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The Ominous Interview Day

Last Friday was the official interview day for the Occupational Therapy program at the University of Utah. Let me tell you how it went down.

Step One - Herd all 70+ awkward interviewees into a conference room and spend an hour talking about the program and the field (Great information during this part!!).

Step Two - Break awkward interviewees into groups of 6-7 (The schedule varied by group here...but since I was only in my group, the rest of the steps are in order of what we did).

Step Three - Second year grad student takes group on building tour (Our tour guide was adorable. And the work load of the program hadn't killed her yet ... that's always a good sign).

Step Four - Group activity (i.e. 'You have 12 minutes to take these tinker toys and make something functional that is not a car or a truck. Ready...set...go.' Of course, as soon as they said 'not a car or truck' - the only thing I could think of was a car or truck. Thankfully there were smarter people in our group than me. Sadly...they were also my competition. Dang.).

Step Five - 50 minutes to write a 3 page personal statement (Boo Ya for the English degree - specifically the B.S. degree. This was the one part I was totally not worried about - note that: the ONE part).

Step Six - Awkwardly make conversation with other interviewees while waiting for personal interviews to start. And realize all of them deserve this just as much as you do. That realization is a killer - I really hope they all get in. The bad news? If they all get in...I don't.

Step Seven - Ten minute personal interview with two faculty members (10 minutes? Seriously! 10 minutes = not enough time to adequately convince you I'm cool enough for grad school but just enough time to sound like a complete idiot. Face palm!).

Step Eight - Spend the next month agonizing over the ten painful minutes of personal interview and hoping that somehow 70 applicants divided by 30 spots = everyone gets in. I've never been very good at math...those odds can work out, right?

Comments

Baby Sister said…
I doubt that you sounded like an idiot, and I think the those numbers totally work out. I'm great at math, so just take my word for it. ;)
March 5, 2012 at 8:34 PM
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