I think that is my number one choice right now and I am finishing the secondary this weekend. I know at least one person here went there and maybe others interviewed? Any advice?
I applied there as well and it is in my top 5. It took ame a little time to answer the why do you want to come here question. I looked at their website and the department that I wanted to study, Emergency Medicine, and looked at the resources. Once that was in my mind, the rest was easy.
Interview day at GWU is pretty chill. Interviewers range from Ph.D. basic science faculty to M.D. alumnae/i and faculty to emeritus (i.e. OLD) folks to second-year and fourth-year students. In my experience, the emphasis is on fit, humanity, and maturity of outlook on medicine. You need to be able to clearly articulate your answer to the “why medicine?” question.
Find out if GWU’s interviews are still “blind” - that was the case when I was on the AdCom two years ago, and earlier when I applied, and I would presume it hasn’t changed but it would be good to find out for sure. If that’s still the case, you should know that you’re likely to encounter “Tell me about yourself,” as your first question. God I hated that question! But your interviewer isn’t going to know a THING about you and so you’re going to have the opportunity to set the stage for the remainder of your conversation.
I chose to kind of rehash my PS and I think that was an OK way to proceed.
I would absolutely, positively NOT use the interview as a way to extensively explain old screw-ups. Given the free-form nature of the interviews, you could end up with it as a major focus of the conversation and that would be bad.
Your interviewer may ask you near the end, “Is there anything you’d like me to convey to the AdCom?” This is a serious offer. S/he WILL actually pass on your comments, so feel free to say things like “This is my #1 choice,” for example. (back it up of course)
Good luck everyone! As I progress through residency I continue to feel that GWU prepared me well both technically and in the humanistic art of medicine.
Mary