Application Update - Interview at a Top School

No.  It wasn't actually Harvard.  That would just be silly.

          Recently, I interviewed at a top med school.  We are talking top 10 or 15 depending which ranking system you're looking at.  As I described in this article, I am not a stellar applicant.  I have a wildly mediocre GPA only partially balanced by a good MCAT.  Typically these top schools interview kids with great GPAs and great MCATs who have been published and done other spectacular things.  So yeah, I was surprised when I got the invite.  In all honesty, I thought this school in particular was the one I had the least shot at of all 25 on my list.

          I went into town a few days early, because I actually have friends who go/went there for undergrad.  I met up with them for coffee and to watch some football and all the usual things.  The funny thing is that I knew most of these kids from way back in high school or summer vacations.  What does that mean?  Well, when they heard I got an interview there, they had with some shock assumed I had turned myself into a top notch med school applicant who gave up his undergrad experience for perfect grades, when they know me more as the decent student and frat boy.  I was quick to reassure them that things had changed... but not that much.

          Honestly, though, I didn't apply to too many top schools for this reason, even though I knew I had an outside shot at them.  I want to be and will be an exceptional doctor, but I will also be a balanced person.  I also want to be surrounded by balanced people.  If some pre-meds' first priority is school, mine has always been people, and I can easily argue that is an equally important focus for a doctor.  I also have many passions that I want to be able to devote some time to: sports, exercise, reading, writing, and most recently, blogging.  Not only are my other interests important, but I want to find groups of people who are also balanced so I can form meaningful friendships with them.  Balance is critical, and I often worry that the competitive environment of a top tier med school would have a negative impact on that.

This is not balanced.

          Obviously, though, there are benefits to going to a top school.  There is the prestige and what that can do for your career, the potential for being involved in better research, the chance to meet a wife who will make tons of money, and maybe even a better overall education.  There is no question that, all other things being equal, a great student from a top med school will likely get a better residency than a great student from a mid tier med school.  All other things being equal.

          I have spent a lot of time thinking about the tradeoffs that might be involved, as well as how they relate to who I am and who I want to be.  Honestly, I haven't come to any conclusions yet, and I would welcome others' input if you have any ideas you would like to share.


The Interview
          I will admit I was pretty intimidated going into this interview.  I am a pretty social person.  I don't get nervous when I'm working with people, and I actually enjoy interviews.  Whether it's for a job or a med school, I genuinely enjoy showing up and trying to convince a person that I am their guy.  I enjoy interacting with people, and I enjoy the challenge of interviewing.  I wasn't nervous before my first interview or any of the subsequent ones... until this interview.

          I didn't have any kind of performance anxiety, and I wasn't worried that I wouldn't be able to do a good job.  It was two other things that got me.  The first was I expected that the competition would be almost completely statistically superior to me.  I figured I would walk in there and have the lowest GPA in the room by a mile (interestingly, halfway through my interview, when the GPA thing came up, my interviewer admitted it is exactly on their cutoff for an interview invitation... so yes, I really did have the lowest GPA they interviewed).  I thought the other students would have participated in ground breaking research or been involved in important healthcare missions to war ravaged countries.  For the record, these fears were mostly justified.  The other kids were phenomenal people, and I wish them all good luck.

          My second fear - and be forewarned, this is kind of sad - was that I would love it.  I was afraid that I would see the facilities and meet the people and get that feeling and know that it was for me and love it... and not get in.  Because that's how it works.  Because med schools have 2-5% acceptance rates.  Because at the end of the day, my interview skills aside, I know I am at least a marginally statistically inferior applicant.  See? Kind of sad.

          Anyway, on to the actual interview day.  I can't give too many details, because I want to protect both the school and myself.

          First, I was surprised by how little the admissions staff tried to "wow" us.  At other schools I interviewed at, I felt like the red carpet was rolled out for us.  Other schools did everything possible to show us all the great things about the school and cater to our needs.  In those cases, the interviews themselves were highly evaluative, but clearly the schools were auditioning for the students too.

          Here, there was none of that, to the point that it really threw me off.  Honestly, I have to wonder if it's because this school is highly ranked enough that they don't feel like they need to impress candidates.  I thought of some other possibilities, like burnout in the admissions staff now that we're so deep into the cycle, or simply that they are unaware of how mediocre their tours and presentations were.  Overall, though, the school's self-presentation was incredibly lackluster.

          It actually reminds me of something a friend of mine said when we were talking about rush week at the frat.  He said when he was a freshman he could always tell how good a frat was by how nice the brothers were to him.  If they treated him like crap, it was a great house; if they were really nice to him, he knew he probably didn't want to go back there.

          The interviews were similar to ones I have had before.  I did receive a few more "challenging" questions, including the hardest question I have been asked to date.  I tend to think very quickly on my feet, and I have never had an awkward think-of-an-answer-quickly-damnit moment in an interview in my life.  Until that day.  I simply could not come up with a good answer to this question.  I actually had to ask the interviewer if I could take a moment to think about it, and even after taking a few seconds, I still gave up a sucky answer.

          The facilities were beautiful, obviously.  The hospitals, the classrooms, the research labs... they were phenomenal.  It was obvious this school spent a lot of time and effort thinking of new and interesting ways to spend all the money they had.  It clearly beat any other school I had seen thus far, but I had already expected that to be the case.

          The students were a mixed bag.  Most fit the nerdy med student mold which is pretty standard.  That's fine, I guess at the end of the day I'm a nerd too.  There was the usual distribution of both outgoing and shy, but overall I think I found a few kids I could see myself being friends with.  I think that's an important thing to consider when you meet students from a med school, whether or not the type of people they select is the type of people you also select.

          I have to say though, my favorite part of it all was the camaraderie that developed within the group of interviewees.  This is a phenomenon I have not seen or even heard of at any other school.  During most interviews the conversations between interviewees are the typical polite conversation where you discuss your job or research or whatever and that's about it.  Sometimes I even feel like when we talk to each other we are putting on an audition for any admissions staff that might be listening, trying to show them how polite and socially skilled we are.  At this school, though, we somehow began to form friendships with each other before the day was even over.  It was amazing.  Honestly, in the days since my interview I have spent a lot of time hoping some of the other kids from that group are accepted, whether or not I am.

          The group cohesion meant a lot to me.  I know you could argue that it doesn't say anything about the school, but I would argue that it says something about the type of applicant they are looking for.  It really meant a lot to me, and at the end of the day, it was probably the thing I liked most about the school.

          I'll find out in mid February, and I'll be sure to let you guys know.  I'm having trouble wrestling with the prestige vs lifestyle considerations now, and I'm sure that'll hit a fevered pitch as the decision date comes nearer.  Again, I welcome everyone's thoughts on the subject.