miss akay

Interview at GWU, trip to NYC and Genetics exam

Thursday, I drove down to Washington D.C. for my interview at George Washington. Wow... is it ever close to where my parents live! My dad dropped me at the METRO and twenty minutes later I walked into the medical school lobby. I'm not kidding! There were fifteen students interviewing on the same day as me. Most of them seemed like very nice people. Only one bad apple in the group and I think it was mostly a maturity thing. This girl kept complaining to the rest of us, "I can't understand what the point of the whole interview process is. It's such a waste of time!". That's a pretty memorable statement and I hope she doesn't end up in my class. But current students at GW were all very nice and pretty cool. They looked like my friends! It felt so homey, because we have a lot of similar interests and priorities. There was a strong feeling of community and they each had interesting things to report about the first year as a student. Everyone seemed to be friends and had funny stories to share. They help out one another in lab and before exams. There's no hint of competition or resentment for other students, which you might get at other medical schools that are still grading on a steep curve. The grading scale at GWU sets 90% and above as Honors. Otherwise, you either Pass or Fail. 94% of their students pass the USMLE's on the first "Go", which seems to be a pretty decent statistic to me. The facilities were very nice, too. The exam rooms and lecture halls were sporting the latest technology. All of the lectures are recorded as MP3's, so you can load them up on your iPod and listen at high speed, which is how I read all my audiobooks anyway.

The interviews themselves were very chill. First, I was interviewed by a faculty member. He was a friendly, laidback pediatrician and we talked about all sorts of things from my rock climbing to his kayaking adventures and of course about more serious topics, like a little bit of health policy, GW's location in Washington D.C., the school curriculum, my personal interests in medicine and why it's a match for me. He didn't ask me any of the typical interview style questions. It seems everyone else was asked to, "talk about a time they failed". Second, I was interviewed by a second year medical student named Stacia. She did her post-bac work in California and was originally from the East Coast. We were also the same age, so we already have a lot in common. She was fun to talk to and spoke highly of the students in her class. At the end of the interview she tore off a corner of the evaluation sheet and wrote down her GW email address for me. I felt very welcomed and left GW with a very nice impression. I am hoping to get an acceptance from the school, but I know it's impossible to know out what their impression is of me. On paper, I think I am a good candidate for their school. During my interview, I expressed my sincere interests in GW, motivation to work hard, etc. It won't be until mid-January until I find out. So far, one person from RIT who interviewed last month was already added to the waitlist, which isn't good. That means he could be accepted in June, July, August or not at all! Keep your fingers crossed and meanwhile I'll report my interview experience from Georgetown in about two weeks from now.

I drove back to Philly on Saturday afternoon and got a call from my SF friend, Dana who just came out to NYC for a visit. After I emptied the car and got cleaned up, I checked the bus schedule and hopped a bus headed for Manhattan. Only $30, round-trip!


I planned to come back later that night, but ended up meeting her at a bar in Soho, we headed for dinner in Greenwich Village, went to her friends Kyle and Brenda's for a brief visit in Alphabet City, then to a house party in Greenwich again and we slept at Kyle and Brenda's, then got up and had the most delicious brunch in Gramercy Park at the coolest, coziest little place, ever! Everything was so delicious and I must have said to Dana a million times how much I loved it! After brunch, we both headed to Port Authority to catch our respective buses to Philadelphia and Salisbury, MD.


It was great to see her and have a little mini holiday. We haven't known each other all that long, but formed an almost instantaneous sense of rapport with one another and as she said, "its a pity we didn't get to hang out more in SF...but i think we are becoming 'those' sort of friends- that hang out when they can and its like no time passes." Dana's awesome! Smart, funny, tech-saavy, and a fashionista, at that! On Saturday night, she was wearing a little, red Miss Sixety shirt with mittens sewn as part of the pattern of the shirt, that snap to the tops of her forearm, that I secretly covet.

Today, it's back to school. I got my genetics exam back... a B+, which I admit is a bit of an annoyance. Oh well. On to the new material and one more test, and one more quiz to go! We should be starting a new online graded class discussion on the Bird Flu, which I'm looking forward to. We've moved on from fruitflies, replication, protein translation and are now studying mutation, viruses and all you would ever want to know about bacterial reproduction. Yum! heh... it's funny how differently I look at my counter tops these days.

posted by miss akay @ 10:20 PM