University of California (Davis)

Nothing specific comes to mind

The difficulty of the MMI transitions on Zoom

The positive attitude and honesty of the school faculty and representatives

Practice interview with family and reading sample MMI book and questions

Using the AMP MMI system can be challenging to understand, and constantly leaving and joining Zoom meetings takes away from your time to answer the questions.

The interviewers were friendly and did their best to create an environment that was as stress-free as possible.

I used BigInterview and their MMI/Ethical Scenario questions.

Honestly as pleasant of an interview experience as I can imagine

How kind and welcoming everyone would be

Nothing at all. I walked away from my interview wanting UCDSOM soooo badly.

Extremely welcoming and friendly. It was clear from the interview day how supportive of an environment UCDSOM is. The student panel was a nice chance to settle in and calm down before the interviews started.

general MMI prep, and practiced telling parts of my story succinctly (their MMI stations are really short, 5 minutes each)

Fell in love with the school and felt at home. It's like they say... "When you know, you know!"

Although you are being evaluated and will be stressed, you will walk away with a positive impression of the school and its students. They also provide water, tissues, mints, toothpicks, etc. for interviewees so you don't have to worry about your allergies or cold when you are interacting with each station.

The warm and inviting culture of the school, transparency about the school and its admissions process, camaraderie, agreeableness, and enthusiasm of the students (lots of hugging), delicious and hot catered food for lunch, beautiful and well-maintained buildings and facilities, proximity of the education building to the hospital, and large student turn-out (almost 2:1 student:interviewee ratio) during the Q&A portion of the interview day.

Trying to relax and be myself.

Had a lot of fun with the staff and students. I also did the host program, which I would recommend. I went to eat dinner with the hosts and their friends and hostees the night before. It helped to break the ice with some of the people I was interviewing with. Staying the medical students also helped me with getting the know the school and their feelings with it.

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sending out the info SUPER late! I got the info the interview about 7 days before my interview. We had to submit a photo a week before so I had to take a photo that day and send it in. Then the host program and student run clinics reservations were also done 7 days out. These are a guarantee so it's frustrating. Thankful I booked an AirBnB for Thursday night because I didn't want to wait a week before to sign up for the host program. Then I ended staying with a host on Friday night and going to the tour of the student run clinic on Saturday (which I didn't know I would be doing until 7 days before).

Hospitality of staff. They provided tic-tacs, floss, mouth wash and all that jazz in the rest rooms. There was also tissue, a bottle of water, hand sanitizer at each MMI. To me, the little things help! Also, I got to shadow a medical student at the student run clinic on Saturday which was an AMAZING experience.