SUNY - Downstate Medical Center College of Medicine (Brooklyn)

🙂

How did the interview impress you?

Positively 🙂

What was the stress level of the interview?

4 / 10

0 = Low Stress, 10 = High Stress

What are your general comments?

it was an overall good experience. my interviewer was totally cool and nice so it made my first med school interview ever as least stressful as it could have been. what really made me feel comfortable was that I think I won my interviewer over by just the fact that when I lived in New York, i went to Stuyvesant High School (he has sons of his own in high school, so he must know how hard it is to get in there...lucky for me i guess). in fact, he was more impressed by that fact than by anything else i had done, it seemed. by the end of the interview, which was for a wait-list position only, he was almost like a counselor, asking me where else i had gotten interviews and giving me confidence that i would most likely get in somewhere (hasn't happened yet, so i'm still crossing my fingers)

Interview questions they asked

What does your mother do?

I was asked this too

What was the most interesting question?

nothing really caught me as interesting. they were all standard questions.

I was asked this too

What was the most difficult question?

What do you know about SUNY Downstate? (I don't know why, but i totally blanked on this one even though i had done my research about the school...go figure.)

I was asked this too

How did you prepare for the interview?

SDN, AMCAS, secondary app, SUNY Downstate website, tried reading newspapers and magazines about current health issues but i found out, i didn't really need to

What impressed you positively?

high percentage of first-choice residency program matches for graduating seniors, students were helpful and laid back, they really seemed to enjoy their school, the amount of clinical exposure students get starting even in their first year (our tour guide was a 2nd year who had actually delivered a baby on her first shadowing visit her 1st year)

What impressed you negatively?

the state of the anatomy labs (even though they're supposedly being totally relocated and revamped for next year), the location: even though i used to live in New York, it was a bit tough going back to an area like that since now i'm from northern california, good things about location though: you get lots and lots of clinical and hands-on exposure through the huge hospital across the street

What did you wish you had known ahead of time?

nothing really.