Sunday, February 23, 2003
The University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine Interview:
On February 3rd, 2003, I was fortunate enough to find myself amongst several youngish veterinarian wannabes like myself at the College's final step in the evaluative process (for admission): The Interview.
I was not nervous until the moment I arrived and saw all the other interviewees, individuals who were invited to interview that day because they were as smart, ambitious, and capable as me, or more so. I felt overwelmed being surrounded by people just as willing as I to invest four years and tens of thousands of dollars to enter a profession that yields the common and annoying question: "If you're so smart, why didn't you become a
real doctor?" (This question was also asked in the interview and will be answered in an upcoming post).
Were we all crazy? We all knew from experince that getting accepted to veterinary school requires a higher GPA, higher GRE scores, more upper level science course work and more practical experince than getting accepted to most medical schools, and I thought that was simply because there were so few veterinary schools (only 24 in North America) and so many applicants. . .but now I was hearing that veterinary school is actually
harder than medical school. What was I doing there?
THE INTERVIEWERS
There were three interviewers: one faculty member, a handsome-ish gentle mannered man who looked no older than 35, one fourth-year student who never had a trace of expression on her face, and one alum/practicing veterinarian--a gray-haired, smiling guy who made eye contact with me and smiled at every answer I gave. I looked at the latter a lot as I spoke. They were very friendly, but they seemed a bit tired after interviewing dozens of applicants. I'm not sure how much time I had to answer their questions, so I was a bit nervous. They explained that they had not seen the rest of my application, and therefore knew nothing about me or my current ranking in the applicant pool.
THE QUESTIONS
The interview questions fell into two categories: scenarios and open-ended questions. There was no way to prepare for these questions, seeing that I had no idea what they would be. Here they are, to the best of my recollection, not necessarily in order, with my comments in italics:
Scenarios
1. You are a veterinarian in a private practice. A client comes to you with a dog (
they gave specific age, sex and breed, but this information was not too relevant--in other workds, I don't remeber these details of the question) that was diagnosed by another veterinarian as having kidney disease.You know the name of this other veterinarian. The client has brought the dog to you for a second opinion. You run some diagnosic tests, and the results do not indicate kidney disease. What do you tell the client?
Note how the gender of both the other veterinarian and the client are not mentioned. I think this question is seeking out your attitude towards others in the profession, your communication strategies when dealing with "second opinions", as well as your communication skills with clients. Personally, I think second opinions are a normal part of the medical and repair professions, so I said that I would tell the client I would be in touch with the other vet to discuss our differing diagnoses and come to some conclusion about the dog's condition. I also said my response would depend on the type of tests the other vet performed.
2. You are taking a long trip on a bus, and are seated next to a young college student. After starting a conversation, it is revealed that you are a veterinary student. Your new aquaintance then asks you, "Why don't you just go into real medicine?" What do you say?
This topic will be addressed in a future post
3. You are working on a group project with two other people, and it is due tomorrow. You have had several weeks to work on the project, and your portion of the project is done, but the other two people in your group have not completed their assigned parts of the project. How do you handle the situation?
4. You have a friend who is a music major who has to take a science course to complete a degree requirement, but really hates/is afraid of scince classes. Of the courses you have taken, which one would you suggest, and what would you say to this friend about it?
Open-ended:
1. Albert Einstein once said "Imagination is more important than information." How do you interpret this statement pertaining to science? Give a specific example of what he may have meant.
Well, I blew this question, but then ten minutes after leaving the interview, thought of a million "specific examples. Research examples, mostly, like how the double-helix structure of DNA was discovered through not only knowing base parings, but also imagination and trial and error of several models, and my own personal research experince, which would have been the best kind of example to use.
2. Describe an academic weakness of yours, and how you plan to deal with it as a veterinary student.
3. Give an example of a time you took leadership in a group or situation.
4. Explain a time when you helped resolve a conflict between two friends or family members (
or co-workers--"co-workers" were not mentioned in the question but they let me use a work example).
5. What do you stand on the issue of animal rights and animal welfare?
I made sure I defined the difference I see between the two, stating that "animals rights" has more to do with politics, while "animal welfare" has more to do with ideology. I then went on to explain how I feel about both.
6. Discuss a current event that is meaningful to you.
