2 weeks until panel interview: how should I use my remaining time effectively?

[mew 43]

So I've spent the past 5-6 weeks reading up on important background information and reflecting on my personal experiences, and the last 1-2 weeks doing about half an hour of practice questions every night. I feel super unprepared, but I'm also not sure if there's any number of practice questions I could do to really feel prepared. Does anybody have advice on how I can use these last 2 weeks effectively and feel confident walking into my interview?

[Doctorofmydreams 19]

Have a narrative about yourself. Think about the things that make you who you are. What are your defining experiences? This made me a lot more confident going into the panel and I found that I could link back my extracurricular / academic / professional experiences and lessons to my narrative. It made the interview more cohesive and (I think) gave the interviewers a clear picture of who I was, what I did, and what I want to do in medicine/why.

Don't memorize but have talking points and themes in all of your answers. Try and link back your experiences to medicine i.e. how will these skills be useful in medicine, what are some challenges you can expect to encounter and how have your experiences prepared you for them?

If you haven't already, I also highly recommend thinking of (reasonable) failures + challenges. Those make for the best stories and the committee wants to see you're human. 

 

[Lactic Folly 375]

That sounds like a good amount of prep. What makes you feel unprepared? How have your practice sessions gone - are you happy with your answers or not? When you say you are "doing" practice questions, are you speaking out loud? Taping/watching yourself to see how you come across nonverbally?

[mew 43]

On 3/7/2018 at 8:32 PM, Lactic Folly said:

That sounds like a good amount of prep. What makes you feel unprepared? How have your practice sessions gone - are you happy with your answers or not? When you say you are "doing" practice questions, are you speaking out loud? Taping/watching yourself to see how you come across nonverbally?

I think my practice sessions have gone well- I'm generally happy with my answers and the people I'm practicing with (some close friends and some current med students) seem to be generally happy as well. I'm also doing questions out loud to myself- haven't recorded myself yet but I'll give that a shot and see how it goes. I guess I'm just nervous in that I know so many professional, articulate people who've gotten rejected post-interview despite weeks or months of interview prep. I'm not sure how I can feel really ready to interview, or if it's even possible to feel ready for a med school interview.

[Lactic Folly 375]

Well, it's natural to feel nervous given the fairly high stakes, but it sounds like you've done a lot of prep. Recording yourself might be helpful for reassurance, I agree.

The question is - is it necessary to feel ready? Or simply to go there with your degree of preparation and perform well regardless of how you are feeling on the inside?

[rmorelan 2,561]

17 minutes ago, Lactic Folly said:

Well, it's natural to feel nervous given the fairly high stakes, but it sounds like you've done a lot of prep. Recording yourself might be helpful for reassurance, I agree.

The question is - is it necessary to feel ready? Or simply to go there with your degree of preparation and perform well regardless of how you are feeling on the inside?

I would agree with that - I don't think most people truly feel completely ready for these things. There is a risk of over confidence if you were. 

I found the recording of things to be very useful! You can find out all kinds of things about your approach you may not realize

[Pippa756 25]

And don't forget to get your mind and body in sync. Regular exercising, good diet, meditation and mindfulness practices will help you a lot, especially if yu can keep these good habits through your last days prior to interview. Best of luck with the rest of your preparations and your upcoming interview :-) 

[MedCoachMD 16]

What I did was visualize myself doing well in the interview room every night before I went to sleep.

Believe what you will - but I truly believe it gave me the confidence I needed on interview day to do well