How is the friendliness of the admissions office?
8 out of 10
How is the responsiveness of the admissions office?
8 out of 10
How did you prepare for the interview?
This was my first interview so I felt I honestly under prepared. The usual SDN, school website and mock interview preparation, plus I made flash cards with 75 sample questions and I practiced answering them during the drive to IA. Don't worry about researching IA too much for the purposes of the Interview, they give you a lot of information during the day and they didn't ask me any ''Why Iowa'' questions and I'm hella OOS.
What impressed you positively?
A lot, they really focused on selling the school. Friendly, COMMUNITY atmosphere is the most significant draw at Iowa. M1 and M2's actually have descent contact with students doing clinical rotations, seems nice. They really highlighted a lot of opportunities for pursuing interests outside of lecture. Oh, and everyone says the Health Library is a bunker but its actually quite nice, and reasonably sized, it's at least more impressive that some other health library's I've seen (Rush). Descent public transportation (in Iowa! who knew).
What impressed you negatively?
Iowa city isn't as nice a college town as Madison, and it seems expensive for IA, but I guess that's nitpicking.
What did you wish you had known ahead of time?
25 minutes for ONE interview is a NOT MUCH TIME! Only 10 minutes is unstructured, so think about how to get everything you want to say and ask into 10 minutes.
What are your general comments?
My wasn't positively or negatively impressed because I had a pretty positive, and I think well-informed impression of UI Carver COM going into the process. Iowa City is a small mid west college town, which is what I was looking for, but many Coast kids seem negatively impressed by IA (what did you expect? Malibu?) so think about where you're comfortable living for 4 years.
Show up in the morning, and get three talks about the admissions process (they try to explain as much as possible), financial aid, and quick group chat with the Asst. Dean of Admissions/Chair of the Admissions Committee. This would be a good opportunity to appear engaged and ask questions, so be prepared, she is also a very nice and impressive woman. Then a quick lunch and very quick tour (the buildings are mostly new, wi-fi most places, nice 160 person lecture hall where most classes will be, nice practice pt. encounter modules. Four community area/lounges for students a-la harry potter which were VERY nice, seems to aid a lot to community but they seem like they would get very crowded when 300 people have lunch at the same time.) I learned for about thirty years from the sixties to 1995 Iowa didn't hold any interviews, which is very weird, and the interview process at IA is designed to be as standardized as possible. You will get the same four questions for the first half of your interview as everyone else! (Why Medicine, describe attributes of an ideal doctor, describe a time when you showed caring or compassion, how would you lower health care cost). The second half of the interview is less formal, but expect more standard questions. The interviews were conducted by two volunteer faculty members who were also very nice and encouraging (they can't venture from the script in the formal half but they will still smile) Try to give plenty of opportunities for the interviewers to get to know your personality, because there isn't much unstandardized time. The case based learning demo at the end is strange in that I'm not sure how much they learn about you as a applicant and CBL isn't the primary didactic method for M1 and M2, its really just a weekly exercise to get you in the habit of thinking analytically in terms of the patient encounter. The M3 or M4 facilitator will be very willing to answer in remaining questions, remember though they will report to the ADCOM on their impressions of you. The experience, like the school it self, is designed to be very supportive. If you practice 2 minute answers to the standard questions you'll be fine, so don't worry. If you a borderline candidate, there's not many opportunities to distinguish yourself, so practice selling yourself in a really short amount of time. But at the same time, there's not many opportunities to freak out and put a foot in your mouth, so don't stress. No worries!
And remember, its closed file, so your in the drivers seat! If there's something really cool about yourself that you want to talk about, bring it up, because they have no idea who you are or what you've said in your essays. Be strategic about this!
What are your suggestions for the admissions office?
More unstructured interview time, please. Like 15-20 minutes. I know Iowa wants as standard and fair
