Louisiana State University (New Orleans)

It was a good interview experience; definitely have questions prepared if interviews run short

I could relax more

The orientation was a little informal

Each interviewer seemed genuinely interested in me

Read the website, reviewed my primary and secondary application

It was a fairly relaxed, conversational interview. They genuinely just want to get to know you.

Read through my application and practiced a few basic questions like why medicine, why LSU, etc.

Prep lots examples of "times you showed ___ characteristic" since this will cover most of your interview if you do it well. Also, the interview was very strictly 20 minutes per person (a timer counts down and camera turns off, so very strict). 20 mins is a lot faster than you think so don't panic if you feel like you didn't get to everything. Prepare a list of top 5 things you NEED your interviewer to take away from your conversation that you weave into your answers so that you manage your time well and don't leave feeling like they didn't get to know something important about you.

My second interviewer was nice, but it was a lot more choppy than the first person (more like her going down a list of questions to ask and less like a convo).

I connected so well with my first interviewer! He was so nice and genuinely loved LSU. He raved about the closed-knit community and that he works with many of his peers from med school, which is something you don't get at other schools where people tend to disperse after med school. He even said Dean McLaren interviewed him for med school 20 years ago and now he is interviewing new students, so overall very cool. Also, the students before our interviews were very kind and helped put us at ease.

I read SDN and prepped a ton of possible answers. I tried to weave the most common themes I noticed here (handling stress, strengths/ weakness, why doc, why LSU, leadership, professionalism, teamwork) into my answers themselves since these are all obviously priorities that the admissions committee wants to learn about you so if you offer it to them without them asking, it's even better. This helped the interview be more conversational and less like "ok and for my next question, why do you want to be a doctor?" and more flowly like expanding on your previous responses/ passions. A game changer that made me so much more confident was reading about STAR interviewing and preparing 5-10 examples/ stories that might come up in that format (situation, task, action, result) for a range of questions like "name a time you failed/ had a disagreement/ worked in a team / were a leader/ worked with someone different from yourself" etc. Having the stories prepared and organized in my head was soooo nice because I wasn't panicking to think of an example of something and then realizing halfway through my response that the story I picked sucked.

Takes a while to hear back, but overall most interviewers made me comfortable and the orientation/Q&A segment wasn't full of fluff. They tell you what you want to know and keep it pushing, which I appreciated.

The interview timer cuts off at 20 minutes no matter what

One Inattentive interviewer

How genuine and normal everyone was

SDN

there is a very long break between orientation and interviews

relationship between students and faculty, cals center

SDN, mocks

Be yourself and don't stress yourself out too much!