Manchester Interviews - How did it go?

Here

It was better than I expected, I thought it was going to be very tough (what I heard from a few of last year's applicants), but of course that depended on the interviewer....

I liked the city quite a lot, it's an old university and it has some Cambridge similarities, in terms of building style. The map they send you is complete crap, it took me an hour for me to find the coupling road from Piccaddily station (usually takes 30 mins, perhaps me using the wrong exit didn't help :p:

). Social activities is good, basically a 'cheaper' version of London.

In the introduction in the lecture room, what I disliked was their boasting. Also the rankings were inaccurate, they claim they're top 35 in the world, this was ranked by some chinese 'organisation' which I have never heard to. In the times I don't think they're even top 100 (if you look at the thread in the university section), however, they seemed to have found another Times ranking, in which they are top 100 :confused:

Reply 3

W0nker

8

Yes, I remember on the open day at Manchester "oh yes well why should you come to our school of Pharmacy, well quite basically we are the best in the country" which was according the times in 2005 I think. They love to boast.

Reply 4

BeesKnees

16

By the way Mustard-man (lol it's so weird actually typing that name out), do they ask you to write anything from the biology syllabus or do they pick specific topics?

Reply 5

Anything... you can even do diagrams if you want, and label i.e. the parts of the mitochondria and explain the functions/processes of each part. It's really entirely up to you. I just wrote about the Krebs cycle (I'm post A-level btw, so you probably haven't covered it).

Reply 6

petrolhead

Hi everyone,
Had my Manchester interview yesterday - only posting today cos it was a tiring journey home.
Some of the posts on here suggested it would be a difficult interview but tbh I found it was fine.
I was interviewed by a really welcoming woman and the interview went so quickly. I was asked to name five medicines and explain something about each of them. She asked what I understood by preventative medicine and its importance. I was asked what made me think of pharmacy in the first place. And name two drug delivery methods, except tablets, and explain each of them.
I thought it went really well considering my nerves.
Hope that helps for any future interviewees.

Reply 7

salki

petrolhead

Hi everyone,
Had my Manchester interview yesterday - only posting today cos it was a tiring journey home.
Some of the posts on here suggested it would be a difficult interview but tbh I found it was fine.
I was interviewed by a really welcoming woman and the interview went so quickly. I was asked to name five medicines and explain something about each of them. She asked what I understood by preventative medicine and its importance. I was asked what made me think of pharmacy in the first place. And name two drug delivery methods, except tablets, and explain each of them.
I thought it went really well considering my nerves.
Hope that helps for any future interviewees.

yep my interview went well as well, a lovely lady interviewed me as well it wasn't as bad as every1 made it out to be

Reply 8

BeesKnees

16

I wouldn't have known what to say about preventative medicine :s:

but sounds like all your interviews went well :smile:

. Thanks for the info guys.

Reply 9

Gregorian IV

8

Well done guys - although the questions for me next week may be very different, them ones didnt seem too bad.

What else did you get up to on the day then? And do you know if you've got an offer or not?

Reply 10

How long does the interview last? Bath don't ask anything about academic questions they said, seems like they were pretty nice questions! How long do you have to wait until they give you an offer now?

Reply 11

Petrolhead, your ones sound pretty hard, compared to what I was asked :p:

My interview was around 5 mins, they said that we will hear back from them by next wednesday.

Reply 12

Well done guys! for preventive medicine I would of just talked about the issue of prevention vs cure. I would say that medicines for opportunistic diseases as a result of HIV are preventive rather than a cure since there is no cure and anti-cancer drugs such as taxol. 5 minutes wow!? how short, obviously not a big thing. So they let you discuss anything about your A-level biology? I'd of talked about hormonal communication?? I think you'll get the offer, u'll b fine! :smile:

Reply 13

So what position are you in Ryan? In terms of offers/interviews etc...

Reply 14

Well no offers yet because Aston, King's and Notts take a while and although Aston do not do interviews they reply from offers around december and no-one seems to have got an offer from them. u?

Btw: if you are invited to an informal interview does it normaly mean you are more than likely to be given an offer??

Reply 15

Well I got an unconditional offer from Kent to do Actuarial Science :p:

If the Pharmacy school normally does interviews, then yeah, it's a good thing.

Reply 16

Yeh that's what I meant :smile:

Do they call those they are interested in to the interview, usually or all applicants?? Well done! unconditional that's brillant. If it is an informal interview do they normally just ask questions like why pharmacy? and what interests you in pharmacy?

Reply 17

Yes, they call them in either because they're interested, or not sure about the applicant, although I'm sure that there are cases where the applicant will just get an offer without interview (from a uni which normally does interviews), i.e. has AAAA or good grades post A-level. This is the general case with Pharmacy school which get a large excess of applicants.

Well it varies with universities, I believe... not too sure because I've only had a Manchester interview.

Reply 18

W0nker

8

ooooo I hope i get an interview from Manchester! I got an e-mail off of them this morning, saying that they have recieved my application and are looking at it basically.

Reply 19

Schmeevey