My medical school interview at Rush Medical College was pretty strange...those things generally follow a fairly standardized script. But this one was weird from the git-go.

I walked into the interviewer's office, and was waved to a chair without a word. He ignored me while he continued working at his desk for what seemed like an eternity. Then he picked up a folder with my name on it, and leafed through it as if it was the first time he'd seen it. Without looking up, he asked, "I see that you took a class studying Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales...in the original Middle English, no less. Why would a pre-med student take a course like that?"

I was stunned! There had been no greeting, no hand shake, no introduction, and no ice-breaking chatting; just this off the wall question. None of my other interviews were anything like this! So I told him that I had many interests, and that some of them had little or nothing to do with medicine, and that I believed it was important to have a well-rounded, diverse education. After a moment, and still without looking up from my folder, he said, "Good answer. Do you recall which text the class used?" "Absolutely", I said, "it's one of my favorites, so I kept it", and I told him the name of the book. This time he looked at me, and said, "That's also a good answer; I helped write that textbook." So, it turned out that my interviewer was a Chaucer scholar!

The rest of the interview followed the norm, and I left feeling like I'd aced it. But I didn't get accepted at Rush, though I was eventually offered a spot as an alternate.