An invitation to interview at a medical school indicates that your application is strong enough to merit consideration for admittance to the program.
But while you may have passed the initial admissions committee scrutiny, an invitation to interview does not mean that the committees have overlooked weaker portions of your application. The committee likely sees more positive than negative qualities in you and is willing to further discuss your application — including those weaker areas.
If you have been invited to interview but are worried about how to address a C-plus in organic chemistry or another blemish, consider following these three strategies to help you balance the strong and weak parts of your application.
[Use five strategies to ace a medical school admissions interview.]
1. Allow interviewer to determine weaknesses: While you may be nervously contemplating a minor red flag in your medical school application, the interviewer may not view this weakness as a reason to deny you admittance.
Rather than raising all of your application insecurities during the interview, allow the interviewer to decide whether a specific weakness is important. Although you may believe a B in one of your premedical courses is devastating, the interviewer may have spoken with many other applicants with similar transcripts and may see that grade differently than you do.
Resist the urge to correct your perceived application weaknesses by first allowing the interviewer to note any bare spots in your profile. If the interviewer ultimately does not raise that small red flag that worried you, follow his or her lead and let it pass.
[Learn how to avoid the common mistakes that lead to medical school rejections.]
2. Frame your weaknesses in a positive manner: Medical school requires students to remain flexible in times of difficulty and to learn from their mistakes. Demonstrating growth after a stumble can suggest to the admissions committee that you have the necessary resilience to cope with the many challenges of a medical education.
If the interviewer asks you about a weakness in your application — whether it’s a lack of research or volunteer experience or a semester of low grades following an extenuating circumstance — be sure to acknowledge the observation. However, instead of lingering on the flaw, explain what you have learned from the experience.
Perhaps you took on too many extracurricular activities in the second semester of your sophomore year and now know how to more effectively manage a work-life balance. Or maybe after volunteering for a short time, you learned that you should have committed to a longer tenure because you realized how important your host organization was to the community.
Ensure you highlight how you have grown from this experience, and demonstrate how your perseverance connects to the qualities that the medical school is looking for in prospective students.
[Learn to be authentic and thoughtful during medical school interviews.]
3. Remain confident: If you have been invited to interview, chances are the medical school views you as a competitive applicant. No matter what weaknesses you perceive in your application, be confident in the fact that you are a contender for a spot in next year’s entering class.
Becoming anxious about weaknesses before an interview will be pointless by the time you meet your interviewer. You cannot go back in time to fix anything on your application, so own everything you bring to the table and be confident that you already possess the qualities necessary to succeed as a medical student and future physician.
More from U.S. News
Medical School Interviews May Cover Obamacare
Explore Disaster Training as a Prospective Medical Student
Plan Ahead as a Nontraditional Medical School Applicant
Use Medical School Interviews to Address Weaknesses originally appeared on usnews.com
