Session 294 For today's episode, we took a handful of questions that students asked in our Facebook group, the Premed Hangout. We cover a variety of topics. Join now! If you're listening to this before August 21, 2018, the release date of my next book The Premed Playbook: Guide to the Medical School Personal Statement. Preorder it on Barnes and Noble and submit the receipt at submitbookreceipt.com. Then you will get access to over $150 worth of stuff including a 5-day Personal Statement course I did with students where we broke down their personal statements and they asked a lot of questions. You will also get access to a private Facebook group where we do Facebook Live sessions every other week. Get access to the Personal Statement Starter Package calls where a student comes on the phone with me as they try to figure out what they should be writing about. You get five of those recordings as well as the PDF version of the book so you can take it with you. Back to today's episode, we're answering questions from the Premed Hangout group. It's a free group you can join. Facebook is actually doing a trial right now in charging for group access. But for now, we're not charging anything. The group has over 5500 students. Also follow me on Instagram @medicalschoolhq. [04:05] Interview Prep Q: Can you discuss the most common mistakes students make preparing for interviews and during the actual interviews? How can we avoid these mistakes? A: Check out The Premed Playbook: Guide to the Medical School Interview. Go to your library and to your premed advisor. Ask and see if they have the book since I gave out 180 of each of book series (the personal statement book, the interview book, and the MCAT book). Second, go and listen to previous podcast episodes I've done, starting back in Episode 19, where I interviewed Dr. Wagoner, the former Dean of Admissions at three different medical schools. The most common mistake is not preparing for the interview. You need to prepare for the interview. You can learn skills preparing for the interview. Those skills are going to help you whether you prepare one month, six months, one year before your interview. "The most common mistake is not preparing for the interview." You have to learn how to talk about yourself and how to handle the stress of the situation. You're going to learn how you respond to that situation. Do you sweat a lot? Do you have nervous tics? You have to figure out how you're going to respond. And the solution is easy. Go and do mock interviews. Find your advisor and a career counselor. Whoever you have access to, use them. If you don't have access to somebody, try to find somebody. If you still can't find anybody, go to go to the medical school interview question generator. Choose a topic, and click, Ask Me! It just throws up a random question that you can use to practice. You don't know what questions are coming so it keeps you on your toes. If you like that and you decide to keep it up a notch where you can record yourself and email it to somebody for feedback, use our Mock Interview Platform at $47. It's very similar but you will find videos of me asking you questions. Then your webcam will record you. Then you an use it to review your answer. "The best way to prepare is recording yourself so that you can give yourself feedback or somebody else can give you feedback." [07:35] Talking About Mistakes Q: What is the best way to address essay and interview questions, asking you to explain a weaker portion of your application? More specifically, how do you recommend an applicant can reassure admissions committees that the "mistake" won't be repeated and doesn't define the applicant without sounding unprofessional or losing confidence, for example, in the case of a poor grade or weaker GPA? A: When you have the ability to talk about mistakes in your application, whether it's an essay, your personal statement, or during interview, always, always, always offer up either what you've lear