Congrats on your interview! Especially with UMDNJ, Keep in mind that if you have an interview, they already want you and just want to make sure you are what you say you are on paper. I went on 11 interviews. All of the interviews were the typical hour to hour and half for me, except UMDNJ. It was like 20 minutes and they seemed slightly annoyed that I had more questions. So for me UMDNJ wasn't a typical interview. It sort of threw me off because I thought they didn't like me. But it is the opposite, I was pretty much accepted already.... they just wanted to make sure I wasn't crazy :0) Regardless of typical or atypical a interview is, approach all interviews the same way and always go with questions.
Become best friends with the interview feedback section of studentdoctor: http://more.studentdoctor.net/welcome.php. It tells you everything you need to know about interviewing at specific schools. During my time, it was very accurate. All interviews will question the flaws in your application. So if there are any, be prepared to have an answer. All Osteopathic schools will ask you about Osteopathy....make sure you know who A.T. Still is. Everything else in the interview is how you make it. All of my interviews asked the same questions specific to my application. My approach to all my interviews was:
1- Be prepared to answer questions about the flaws in my app
2- Make sure they forget about the flaws by accentuating all of the positives in my app. I had a lot of clinical experience, so they focused on that and forgot about whatever they considered a flaw. Hone into your attributes and be confident about them.
3- If you did research, you better be able to talk about it eloquently. It's always good to add what you learned from it. For the research I did, I talked about the techniques I learned. More importantly, I made the clinical correlation to that research and talked about how it will end up being useful in practice. Example: my research further the understanding of the mechanistic basis of cardiovascular disease in order to develop appropriate therapeutic responses. As a result, it can provide a framework for physicians to better treat their patients.
4- When they ask you what your strengths and weaknesses are, make sure your weakness still sound like a strength. Example: Being a perfectionist allows you to be very detailed oriented. Being very hard on yourself allows you to remain focused and be the best you you can possibly be.
5- Know about the school. Be able to give little tidbits facts to show that you know about the school and you did your research.
6- Know about a current affair in medicine and be able to talk about it. I used the millions of uninsured people in our country. If you are able to tie it into the activities you've done, great. I was able to tie that into the clinical experiences I had.
7- Always have a question if they ask if you have any questions. If they don't ask you if you have any questions.... you better have a question anyway.
As far as classes being mandatory: yes they are mandatory, but there are ways to get around that. You'll learn for you what are good classes to attend and not attend, and you will make it work for you.
If anyone has questions specifically geared to me, please send me a private message. I don't always come on these threads, but I'm very happy to provide advice from my experiences
Good luck to all of you on your journey!
