Get ahead in applications and interviews. Sending dominos flying
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Buenos Dias, Muchachos!
After a few weeks binging on Amazon’s Prime Video and eating endless tacos, I’m back.
Every year we take a couple of weeks off once the March GAMSAT is over.
It’s an intense run-up to the exam for everyone involved, and your ever-suffering narrator and his gang of Merry Men and Women needed some much-deserved RnR.
I remember back when I was doing the GAMSAT, and the dinosaurs were still roaming our sunburnt land, hearing the great Des O’Neill (the Godfather of GAMSAT prep) say that he and his wife took 3 months off after March before getting back into things for the September exam.
Oh, how things have changed!
I have nothing but respect for Des.
I did his program many years ago. But things are different now. Des is retired. The GAMSAT has evolved and the competition has only intensified.
These days people study very differently, far more effectively, and what has cut my post-March slothing-slumber short is they also start studying much earlier.
GAMSAT is a year-round journey for many people now.
Dreams don’t take much of a break.
And as cheesy as it sounds, neither does the PG team.
Shortly, we’re going to be talking about the September 2021 exam, which we’ve already dubbed, “Second Chance September,” after hearing how so many people messed the bloody thing up in March.
But first, there’s the little case of the applications and interviews.
That’s the next phase.
In mid-May, the March results will be released, sending the domino flying every which way for most people who sat March.
Why is that?
Well, my fine-feathered-friend,
You’ll only have 2 weeks or so to complete your applications before they close on the 31st of May.
That’s not a lot of time to assess your chances of getting in, research and decide on the best order of preferences, write personal statements, get community service experience, find references, write up your portfolios, and make sure it’s all good and stands out from the competition.
Then there are the interviews.
10 stages, intense ethical questions, mostly online (sometimes even without anyone there, just you talking to a camera), and you only get 2 weeks from when you’re told you have an interview to actually doing the interview.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, the portfolio and interview count for as much as the GAMSAT does: they are just as important but you only get a couple of weeks each to work on them.
No wonder people are starting early.
But what if I don’t get a high enough score to apply? Aren’t I wasting my time and ‘getting my hopes up?’
Maybe.
But if you don’t, and you end up getting a score that’s good enough to apply, then that’s the worst-case scenario in my books.
So you have a choice –
Potentially ‘waste’ some time working on it now (and none of it is really wasted because anything you do now will help you next time in the off chance that your score is indeed not high enough now) and be ready to succeed in the application and interview process,
OR…
You can hide under your doona cover until the results come out and then watch the blood and feathers fly everywhere because you most likely wasted your biggest opportunity to achieve your dream.
But look,
If I have to labour this point too much then you’re probably not the kind of person I can work with anyway.
So I’m going to end that line of reasoning right there.
Back to what I was saying…
Over the next few days, you’re going to hear from me and someone who is even more qualified than I to talk to you about interviews…
Someone who has performed over 400 professional interviews, as the interviewer, and knows the process inside out…
Someone who trained me to get through my interview (and I got in)…
And has helped countless people get into medicine schools in Australia, the UK and Ireland over the last 10 years or so that she’s been doing this.
That person is none other than…
Well…
I’ll tell you in the next email.
For now,
if you’d like to get ahead of the curve in the applications and interview then this will help.
Cheers,
Dr “Let’s make this happen for you” Tom
P.S. Apart from interviews – which is the main focus on the text on this page – we’re also going to cover the applications.
