<p>So I am getting a little ahead on this process but my main concern about interviews is finding time to schedule them. I assumed that interviews are usually on weekends but apparently this is not true. How can interviews be easily scheduled during the week if you are a college senior taking courses that have weekly exams? Are professors usually understanding of this? For example, I am going to be taking BioBM 331 at Cornell, during the fall semester of my senior year (the only time I could fit it in since I am abroad this semester) and I hear there are weekly quizzes on Wednesdays. Are there opportunities for retakes/is the professor understanding (this is obviously more for the Cornell pre-meds/med students who frequent this forum). How do you guys all schedule your interviews if you have exams? I wouldn't schedule an interview when I have actual tests, but I am mainly referring to quizzes and also I suppose mandatory discussion sections. What do you do?</p>
<p>Most people try to take a lighter schedule during the interview season. But otherwise, yeah you’re going to have to work things out with your professors and the medical schools. Most professors are very understanding and accomodating of students needing to go on interviews. </p>
<p>And med schools will usually give you a list of dates to choose from, and will usually let you reschedule if you give them a decent amount of warning (so they can reschedule someone else in your slot). But as with everything else in this process, the earlier you do things, the better.</p>
<p>One thing that I think my professors appreciated was that I told them early in the semester that I might have some medical school interviews for which I’d have to miss class. I usually did this the first or second day of class. And I promised that I would give them as much advance notice as the schools gave me. I found most of my professors to be totally accommodating. More than one of them told me then and there that if I ever needed an extension or anything to just let them know.</p>
<p>Especially in the science courses, I think that professors are used to seniors having to miss class due to med school interviews.</p>
<p>I agree with the posters above and my D’s profs are being very generous but…you are right to be concerned. Try your best to get Fridays to be “class free”. That won’t solve all the conflicts, but it will help. Having a mid-week interview can mean disrupting as many as 3 day’s classes depending on travel requirements (or sometimes it means price loses out to schedule, and that hurts) .</p>
<p>Missing a class or two is easier to overcome than conflicts with exams. If you have conflicts with exams, could you not ask your Profs if you could take the exams on another day? I think Profs allow sick students to take exams separately… Same should apply to med applicants who have conflicts I would think.</p>
<p>Don’t schedule interviews on Wednesdays.</p>
<p>Tuesdays and Thursdays ain’t much better. ;)</p>
<p>I have realised that taking a gap year and applying the fall after graduation was a smart choice for my DD. Never considered the interview parts- you really would think they would set them up for weekends- she did it for other reasons, but the interview thing is working well as long as her lab people are flexible she just takes time off from work, no exams, no studying to miss</p>
<p>I scheduled almost all of my interviews on Th/F in order to avoid exactly what the OP is asking about. I took a light course load and tried to “front load” my classes on Monday Tuesday and Wednesday. Other than that, I was just respectful and worked with my profs and tried to come to class as much as possible.</p>
<p>As an aside for you Cornell pre-meds, make sure that you apply for a Committee letter as early as possible (in the spring before you apply if possible). Cornell is infamous for dragging their feet on the LORs.</p>
<p>Professor Feigenson is one of the coolest professors at Cornell. And he teaches a 250 person biochem course so I doubt this is the first instance of someone taking BioBM331 and applying to med school at the same time. Just email him and ask him what to do.</p>
<p>As for Cornell’s letter, as long as you finish the committee application process in the spring (and if you’re not doing study abroad, the deadlines will be for you to finish in the spring), your letter will go out in mid-August. Not sooner. And not later.</p>
<p>Mid-august can be pretty late, depending on the school’s policy on when they look at your LORs and secondary.</p>
<p>Cornell has addressed this issue. They ask med schools whether it’s too late or not, and med schools have consistently told them it’s not too late. I think it’s getting towards the end of the “it won’t affect my chances” timezone. But, from my experience, you should still be able to schedule the vast majority of your interviews before December (most of my apps were read in August/September and I did 10 interviews before the new year rolled around).</p>