NEOUCOM Interview Recap

I actually didn't go to my interview at NEOUCOM today. I woke up not feeling well and called to let them know I could not make it in. I'm not sure at this point if I will reschedule or not.

OSU Decision!

I got accepted at OSU! I'm really excited about that because OSU is looking as though it is my first choice. I'm not entirely certain it is where I will go yet, but I'm definitely leaning that way.

Penn State Decision

I received a letter from Penn State today informing me that I have been placed on their wait list. The wording of their letter was a little unclear, and I'm not sure if they continue to evaluate the wait list throughout the season or whether they wait until May to look at the list again. Either way, Penn State is not a top choice for me, so being put on their wait list is not something that bothers me. I really liked Penn State, but their tuition for an out of state student is too high to justify when I have acceptances from great schools that cost less.

Eastern Virginia Interview Recap

I was not impressed with EVMS (Eastern Virginia Medical School) or the city of Norfolk. The traffic in Norfolk was terrible - after my interview it took us 40 minutes to make it five miles down the highway. The campus itself wasn't terrible, but it was a little outdated. EVMS seems behind the curve on technology and curriculum. Their curriculum is the old method, which is much like most high schools where you have multiple courses going on at once. Most med schools have switched to a block approach where you only have one main course at one time and it is intense and condensed, but you have less to focus on. In a block/integrated approach, you may have a month where all you learn about is the kidney, but when you're done with that block, you move on. At EVMS, you have an anatomy class, a histology class, a physiology class, and some others all going on at the same time. Because of this, exams are tough. The students had just had six exams in two weeks when I was there. With a block approach, you have fewer exams at one time because you have fewer courses.

The day started at 10:00am with an interview group of seventeen applicants. We then went to a presentation by the clinical skills staff. This presentation was really useful and interesting. What the clinical skills staff does is train the students to work with standardized patients. SPs are members of the community who are trained to act out certain diseases/symptoms. So a SP may be given a case about depression and will act that way for a med student to figure out. The benefit of SPs is that they give med students a way to practice with patients in a setting where mistakes don't matter. If you misdiagnose a SP, no one gets hurt. SPs also give you feedback after the interaction to tell you how they felt you did from a patient's perspective. These interactions can be very useful and most med schools take advantage of SPs to some degree. EVMS seems to have a really developed program for SPs, but I don't think that an SP program matters nearly as much as the curriculum itself. The presentation was fun because we were able to actually interview a SP and see what it is like.

Around 11:15am we went on a tour of the children's hospital. The hospital was nice, but since I've seen St. Jude, I think I'm a little harder to impress than most. After we saw the hospital, we were given a tour of the med school building. As I mentioned, the facilities weren't bad but they weren't overly impressive either.

After the tours, around 12:45pm, we ate lunch with some medical students and also had a short financial aid presentation. By this point in the day I had realized that EVMS was not a good fit for me at all. From 1:45pm to 3:30pm I had absolutely nothing to do and sat around and chatted with a few other applicants while we waiting for our interviews.

At 3:30pm my interview started. The interview was a panel format, meaning I was interviewed by three people at the same time. Two of them were faculty members and one was a student. One of the three was on the admissions committee, and I wasn't supposed to know which one, but by halfway through the interview I could tell which one was on the committee. The format was difficult itself, but the questions they asked were the most difficult I have had as well. They asked me to compare the US healthcare system to other countries'. I don't know much of anything about international healthcare, but I was able to come up with a somewhat effective answer. The ethical question they asked later was the most difficult. The scenario started with a 14-year-old asking for an abortion and how I would handle it. Every time I would come up with something to say, they would change the scenario. By the end of the scenario, it had changed to a 14-year-old that had been impregnanted by being raped by her father. It was really tough to handle and figure out where to go with the conversation.

At 4:30pm, I was done and heading back. When I left, I knew that EVMS was not an option for me. Other than being close to the beach, EVMS didn't have much that appealed to me.

Strengths:
Close to the beach!
Warmer weather
Strong SP program

Weaknesses:
Cost
Distance from home
Mediocre program
Curriculum
Terrible town
Old technology
High cost of living

I didn't like EVMS at all. Even if they extend an acceptance to me, I would not hold a spot in the EVMS class. Out of respect for other applicants, I would not want to take a spot in a class that they may be waiting on.

Ohio State Interview Recap

My Ohio State interview went really well. The campus is really pretty and the buildings all look really nice. If you go off campus too far, the area isn't very nice or safe, but the campus itself is impressive. OSU also has a tunnel system for days when Ohio weather is a little too much. OSU's technology is incredible. They give all of their students a new iPod touch and students can wirelessly download videos of all lectures and access medical software from the iPod (which has built in wireless internet). They also have a laptop program where students can purchase discounted high-tech laptops at enrollment.

I checked in around 9:45am and the interview group was about fifteen students. The group that I was interviewing with was pretty intimidating. There were interviewees from Stanford, Notre Dame, Northwestern, UCLA, Cornell, Duke, and other top-ranked schools.

From 10:00am to 11:30am, we were in a conference room and had presentations on financial aid, curriculum, research opportunities, and med school life. The med school life presentation was given by a fourth year medical student, and talking with her was helpful to see what med school is like throughout the process. Ohio State's curriculum is interesting because after ten weeks of anatomy you can choose to do the more traditional integrated pathway which involves lectures and small-group learning or you can choose the independent study pathway which involves almost entirely self-directed learning.

At 11:30am, lunch was brought in for us and six medical students joined us. There were three first-year students, two second-year students, and one fourth-year student. Some of the students were doing the independent study pathway, and some were doing the integrated pathway. About 80% of class does the standard integrated pathway - which is what I think I would choose if I went to OSU. I think I would do better with the more structured system than trying to rely on my own timing and motivation.

After lunch, we went on a short tour to see the anatomy lab, clinical-skills lab, library, and lecture halls. I was a little disappointed by the tour because I felt as though we didn't get to see much. Because the tour was so short, we had a lot of time before our interviews started. I wish the tour had been longer so that I hadn't sat in the conference room with nothing to do for over an hour.

At 1:50pm, I had my student interview, which only lasted fifteen minutes. The student knew all about my application and essays but did not have access to my MCAT score or GPA. I think this interview went well and fifteen minutes goes really quickly. Her questions were all pretty standard, and she just wanted to know more about activities I had listed on my application and things that I had done.

My faculty interview started at 2:15pm and lasted about forty-five minutes. I think this interview went extremely well. A few things I said really impressed her and none of her questions caught me too off guard. The question that made me think the most was when she asked me to define success. She was extremely nice and I enjoyed talking with her. A few times in the interview she was so impressed with my response that she had me pause so she could write it down.

Overall, my interview day was really laid back. Interviews get easier the more that I do, and having some acceptances takes a lot of pressure off of me. By 3:00pm, I was heading home.

Strengths:
Phenomenal reputation
Excellent hospitals
Close to home
Low tuition
Excellent technology
Good research opportunities
Low cost of living
Curriculum

Weaknesses:
Large class size (210)
Not the safest area

Going into this interview, I was almost hoping that I wouldn't like the school so that my decision would be a little easier. Because I liked OSU so much, the choice is going to be difficult between OSU and Wake. I don't know for sure if I will be accepted, but I should hear from OSU in about ten days. If I am accepted to OSU, I will have a lot of thinking to do about OSU and Wake Forest. Both places have some excellent strengths, and at this point I'm undecided on where I would want to go.