Now that people have had some interviews, has anyone had the experience where you interviewed at a site and were generally impressed by the brochure and what the faculty were discussing about the program, rotations, etc., but then had that excitement tempered by the current interns and other applicants?
I interviewed at one site that seemed good on paper and during faculty interviews, but when we had a group Q&A/discussion between all the applicants and interns the quality of discussion was shockingly poor, especially compared to other sites where I interviewed. The applicants asked the most superficial, anodyne questions, like what the parking situation was like and what the commute was like if they lived in a certain area. I get that some of these lifestyle and quality of life questions are important to ask to see what it's like from the intern perspective, but it was a bit surprising that this is nearly all they asked about. I wonder if these applicants didn't ask more critical questions because they felt that this discussion was evaluative and affected the site's rankings of them even though they explicitly said it doesn't. Most of these other applicants were from unfunded doctoral programs, many in the same metro area as the internship site, so I wonder if they were just set on this site because of geography and worried about rocking the boat.
Conversely, applicants in similar discussions at other sites asked more thought-provoking and critical questions. For example, they asked about how DEI and multicultural competence actually gets infused in the rotation (as opposed to just what is advertised in the brochure and what faculty claim); what the worst, more difficult, or less ideal parts of the program were; how the program and interns deal with potential secondary trauma from some of the more acute care rotations (e.g., ED and trauma medicine rotations), and so on. They also asked some of those aforementioned lifestyle questions, but they were the minority and didn't detract from more thoughtful and programmatic questions. The interns were honest and transparent in responding and often encouraged more critical questions or provided that information without prompting.
For this specific site, on the few occasions when one or two of applicants did ask better questions, the current interns didn't really answer them. For example, when asked what the worst or their "least favorite" part of the program was, they struggled to answer. Most interns said nothing and just moved on to the next question, though it was unclear why. Maybe they hadn't really thought about it before and couldn't think of a good answer on the spot? Maybe they didn't want to answer due to the peer pressure and groupthink amongst their cohort and the applicants to not criticize the program? Maybe they just don't have a good sense of what are some red flags at an internship site that they should be critical of, which would seem to be a whole different kind of red flag of poor insight? Most of the interns were also from the local unfunded doctoral programs in that same metro area...
I guess my point in asking about this is that I'm unsure how to reconcile these conflicting perceptions between the program seeming good but then the current and prospective interns seeming so subpar. I also don't know how I should incorporate this into my rankings. I don't know if I just ended up on a bad interview day with less competitive applicants and the interns were off their game (and therefore would have had a different experience had I chosen another interview day) or if there is something I'm missing and the program isn't as good as it seems. That the interns were unable or unwilling to talk about any negatives or less than ideal aspects of the program would seem to favor the latter explanation, as no site is perfect and should have some areas of growth or improvement. All the other sites where I have interviewed have been transparent about this and committed to improvement with tangible plans of how to do so.
My gut reaction is to rank it lower than I otherwise would sans this experience with the interns and applicants. I wonder if it's a good fit and if it would be challenging enough to foster sufficient growth commensurate with internship if this is the caliber of people whom not only get interviewed for the site but match there and are seemingly thriving. I.e., I want to be challenged and grow from it during internship, not just be a big fish in a little pond and not get as much out of it, but this program kind of seems like the latter.
Thoughts?