Abstract
It has been my custom as Head of the Department of Psychiatry at Washington University to interview as many as possible of the medical students applying for positions in our residency training programme. I typically ask the candidates how they decided to apply to us, what they know about our programme, and what they have heard from others about our department. The answers to these questions have been interesting and informative to me and have characteristically provided a good basis for the discussions that followed, designed to help us decide about the applicants and, equally important, to help the applicants decide about us.