Midwestern University has one of the longer interview days I was up at 5 am since it is about an hour drive and there is terrible traffic. The interview day started at 7:45 am but we all know we have to arrive early to make a good impression. I got to the Barrel building at around 7:20 am and I was handed a nice lanyard and name tag with the folder for information.
There were a few other interviewees already there as well as a few second year medical students to answer our questions. When all of the interviewees arrived (around 25 people). Our first presentation was given at 8 am, introducing us to the school and the statistics for their alumni. When the interviews began about half an hour later, there were 5 panels where each of the interviewees were taken back one by one (five at a time) while the rest of us waited and mingled among ourselves. I met some really nice people who were interviewing but I do feel like it would have been nice to get to speak with the students a bit more. My interview lasted about 30 minutes with Dr. Cole and Dr. Revill. The interview was very personable and the questions were not too out of the box. I was surprised when I was asked whether or not I dream in different languages but otherwise the rest of the questions were manageable. My experience did not contain many ethical questions but did concern more political questions. It is possibly due to my Master’s in Public Health.
A tour was then given by Liz (one of the admissions faculty) who was quite nice and lead us through the gym area, the library as well as the lecture halls. Once the tour was done we were brought back to Barrel to await the rest of the group. At 11:30 am we were to use our lunch tickets at the dining hall which had a variety of options like pizza, deli sandwiches, stir-fry, soups and salads. Lunch was an hour long and we were again mostly getting to know the other interviewees. Following lunch was a basic science presentation, a tour of the anatomy lab and an OMM demo. It’s nice to know that there is an OMM fellowship/scholarship program that might help pay interested students for their expertise. The last presentation was about their supportive financial aid guidance and how the school offers workshops on budgeting, taxes as well as financial literacy. The day ended at around 2 pm and I felt exhausted, probably from the nerves of going to the interview so early.
I was thoroughly impressed with how the school handled interview day and the way they tracked their statistics. Despite the large class size, they seem to provide quite a lot of individualized support to their students. I really do like the multidisciplinary clinics provided on site for students and the public. A few other nitty gritty features are no technical standards for laptop/devices, very expensive tuition and very traditional curriculum taught by subject (i.e. biochemistry, pathology etc.). Lectures are not mandatory but labs are and tests are given very often on Monday mornings at 7 am. I would have liked to have a list of emails to send Thank you notes to, but I was told to send thank you notes to their admissions office who will forward the notes. Let me know if you’d like any help writing thank you notes or a post about writing a Thank you note.
Based on how I felt waking up so early to make a drive, I highly recommend using airbnb to stay closer to your interview location and if you are not familiar with the area I would suggest using Lyft to get you to where you need to be. There is even a scheduled ride function that could get you a ride at the moment you need it. You could get $20 for your first trip on airbnb with my link here and even help me out on my interview travels as well as $20 off your rides with Lyft here. If you already have an airbnb account click here.
Thank you so much for reading!