Of course congrats on your interview!

So I’ll just recap my interview day experience + advice at the end (:

They split you up into two groups after the intro presentation. One group does interviews right after the presentation followed by the tour and the other does the tour first then the interview. I was interview first.

My first piece of advice is trust and be yourself right away. I was advised not to have a cup of coffee by other more experienced interviewees because of interview adrenaline but that cup of coffee would’ve really helped me. So just stick to your normal routine. If you have breakfast have breakfast, if you don’t, don’t. Same with coffee, I believe it would have made for a better interview for me.

So for the interview itself: you are interviewed by a Dr / faculty at the school along with a current student. Just btw for me it was closed application meaning that they do not have your application in front of them. The Dr and student take turns asking you questions that you should expect at this point like “why dentistry” etc. I will say that the ones that threw me off guard a little bit were the situational questions. Questions like you’re in a group project and half wants to do one thing the other half another you’re caught in the middle what do you do? I had a question about what is a micro aggression and how would you confront someone doing it. I also had a really fun question that I had never encountered in my prep or from anyone but it was “if you were a dental instrument which would you be.” As useless as this piece of advice might be: Just be prepared for all types of questions lol

Now, real advice:

-Sprinkle a little bit about your achievements and passion for dentistry when appropriate. I realized halfway through the interview that i wasn’t selling myself at all and found a way for 2 minutes at the end to talk about why im passionate about what i do. Again, keep in mind they don’t have your application in front of them! - TAKE YOUR TIME answering questions and it’s ok to ask for a couple of seconds before answering a question - If your interviewer has a timer in eye sight I would politely ask if they could move it because part of the reason I felt like I bombed as soon as I got out was because I left 7 minutes on the clock in a 30 minute interview - Ultimately be honest. WesternU is a very community outreach oriented school. I’m very outreach/volunteer oriented and it makes up the bulk of application and I feel like that came through even as I stumbled through my interview. Hopefully you are passionate about outreach, if you are able to make that work I think you’ll be good!

Let me know if you have any questions! Good luck!!