TCU CRNA program for January 2016

mace8704 · Sep 4, 2015

To be honest, I have no idea. I would guess that means the faculty is asking everyone the same questions, or at the very least, asking questions from a predesigned approved set of questions, and allocating the same amount of time to every interview. After speaking with my other classmates, it appears there was a lot of variability from one interview to the next last year, because the faculty had a lot of freedom in choosing what to ask They could reduce this variability by having all faculty members ask similar questions. Therefore, the difficulty of the upcoming interview will depend on what questions the admissions committee thought up. Do they now include clinical/scenario questions? Will they still have two group interviews? Again, I have no idea.

gassy2be · Sep 4, 2015

What do you think that means? They will ask the same list of questions to everyone and limit the length of interviews? Or what do you take out of that update?

Sounds like what they're doing is this new thing called mini interviews, or something like that. Supposed to be a more objective way for them to evaluate candidates where the questions are preassigned and they can't vary from the list of questions they are given. Responses are timed to be brief. It's actually a much more comfortable way to be evaluated, in my opinion.

But, if this is what they're doing, I wonder why our letters still said 2, 10-15 minute interviews?

anurse1 · Sep 5, 2015

My letter stated there were going to be "two 20 minute face-to-face sessions." Gassy2be did yours say 10-15 minutes?

gassy2be · Sep 5, 2015

My letter stated there were going to be "two 20 minute face-to-face sessions." Gassy2be did yours say 10-15 minutes?

Oh yes it does, I think I got the 10-15 min long from posts on here

carolina_1 · Sep 5, 2015

I can't believe interviews start in a few days. I'm so nervous!!

RN-Mama · Sep 6, 2015

I have interview on Sept. 8th as well. So nervous and excited at the same time. I wonder if one interview will more of getting to know you and the other is more clinical focused.

texaslife · Sep 6, 2015

I have interview on Sept. 8th as well. So nervous and excited at the same time. I wonder if one interview will more of getting to know you and the other is more clinical focused.

I have been through one other interview process before with another school. One interview was with the director, a couple professors, an anesthesiologist, and a CRNA. The other interview was with two current students. Both sets had a structured script, in that they read their questions from a paper. Nothing original in the questioning. All the questions were behavioral/personality. Only the director asked a few original and clinical questions pertaining to me personally.

She asked what I saw most of on my unit. Then I was asked to describe the disease process. She wanted short and simple, but I didn't know that until she cut-off my elaborate description of sepsis. She asked what primary medication was used for the hypotension in sepsis: "Levophed." "And what does Levophed do?" I was preparing to describe how it works on a molecular level, but when I didn't immediately answer, I was asked again, "What does it do to the vasculature?" I answered immediately and sort of shockingly, "Constricts it."

I was surprised at how basic they wanted the answers to be, and how she seemed rude. It could have easily been just exhaustion on her part, because I can't imagine going through so many interviews. I suppose that's what we all might want to keep in mind when we interview. They may have told us about the short interview times in the letter to remind us not to go on and on. This prior experience taught me that they are not all that interested in the long version, though I thought it was important to show I knew my stuff. It's probably important to know more, however, because if they ask for more, we can provide that after the short and sweet.

Anyone else have experience or advice on this?

texaslife · Sep 6, 2015

Someone had asked about financial assistance, and I wanted to let ya'll know to look up MedCap programs with banks. Discover and WellsFargo have it, and they base your lending off your future salary. This is what a current CRNA student told me. He also said it was a lower percentage than the federal loans he was offered.

mace8704 · Sep 7, 2015

Last year, I was asked, "How are you going to afford this program?" during my TCU interview. Stafford loan is ~20,000/year. Texas CAL(college access loan) would cover the remainder of tuition fees. I also had saved up ~$50,000 to cover cost of living expenses. That answer seemed sufficient.

RN-Mama · Sep 7, 2015

I hope it that's easy :up: If they are going to have a structured style interview, then I would think that with our clinical experience & CCRN all questions are fair game in terms of whether it's related to CVICU, MICU, or neuro ICU.

gassy2be · Sep 7, 2015

I hope it that's easy If they are going to have a structured style interview, then I would think that with our clinical experience & CCRN all questions are fair game in terms of whether it's related to CVICU, MICU, or neuro ICU.

Eh, I doubt there will be many clinical questions because that's hard to "standardize" since we all come from different clinical backgrounds.

RN-Mama · Sep 8, 2015

Good luck to all those that are interviewing tomorrow!!