🛠️ How Our Scheduling System Works

We’ve built our entire scheduling experience around the Google Suite, which gives us a clean, functional, and collaborative foundation. While it may have some design limitations, its simplicity allows all our volunteers to contribute meaningfully to the system—and that’s a trade-off we’re proud of.

We use Google Calendar to manage mock interview bookings, and we’ve developed custom code to extend its capabilities and meet the specific needs of our community.

📅 Booking Limits We’ve Put in Place

To keep things fair and sustainable, we’ve implemented two automated limits:

1. Volunteer Weekly Limit

Each volunteer sets their own weekly cap to avoid burnout and ensure they can give their best during interviews.

2. Interviewee Day-Based Limit

Currently set at 21 days, this limit prevents individuals from booking multiple interviews too close together, giving others a fair chance to participate. This window may evolve as we refine what works best.

⚠️ A System That’s Functional—but Not Perfect

Because these limits are automated, it’s possible you might get blocked without us noticing right away. If that happens, you should receive an email explaining why your booking was cancelled, along with helpful next steps.

We know this system isn’t flawless, and we’re actively working to improve it. Here are a couple of known quirks:

1. Need More Than One Interview?

Totally understandable. If our limiters block you but you still need help, we’ve created a “Inquiry Board”—a Google Sheet where you can request additional interviews. Volunteers check this board when they have extra availability.

2. Email Overload

If your booking gets filtered out, you’ll receive three emails:

• A confirmation

• A cancellation

• A follow-up explaining why

We know this isn’t ideal, and we’re working on streamlining the process to make it cleaner and less confusing.

3. Time for Updates

It could take up to 10 min for you to get information regarding whether or not your booking was cancelled. So pre-meds need to check their email again to make sure their reservation sticks.

💬 Help Us Improve

We’re constantly refining this experience, and your feedback is essential. If you spot something confusing, inconvenient, or just have a great idea—please let us know. We want this system to work for everyone, and your input helps us get there.