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January 20, 2005
Notes on UCSF MEPN Interview Day
It was an interview day. There were two interview days at UCSF, to cover 150 or so people. Each person interviewed twice, with a professor and a nurse manager as I explained above. Each interview was 45 minutes long, and worked through a set list of questions. Many of the questions were of the predictive-philosophical kind: "How will you know you're being a good nurse?", "Describe a situation where you've had to prioritize and organize a list of tasks.", "What will you do to handle stress?", and, of course, "What will you bring to the profession of nursing?"
- People dress up. All the men were in suits, and most of the women were too
- They do feed you, both breakfast and lunch. Lunch is in a small group with 1 or 2 current MEPN students, so you can pick their brains. This was perhaps the most informative and the most relaxing part of the day
- If you weren't there last friday, you'll have two interviews this friday. Some people had both interviews last friday (like all the out of towners) and some (locals, mostly) have them split over both fridays. You'll meet with one professor from the program, and one nurse manager (probably over in the UCSF Medical Center, and possibly not related to your preferred field). The focus of the first interview is your ability to do the coursework, and the second with whether you have what it takes to be a nurse.
- The nurse manager you interview with only sees your name, work history and your volunteer history. Other than that, they know nothing.
- There's time during part of the morning to take advantage of a tour of the campus. I might have spent this time better by sitting quietly and drinking a little water. For me, the tour isn't really terrifically helpful.
- There were about 500 applicants, and 152 interviewees, for 76 spots. People will ask about "how many spots are there for my speciality". This question is largely useless, and will only stress you out and confuse you. the reason is that the admissions committee selects 76 of the interviewees based on merit alone, and only then takes a look to see if they've exceeded any of the limits set by the specialities. We tallied it up, and realized that the total of the limits set across the specialities was far and away greater than the number of slots, so this limit thing only really applies if the pool of interviewers contains an abnormally large number of above average applicants who are all going for one speciality.
- The faculty all seem to be serious about their jobs, but really, really supportive. They want you to succeed.
- The other interviewees are overall very cooperative. Everyone was nervous, of course, but friendly and supportive. I heard lots of people saying "good luck" when someone they'd only spent 3 minutes talking to went off to an interview.
- The afternoon is all info sessions: coursework, immunizations, cpr certifications, financial aid, housing, etc. This is useful, so even through you'll be exhausted by this point, try to absorb a bit more.
On the advice of a friend, I got the Mission Statement and Principles of Community from the School of Nursing website. Most SoNs have them. Using them, you can find out what the school thinks it wants to project to the world. You can use it to reflect back to them things that they want to hear. For UCSF, it was four points: Clinical training, Research, Education, and Community Initiatives. So I made a point of talking about how I want to do things that involve all four, and that I'd like UCSF to help me out with those goals.
Posted by Chris A at January 20, 2005 03:50 PM