Let me start by saying that it felt really strange to live with a host when I lived 10-15 minutes away from campus. I wanted the student perspective on things, and to be honest, I don’t regret my decision. It just felt weird.
I stayed with an MS2 in our apartment which is about 5-10 minutes from campus. Newport Beach, for those of you who don’t know, is definitely one of the more affluential areas of Orange County. My host and her roommate share a 2 bed, 2 bath apartment for $1000/month each, which sounds outrageous for some and not for others. (I went to USC for a few years, so I know my opinion is skewed, heehee). She talked to me a bit about the school and its curriculum, and her most memorable words were that all medical schools “are the same.” She seemed to genuinely enjoy UCI, but didn’t see genuinely excited about that, if that makes sense. I don’t know if I should attribute that to UCI’s culture of the fact that her MS1 glory “this is so exciting!” days are over. Hmm…
Regardless, we left the house to attend an informal UCI pre-interview pizza dinner with other applicants and potential interviewers. I was really shocked when I arrived because I saw the table with 50+ people. Holy cow! Compared to Pritzker and USC Keck, which interviewed noly 12 at a time, UCI definitely has large interview days (an MS2 said they didn’t want to do interviews 3days a week, ha!) with up to 40 applicants per visit. Talk about a logistical nightmare, haha! The medical students who stopped by to chat (and have free food) were nice and helpful, which I think we all appreciated.
Starting with breakfast at 8AM the next morning, all the interviewed gathered to check in and grab our folders with lanyards and drawstring bags. UCI has definitely given the nicest materials by far, haha! Makes my poor college soul happy. Unfortunately, because of class schedule changes, the MS2s were not able to host a student panel for interviewees (they had a sleep study lecture to attend), and the Dean of Admissions gave her welcome and intro the group while we were eating. A few notes:
- Acceptances are given out around Halloween; if you are waitlisted and/or hang up on the Dean twice (lulz), you will receive a status change.
- The waitlist will not be revisited until spring around April 30th. If you want to send an update/letter of intent, do so in early to mid-April
- There is “extensive” movement on the waitlist after April 30th. The Dean assures us that this is the case for all school since students generally hold more than one acceptance, but I definitely know that some schools exhibit very little waitlist movement. I’m not sure if the extensive waitlist movement is a good or bad sign for UCI, to be honest.
Following the Admissions talk was a small building tour. UCI is unique in that its medical campus is inhabited by mostly MS1s and MS2s, where they get their preclincal eduction. During their rotations, on the other hand, students need to travel to the UCI Medical Center in Orange, and this separation between the two often results in students moving after their second year. It’s a bit inconvenient, but the underserved population in Orange makes it a really good place to be involved with health disparities and improving medical care. Additionally, because of this, the medical campus at UCI is essentially…one building. There’s admissions and financial aid on the first floor, the simulation center and study cubicals on the second, and lecture halls and the student lounge on the third.
