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I was asked to come and talk to you tonight
about how we select our students.
And to explain that, I need to back up
a little bit before I talk about
the interview in particular.
So one of the things that's different about
the University of Minnesota vet school,
somewhat different, is that we made a change
in our admissions process a few years ago.
We started this in 2004.
Where we decided that rather than just
looking for people who were smart and had gotten
good grades and had experience,
we wanted people who were smart
and had gotten good grades, and had experience,
AND could demonstrate to us that they had
what some people call behavioral competencies
that would help them be successful,
not just in vet school but after vet school
as veterinarians.
And we were looking for people who would
be successful as small animal practitioners,
large animal practitioners,
but also people who could work in public health,
government, industry, research, et cetera.
So we want people who can be successful
in any of those areas.
So one of the things that we did to help us
down that path was we worked with a local--
they're based locally but they're an
international personnel firm called
Personnel Decisions International.
And we worked with the consultants there
and 8 or 9 other vet schools
from around the country to do this study
that looked at successful veterinarians,
and asked them to contrast their behaviors
with less successful colleagues
that they had known.
So we did focus groups all over the country
looking at what made people successful.
And we decided that we would base a good part
of our admissions decisions on those same characteristics.
So that's what that behavioral interview--
it's actually behavior based questioning--
is the type of questioning that's used
in the interview.
And behavior based questioning is
the kind of, it could be in any sort of,
you could be getting a job doing anything
and go through a behavior based interview.
It's not specific to veterinary medicine at all.
But a behavior based interview is
an interview that assumes that future behavior
is best predicted by past behavior.
So we ask you, "Tell me about a time when you..."
and then we give you a scenario
and you tell us about a time when you...
whatever that is.
I'll give you an example here in a minute.
And that's different from a more traditional
interview where we might ask you,
"What are your greatest strengths
and weaknesses?"
"What do you enjoy?"
"What don't you enjoy?"
"If a client came through the door
with a dog that had just been hit by a car
and only had 50 dollars, what would you do?"
That's a hypothesis based question.
So we're asking you to tell us
what you think you would do.
Or more likely, what you think we want
you to tell us.
So a behavior based interview is,
"Tell me about a time when you..."
Well, we know that you haven't yet encountered
a client with 50 dollars.
Probably not, unless you've been working
in a clinic, then you might have.
But we know that most of our applicants
haven't been in that situation yet.
So we're not expecting- we're not going to be
asking you those kinds of questions.
We're going to be asking you things that
you have already-- about things you've
already had to face in life.
So, an example of a question that's not on
the interview, because I wouldn't tell you
a question that is on the interview, right?
But an example of the same kind of question
that we use when we're hiring staff members
at the vet school is,
"Tell me about the biggest challenge
in effectively handling several competing demands."
So, we've all had to juggle different
competing demands.
"Tell me about a time when you faced
a big challenge in managing those
competing demands, and how that worked out for you."
So what we're asking you to do is to
reach back into your memory and tell us
about a time that you faced this situation.
And the things that are going to help you
do better in that situation,
in that interview, are having had
enough life experience that you can draw on
a somewhat compelling story.
Now we're not expecting that you've been
in the Peace Corps and saved a village.
If you have, great, that's a compelling story.
But, it doesn't have to be.
We realize that the average age
of our incoming students is 24,
and so most of them have not saved villages yet.
Maybe will never save villages.
Probably haven't done most of the things
that they're going to be doing
as a veterinarian.
So we're not asking you specific questions like that.
But you have to have enough life experience
that you're going to be able to come up with
a compelling story.
What are some other things that you
can imagine would be good experiences?
Yeah?
Female Audience Member: Leadership roles?
Leadership roles. Absolutely!
We're looking for people who are leaders.
And part of that is positional leadership,
taking on a president, vice- president, treasurer.
Or it might be leadership in your job.
If you have a summer job,
again, it could be totally unrelated to
veterinary medicine, but you're
the shift manager, something or other.
That's great.
It doesn't just have to be that kind
of leadership though too.
It could be leading an initiative.
It doesn't have to be leading other people.
Leading other people is great,
but leading an initiative.
Let's say that you're, through some community
organization or church or whatever else
you're involved in, you decide that you
really want to make the world a better place.
And here's how you contributed to do that.
It could be something you did very independently.
And that would be fine too.
Absolutely.
Very important that you get animal
and veterinary experience.
And it depends where you're
applying to school, how they're going
to quantify that.
And how much is enough.
And what kind is best.
So I would say what you want to do is
make sure that you have depth and breadth.
So, it wouldn't be enough to um....
volunteer once a month for a year
doing something or other.
That wouldn't be enough.
But at the same time, you don't necessarily
have to work, working in the same clinic
for 15 years, doing the same thing.
That's great.
We won't hold it against you at all.
But could you have used your time differently
and more to your advantage to
not only look good on your application
but again better prepare you for
answering the kinds of questions
we'll be asking you?
You know, having experience volunteering
at the Humane Society and working in
a small animal clinic.
Getting some large animal experience.
Doing some sort of research project
through your undergraduate program.
A UROP grant or something would be great.
So again, animal and veterinary experience
and knowledge of the profession.
We define that pretty broadly in Minnesota.
We want people with a breadth of experience.
So, could you get in without having had any
small animal experience?
Yeah.
I wouldn't avoid it, but if that's not at
all your interest and you've got a lot of
other kinds of experience,
that's fine.
But again, enough depth that you've
really gotten some good experience
and some amount of variety is your best bet.
Did you have a question?
Female Audience Member: Yeah.
I have a couple of questions.
I'm wondering exactly how formal
is the interview?
Yeah.
Okay.
I'm just thinking about like response time.
Is it okay if we take a little bit
to think about it?
Thanks for asking that.
I didn't talk about the specific structure.
The way we currently do it,
and it'll probably vary over years,
so maybe by the time you're there,
it'll be a little bit different.
But right now we interview
with a pair of interviewers.
So, two faculty members,
or a staff member and a faculty member
interviewing one student.
And basically what we'll do is,
"Hi, my name is Dr. So And So.
Nice to meet you.
Thanks for coming.
Did you have any trouble finding us?"
And a little bit of building rapport,
but we're not going to spend
a lot of time chatting.
We're going to jump right into the interview.
And then we'll let you know that
this is a structured, behavior based interview.
So, we're going to be asking you questions
and giving you a chance to respond.
We'll then be following up
with follow-up questions,
or what we call behavioral probes.
So when you tell your story,
then we'll say, "Oh.
So then what happened?"
And then you'd say...
And then, "How did he respond?"
I'm making this up right now.
And then, "How did you respond?"
"How did it turn out?"
For example.
Because we need to get to the bottom of it
in order to decide how to rate your answer.
Because at the bottom of each sheet,
we have a standardized scoring guide
that tells us, what's a good answer,
one extreme.
And what's a not good answer.
And we'll rate you on a five point scale
for each question.
And there are, boy...
there are eight, nine, ten questions
to get through in an hour.
And so there's not a ton of time.
I'm sure it feels very action packed
when you're feeling like
you're on the hot seat.
I wouldn't anticipate any sort of grilling at all.
It's not at all like a trial
or something like that.
It's just getting more information than,
what happened?
What did he say?
What did you say?
How did it turn out? Kind of things.
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