It's that time again. After submitting applications in the fall and spending months waiting by the mailbox in agony, many college seniors and recent graduates are flying back and forth across the country to interview for graduate and professional programs. Interviews are scary enough when they last a few hours and don't require a flight to a different state.
So when graduate and professional school interviews require normal college students to become temporary jet-setters during a time of already high scholastic pressure, they can be downright overwhelming. And overwhelmed is the last thing you want to be when being evaluated against 30 other freaked-out candidates for an entire weekend. Lose your cool and you could lose your spot.
So how does one keep one's cool in the face of such a daunting ordeal? As the Girl Scouts' motto says, "Be Prepared." Graduate school interviews can be pretty exhausting, requiring you to interview in front of a panel or up to seven people in a day.
Med schools usually require only two interviews, often one with a faculty member and one with a current student. Compiling a set list of questions or topics for each specific school before you get there can take the edge off the extensive list of interviewers.
Additionally, know something about the program or person you want to work with before you get there. Graduate schools are looking to see how you fit in. They already know your test scores and grades, so there's no need to try to impress them with anything more than your passion for the subject-and, OK, your relative social normalcy.
For instance, an interviewee for Duke psychology last year spent an entire interview rattling off the number of techniques he knew how to use because he was worried about being a competitive candidate. When the interviewer asked about his interests, he merely paused for a second, and then rambled on about techniques again. He didn't seem to be interested in using said techniques to actually study anything. Needless to say, he was summarily rejected.
The point of this story is that most people think they should be trying to look smart during their interviews, when really the interviewers are mostly interested in seeing that they have unique interests, and don't kill small animals in their spare time.
I interviewed a person very familiar with the Duke medical school interview process who said, "Once you get an interview, generally the playing field is leveled. all we want to see is that you're a normal person at the end of the day."
Unfortunately, it seems most people don't realize that. He said that an interviewer often hears the same hackneyed reason for wanting to be a doctor in 90 percent of her interviews. "'I want to go to medical school because I like biology and I want to help people,'" he said, "probably will not get you in the door."
Lastly, use downtime to your advantage-relax when you can-and for Christ's sake, show the other students that you have a personality, because after you leave, the faculty is going to ask us who we don't like, so we will be watching. At the same time, you shouldn't use your downtime to the extent that you get wasted and swing from the chandelier at the dean's house by your underwear. This should be obvious.
Then again, a guy who interviewed with me at Brown got so drunk at the graduate student party he passed out on a table and subsequently got in. This brings me back to my original point; schools are different, and what will fly at one will founder at others. Which is why you should "be prepared."
And while we're on the topic of Girl Scouts, you might want to pick up some Samoas while they're on sale. 'Cause you're gonna get hungry on all those cross-country flights.
Jacqui Detwiler is a graduate student in psychology and neuroscience. Her column runs every Wednesday.
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