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  • Good afternoon. Admissions. How may I help you?

  • So the full title of this office is the Office of the Committee on Admissions,

  • and it's actually the committee that makes

  • the admissions decisions, and these are all faculty and students.

  • We receive about six thousand applications each year.

  • We invited 933 of those people to come to campus and interview,

  • and among them 219 received offers.

  • So I'm often asked, "What is the perfect Harvard Medical School student?"

  • "What are you really looking for?"

  • And the answer is, it's not really any one thing.

  • We're looking for future leaders in American and International medicine,

  • and how one defines leadership is really up to them.

  • You might have one person has done just tons and tons of research,

  • they might have publications, sometimes we have people who have PHD's,

  • and you might have somebody else who's done no research it all -- they've done all

  • the prerequisites. They're very academically ready

  • but they focus more on perhaps community work.

  • We're looking for a very diverse class.

  • A diverse class not just in terms of geography and ethnicity and gender,

  • but we're also looking for a diverse class in terms of passion.

  • Sometimes people just have the sort of amazing life stories,

  • and that might be the sort of

  • extra piece that they're bringing besides the fact that they are

  • academically prepared to be here.

  • For other folks, they might have a much more standard sort of background.

  • If everyone in the orchestra played the cello we wouldn't have been

  • orchestra, and we very much want to have an orchestra, because that creates

  • a much better learning experience.

  • And if you think about it that's kind of appropriate, because the world of medicine has

  • lots of different careers -- it's not just one thing that doctors do, there's

  • lots of different things that they do,

  • so we need to bring in a pool of talent

  • that can go out into this profession that, you know,

  • fills those different niches.

  • Harvard Medical School's medical school curriculum

  • has two flavors. The majority of the students are part of our traditional

  • medical school curriculum.

  • We also have the Health Sciences and Technology program, which is

  • a joint program with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

  • The HST-MD program receives approximately 1200 applications.

  • Of those applications, approximately 170 applicants will be invited to

  • interview with the HST-MD program. Of that number,

  • 30 students are selected to be members of the class.

  • My favorite part of the job is interview day.

  • I remember my interview day, and I remember driving onto

  • Avenue Louis Pasteur and seeing the Quadrangle that the and

  • block and saying to myself, "Wow."

  • So much goes into the logistics of interview day,

  • not just coordinating the space, the media,

  • the catering, but, you know, months but before that. Recruiting interviewers...

  • Every group seems to have its own little personality.

  • Sometimes you walk in and it's a very lively group and they laugh at all your jokes,

  • and then other times they're very serious and nervous and your trying

  • to put them at ease.

  • Throughout the season I communicate with a lot of different applicants about

  • various issues or questions they have, so it's nice when they actually

  • come and I know who they are.

  • The applicants are here, and they're wonderful. They're traveling from

  • all over the country. They all show up in their black suits.

  • They're very excited and very nervous to be here.

  • We could fill the class several times over with people who have

  • great numbers

  • who may or may not be good doctors, and so this is why we do interviews. It's an

  • expensive process, it's a complicated process, but we do them because we really

  • need to know how people can interact with

  • with patients, and you really need to meet people in person to do that.

  • I came to Harvard Medical School

  • initially in 1965. I never thought I'd

  • come to Harvard because, as with so many of our

  • students, Harvard is a reach for everyone.

  • It is a real joy

  • to interact with such

  • people and to see the enthusiasm of our

  • faculty working together with students to identify these promising people.

Good afternoon. Admissions. How may I help you?

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