After the tour, we all went back to gather and listen to presentations on the medical curriculum and financial aid. UCI, as students and faculty have raved, has undergone a pretty dramatic transformation over the past few years. The MS1s for example, instead of taking a subject exam every week, now take longer, combined exams (i.e. anatomy, histology, physiology) every 3-4 weeks. While this does include more studying and longer tests, students say that it will prepare them better for the USMLE, which provides “combined” knowledge questions. Additionally, UCI is famously known for teaching students how to use ultrasound for pretty much..everything. This seems to be the unique selling point for UCI’s medical school, since they boast that few, if any, other medical schools allow medical students to use and be proficient at ultrasound by their rotation year. In fact, ultrasound is so popular with the students that amost 50% of them do summer research trips abroad where they teach local health professionals how to use ultrasound as preventive/diagnostic measures. I think it’s awesome that the school focuses on something that’s clearly a skill to be shared and valued! In addition to all of this, UCI has recently started a longitudinal clinical course, which takes up 10 weeks of MS1 and 20 weeks of MS2. Basically, this programs assigns you to a clinic to work on either Wednesday morning or afternoon. You won’t have class on Wednesdays, which would allow you to devote your time fully to the patient care and clinical experiences, which should (hopefully) reinforce your motivations for medicine. Unfortunately, a huge downside for me was the H/P/F grading during MS2. I know that the “honors” designation shouldn’t make a huge difference, but I am really afraid that it would foster the level of competition that I really want to get away from in medical school I’ll definitely have to reconsider this issue if I’m lucky enough to get an acceptance! As for financial aid…well, the short of it is that even if we declare ourselves as independent on the FAFSA, UCI (and most schools, apparently) require our parents’ info if we want to be eligible for institutional aid (grants, scholarships, etc). I was a bit disappointed, since I know that my parents make enough that adding their info would be useless. ):
Once we were done with the presentations, we lined up to try on our white coats for sizing before walking downstairs to the simulation room for the “structured interview.” The structured interview was definitely interesting! UCI’s trying to decide if they want to change to an MMI format, and having 1 “MI” station allowed them to test the field. We all went in groups of 8 to the simulation floor and stood in front of the doorways of individual rooms. There was a prompt on the door and we were allowed 2 minutes to read the prompt before stepping into the room. The station is 8 minutes long; 4 minutes for us to address/answer the prompt and 4 minutes for the interviewer to ask questions. I soon realized, however, that these questions don’t necessarily have to be “follow-up” qusetions; in fact, I was asked 3 hypothetical “grab bag” questions that had nothing to do with my response. Talk about unexpected, haha! It was fun though; if nothing else, I forced me to keep an open mind for the rest of the day!
After the structured interview, we all gathered for lunch, which consisted of various sandwiches, salad, and cookies/brownies with lemonade or water. It was a very light, delicious, and satisfying lunch. While eating, some interviewers decided to mingle with u before lining up to be paired with each applicant. To my luck and surprise, my interviewer happened to sit right across from me last night! It was really nice becasue I had already asked her a bunch of questions last night, and we got to know each other informally, which made the interview today much more conversational. In fact, after going through 3 standards interview questions, we pretty much spent the majority of our interview talking about our favorite TV shows, haha! She told me a lot about UCI’s global opportunities which sound incredibly interesting to me, as well as all the dual degree opportunities. She, more than anything, I think made me more interested in attending UCI.
After my student interview, I hung around the front of the medical building with a few other interviewees until the shuttle came. At UCI, because they have so many students on each interview day, split the faculty interviews between on-campus and at the hospital, which is located in Orange, about 20-40 minutes away. Unfortunately for our group, the shuttle arrived half and hour late, which caused me to be late to my faculty interview. /Sigh.
As for the faculty interview…HAHAHA that was definitely a stress interview. Either that, or I easily cow under pressure -________-lll The faculty interviewer definitely took “open file” to heart and now only had it in front of him, but had apparently went through it with a fine-toothed comb. He circled very specific words and phrases that I used and asked me to elaborate on them. (i.e.”You used ‘social justice’ and ‘advocacy’ in this prmopt; what does advocacy mean to you?”) I was grilled for about 15-20 minutes on my research alone, since he wanted to know everything down to the last detail, and also asked for potential applications/future studies based on the results. Thank goodness I reviewed my publication, or I would have been sweating bullets! I Following that, I was asked several questions about my RA and community experiences in detail and how they affect my perception of the world, followed by my interest in UCI. THe “Why UCI” question was honestly difficult, because I largely chose to apply because 1. it was close to home, 2. it was in California, and 3. my parents wanted me to. Lastly, I think his most difficult question was “What do you want the admissions committee to know about you?” to which I froze before nervously answering, “I don’t know; I’m sorry.” I really didn’t like that question -______-lll The most uncomfortable question, by far though, was what he asked earlier in the interview, about why I didn’t choose to pursue an NP or PA career beause I am female and need to consider the lifestyle. Just…wut. It was a very stressful hour…
After the interview, I hopped back on the bus towards the medical school campus, where I picked up my luggage and went home. UCI’s interview day was the most…interesting by far, haha! If nothing else, the faculty interview will prepare me for the tougher interviews on the east coast.
