess that means my chances are better this time around? And with regards to the surprise, I guess i wasn't catching on to what you guys were talking about earlier since I also interviewed here last year and therefore I wasn't all that surprised. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dante Posted April 8, 2008 Report Share Posted April 8, 2008 with respect to the sitting outside the door: mine was even more awkward, since the door was OPEN!! so i could hear my interviewers getting to know each other... and i was thinking: should i go in, should i wait?? then one of the first years started talking to me and my community member came out to grab me. My interview was much different than last year; a lot more conversational, they had many follow up questions, and my answers were scrutinized... To all those who feel things didn't go so well, it seems as though those are the people who get in: if they're being hard on you, it may mean they see the potential in you and want to bring it out, so an interview you thought went bad, may not have been as bad as you think! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest begaster Posted April 8, 2008 Report Share Posted April 8, 2008 My interview was much different than last year; a lot more conversational, they had many follow up questions, and my answers were scrutinized... To all those who feel things didn't go so well, it seems as though those are the people who get in: if they're being hard on you, it may mean they see the potential in you and want to bring it out, so an interview you thought went bad, may not have been as bad as you think! Probably not. Different interviewers probably just had different styles. Some who were conversational and scrutinized everyone, and some who merely remained passive throughout. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastriss Posted April 8, 2008 Report Share Posted April 8, 2008 Probably not. Different interviewers probably just had different styles. Some who were conversational and scrutinized everyone, and some who merely remained passive throughout. I agree. The same experiences I brought up at UWO weren't questioned like they were at Queen's. I wouldn't consider the activities/experiences ordinary or trivial, but rather unique and would merit a question. Likewise it is good that they took interest in you, but that's not to say that those that had a good feel aren't going to get in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lostintime Posted April 8, 2008 Report Share Posted April 8, 2008 "Good" is very very subjective based on the interviewee. I'm written about this before, but it depends on how confident of a person YOU are. Lots of med students have told me their interview was "bad", but they got in. I'm sure it wasn't really "bad" or else they wouldn't have gotten in. Likely, they're just too hard on themselves. I'm not saying they are trivial people who make a big deal of things--it's natural to feel unconfident sometimes. So basically, hearing how people feel/say they did is not helpful at all in determining how they really did unless you know what type of person they are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastriss Posted April 8, 2008 Report Share Posted April 8, 2008 "Good" is very very subjective based on the interviewee. I'm written about this before, but it depends on how confident of a person YOU are. Lots of med students have told me their interview was "bad", but they got in. I'm sure it wasn't really "bad" or else they wouldn't have gotten in. Likely, they're just too hard on themselves. I'm not saying they are trivial people who make a big deal of things--it's natural to feel unconfident sometimes. So basically, hearing how people feel/say they did is not helpful at all in determining how they really did unless you know what type of person they are. Your MOM I had to do it lost..only cuz i love ya..it was getting too serious and I needed to lighten up the mood. Positive energy only in this thread cmon now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lostintime Posted April 8, 2008 Report Share Posted April 8, 2008 Lmao. Words are empty without pictures. Good idea! That was fun! Are you trying to turn this thread into a cult too? .... .... ....Oh well, I had my fun being cult leader. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastriss Posted April 9, 2008 Report Share Posted April 9, 2008 No fail pictures here tho..thats just bad luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastriss Posted April 14, 2008 Report Share Posted April 14, 2008 anyone else starting to feel like some of their examples are trivial after reconsidering them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vallinar Posted April 14, 2008 Report Share Posted April 14, 2008 anyone else starting to feel like some of their examples are trivial after reconsidering them? lol dude... you're STILL thinking about it. Don't you exams or something?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KennethToronto Posted April 14, 2008 Report Share Posted April 14, 2008 anyone else starting to feel like some of their examples are trivial after reconsidering them? Don't think about it. It's already said and done, out of your hands. Just wait for the news May 15th. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastriss Posted April 19, 2008 Report Share Posted April 19, 2008 Reviving this thread and just making convo A lot of people around me are doing carrib applications. So many of them think that they will end up in the US cuz they do their clinical rotations there. I dunno if its just me, but the carrib schools seem to be selling themselves on making people think that their grads will easily transition into the US for residency. The fact that a buddy of mine thinks he's going to do some swank surgery instead of FM really bugs me that they're misinforming them. I think they need to be more straightforward my $0.02 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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