Wright State Interview Recap

Thank you to everyone who was supportive of me for this interview. I really appreciate it!

Overall, my interview went well with Wright State. I like that the school is not in a big city, but is still close enough to a big city to have access to a variety of hospitals.

The day started at 11:30am with an introduction and short video about the school. There were four other applicants in this intro.

At noon, lunch was brought in and two second-year medical students joined us. Applicants that had morning interviews also joined us - for a total of eight applicants including myself. The ten of us ate lunch and we asked the med students lots of questions about medical school and about Wright State.

After lunch, the ten of us took a tour of the medical school campus. The medical building is brand new - as in, was completed within the last year. The facilities are really nice and up to date with technology. The campus itself is pretty as well.

Next we had a meeting with a financial aid adviser. She covered some basic information and showed us the estimated budget. After that meeting, they fitted us for a white coat. They wanted to get our sizes so that if we chose to go there, they would know what to order us. It was a cool feeling to put a white coat on.

Then, starting at 2pm, I had my interviews.

My first interview was with a second-year medical student. He was really friendly and laid back. The interview was very low pressure and conversational. It felt more like talking to a friend than being drilled by an admissions person. He asked straight forward questions such as, "Your application says you shadowed a physician at St. Jude - tell me more about that." When I asked him what he would consider a weakness of the school, he had a really hard time coming up with anything - which is a good sign. The interview lasted about 30 minutes.

My second interview was with a faculty member. The impression that I got from him was that he didn't really want to be there and he was in an extremely bad mood. His questions were a little harder, but the hardest part of the interview was that he was not friendly or conversational at all. He wouldn't respond to much of anything that I was saying, except to go on tangents about how his son went to the same college I did. The strangest question he asked me was, "If I cornered your boyfriend at McDonalds and asked him what he thought of you, what would he say?" Although that, and a few other questions, caught me a little off guard none of them were extremely difficult or puzzling. Mostly his demeanor just made the interview difficult. His interview lasted 45 minutes.

By 3:30, I was done and heading back home.

Strengths:
Facilities
Campus
Location - not a big city, low cost of living, etc
Students all seemed extremely happy and not stressed out
No University Hospital (more community-based, real life medicine)
Small class size
99-100% board passing rate
Focus on team learning
Highly computer based
Research is optional, not required

Weaknesses:
Location (southern Ohio - not close to family, etc)
No University Hospital (no specialized teaching hospital)
Mediocre reputation
Relatively young medical school (30 years)

I was told that I should hear a decision from them in 4-6 weeks. Overall, I would say that I was impressed with Wright State, but I'm not sure if they would move up on my list much. I need to wait until I have more interviews and get a better feel for how they vary. At this point, I will probably accept any acceptances I receive to keep my options open. Multiple acceptances are allowed to be held until May 15.