The Medical School Admissions Process And How To Navigate It

The Medical School Admissions Process And How To Navigate It

So far so good. It's been a challenging few months but the medical school admissions process hasn't thrown anything at you yet that you couldn't handle. You started with a great GPA, fantastic MCAT scores and a handful of stellar recommendation letters all of which did wonders for your confidence. The preliminary applications were quite straight forward - the hardest part there, frankly, was deciding on the schools. The essays for the second round of applications were admittedly a little more nerve-wracking but nothing you weren't capable of. Now you're faced with a couple of interviews and all of a sudden you've got butterflies in your stomach. You are so close and the thought of somehow ruining things now is hard to stomach. Calm down. You didn't make it this far by luck. You earned your interviews. A great deal may be riding on them, it's true, but that doesn't mean you're not up to the task. Here are a handful of tips that may be helpful.

## Relax and don't forget how you arrived.

While telling somebody who desperately needs to relax, to relax, always seems like a trite piece of advice at the time it really is worth touching on ahead of time. It's only natural to be an a bit nervous. Just realize that as you head into an interview it's with people who were impressed enough with your applications, personal essays, marks, and letters of recommendation that they felt they should to meet with you. While the interview process is far from a formality it is with individuals who are already invested and motivated by what they have read.

## Research the school and its curriculum.

Without a doubt the most common piece of interview advice offered for a reason. That you have been granted an interview in the first place shows that the interviewers are invested in you and what you might bring to their school. You ought to be showing the same level of investment in them. You ought to know their school, history, and curricula backwards and forwards and be able to talk intelligently and about your reasons for choosing to apply.

## Have authentic answers.

You have read lists of common medical school interview questions. It's important that you think, ahead of time, about your actual answers and not merely the answers you feel the interviewers want to hear. They've been fed the answers that people feel they want to hear a thousand times. Which isn't to propose that you should have strange, off-beat answers prepared, but simply that you answer the questions with candor and honesty. If you can deliver sincere answers that have been considered and not merely prepared you are far more likely to impress them.

## Ask intelligent questions.

There will definitely be occasion during the interview process for you to ask questions of your interviewers. There's a reason for this; often the questions a person asks can be as revealing as any answers they give. Needless to say questions need to be germane to the interview but if you have properly investigated the school and truly considered your possible future involvement with them you will almost certainly have at least a few questions. Have those questions well articulated in your mind before the interview.

There is no reason to be anxious about a medical school interview provided that you're confident, prepared, and genuinely clear in your own mind about the your answers. You have wanted to get into medical school for a long time and if you are interviewing you are almost through your medical school admissions. Take a deep breath. You're going to do fine.

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