does anyone know the interview format for Drexel? Any kind of insight would be helpful. Thank you in advance.
Drexel announced that the interview for 2022-2023 will be virtual. Unless Drexel has a specific format for their BSMD interviews, it looks like their med school interview is one-on-one with two interviewers, according to the Student Doctor Network https://www.studentdoctor.net/schools/school/ducom/survey/26/drexel-university-college-of-medicine/2
Why Hofstra has so low rating from SDN ?
Thank you so much for the info.
Anyone got the interview from NJMS (Drew/NJMS) program?
Those rating mean nothing. Look at number of respondents it 1 or 2. If you really want to know how good the school is look at avg 2022 admitted medical student statistics and residency matches. Hofstra scored high on both for 2022 avg mcat for admitted students is 518 that is pretty good.
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My opinion is that it is much harder to get into most schools that have combined programs to get in through the general process.
There are a lot more people applying in the general cycle and even if the numbers dont look high (Drexel averages in 2021 were 512 and 3.75) the number of applicants is at 10,000. I canât imagine there are many unqualified people applying when they know the medians. So what it comes down to is whether you get picked for an interview from such a large pool.
OTOH, most people competent enough to get into BS/MD usually do much better than the medians if they choose to apply after BS since they have already figured out their path back in high school do a lot of continued work improving their activities and ensuring they keep their GPA and do well on MCAT. If someone who applied for BS/MD and actually got in is satisfied with meeting the threshold numbers, they were never interested in medicine.
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Med schools donât have to be transparent about why someone with much higher stats didnât make it to the interview round while others with lower stats did. They claim itâs a holistic process. Whenever I hear the word âholistic,â I hear âsubjectivity.â The AAMC Med School Admission Requirements (a.k.a. MSAR) are there as a reference. Not all applicants who make the MSAR threshold would get an interview.
Itâs pretty much similar to the BSMD apllication process but itâs on a much larger scale.
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The median numbers for admitted students are always much higher than the actual enrolled students since people with higher numbers would have also been admitted at other places and can choose to go to other places.
Drexel admitted 3 times the people they enrolled (not sure how many enroll in BS/MD since those are also usually included in the final enrolled number).
It is a given that a school with 512 and 3.75 will not interview all the local Penn students with 525/4.0 knowing that they are counting Drexel as a safety. OTOH, there are plenty of Penn students enrolled in Drexel because they have lower stats and couldnât get in elsewhere.
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Are the GPA and MCAT in a school MSAR the median for an accepted (not enrolled) class?
The 2022 class profile for Drexel says 511 and 3.66 while the numbers I am referring to are for 2021 from an SDN spreadsheet. I believe those were considered the class profile numbers for last year unless someone has different numbers from MSAR.
I think I found the answer. The MSAR reports the median GPA and MCAT scores for the all accepted student for an application cycle while most schools report the mean GPA and MCAT for their entering 1st year students.
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Yes, those who got into BSMD with good stats and also got into T20 undergrads most likely do very well in the traditional path: Thatâs been my observation over last 5 years but my sound engineer friend vehemently disagrees with it and went personal. However if you underperformed in standardized tests in HS there is a chance of low MCAT. I recommended one girl to go with BSMD since she wasnât comfortable with chemistry (got low SAT III score) She got MD offer letter last week.
I would consider taking interview questions people left on SDN (same URL as in my previous post on the subject) and do mock interviews at home (both offline and online with a partner via zoom or another virtual venue). Youtube and Tiktok have tutorials on how to look good online. With more schools going with virtual interviews, how to keep up good appearances online has become more important.
Rehearse the answers to questions like âtell me about yourself,â âwhy do you want to go into medicine?,â âwhy do you apply to our program?â and be able to explain ALL the specifics on the resume.
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thank you for your tips @junebug20 . will definitely take them into consideration while preparing.
One thing to remember is interviews are conducted to see if you have basic communication skills or not and not a sociopath. For very few candidates interviews are factor in decision process and usually itâs negative factor. Be confident and look at the interviewer when answering and keep it simple. Donât over prepare.
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How are the final selections for BS/MD made after interview ?
- Weightage to application + interview performance
or - Purely interview performance ?
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Stats, ECs and essays not interview.
Itâs important to appreciate that most BS/MD programs select approximately 3-5 students for every 10 interviewees. So while I agree that undergraduate interviews place very little weight on the interview, the same cannot be said for the BS/MD interview process. We must remember that from a BS/MD program standpoint, it would not be favorable for a program to invest in interviewing so many students if it did not place a significant value on the interview. Part of this is for yield, but BS/MD programs are highly desirable so yield is rarely an issue. For an undergraduate interview, the school benefits because it feeds the alumni-school connection for their gain. This is not the case with BS/MD programs.
The perspective communicated by BS/MD admissions officers (and many traditional MD admissions folk, albeit not all) is that receiving an interview invite reflects that you and every single other interviewee has been identified as excellent and capable for the position based on stats, ECs, essays, etc. They further state that the selection decision made moving forward is based significantly on a studentâs interview performance at this pointâwhich agrees with the reason the program invests time and energy into interviewing so many students.
Think about the purpose of an interview: this is singular metric that is used for BS/MD programs to clearly identify the character qualities, enthusiasm, and physician-readiness of a student. Anyone who has experience interviewing BS/MD students knows that stats, ECs, and essays have very little reflection for these fundamental components that BS/MD programs look for in students. I can speak to this from extensive experience in this area and assure you that every BS/MD interviewer knows this and is fully aware that medicine is unique in prioritizing the interview performance at a very high level.
Please be intentional with your interview preparation and understand that there is a very clear reason why it exists: the purpose that it serves is very significant.
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I would disagree with @srk2017 on this.
@rishiray.outperform has articulated my thoughts.
For BS/MDs, interviews are a critical component.
Stats, ECs, essays, and LORs get you an interview. To get an offer, you need to perform well in an interview. There is a 50% to 80% failure rate post-interview (among candidates selected for interviews).
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