University of Maryland CRNA Interview: Format & Questions (2026)

If you are selected after the admissions committee reviews your file in July and August, UMSON invites you to Baltimore (655 W. Lombard Street) for an on-campus interview in August or September. Applicants who are not invited to interview do not advance to the next stage of review.

Plan for about four hours on campus. Your visit includes a panel interview with Nurse Anesthesia specialty faculty members and clinical site coordinators, time to talk with faculty and current students, and a tour of the Nurse Anesthesia simulation labs. UMSON's Preparing for the DNP Interview page notes that across DNP specialties, applicants arrive in groups for an about 2.5-hour block and complete an individual 30-minute face-to-face interview with two to three faculty members. Confirm your exact schedule in the invitation sent to the email address on your application.

Because clinical site coordinators sit on the Nurse Anesthesia panel alongside faculty, your interviewers are the same people who run clinical rotations at UMSON's more than 27 partner hospitals across Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Virginia. We recommend preparing answers that show both your readiness for 15 graduate credits a semester in year one and your clinical judgment for operating room rotations at sites like R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center or Johns Hopkins Hospital in year two.

To practice answering a faculty and clinical coordinator panel out loud, Confetto runs AI mock interviews for CRNA and nursing applicants with clinical follow-up questions and rubric-based feedback. Start your free week.

• Format: Face-to-face panel interview with Nurse Anesthesia specialty faculty and/or clinical site coordinators
• Time on campus: About 4 hours for Nurse Anesthesia applicants (general DNP interview blocks run about 2.5 hours with an individual 30-minute faculty interview)
• Also on the day: Interaction with faculty and current students, plus a tour of the Nurse Anesthesia simulation labs
• When interviews run: August through September for the Summer 2027 entering class
• When decisions go out: Late September through early October by email
• Accommodations or military scheduling: Email nrsinterviews@umaryland.edu as early as possible if military orders or accommodation needs affect your interview date

UMSON admits Nurse Anesthesia students once a year for a June summer start only. Do not confuse the Nurse Anesthesia timeline with UMSON's general DNP timeline (which opens June 3, 2026 with a November 1 priority deadline for other DNP specialties) or with older aggregator sites that still list August or October deadlines.

For the Summer 2027 Nurse Anesthesia cohort, the application opened January 5, 2026 and closes July 1. UMSON strongly recommends submitting the online application portion by June 1 so your transcripts and two recommendation letters arrive by the July 1 deadline. Compare how these dates line up with other programs in our CRNA school interviews guide.

The school's interview preparation guide lists the exact areas applicants should be ready to discuss, along with direct interview advice and sample behavioral questions from Shannon K. Idzik, DNP, CRNP, ANP-BC, FAAN (Associate Dean for the DNP Program) and Ronnie Quattrini, DNP, MS, FNP-BC (Senior Director, DNP Program). Before your interview day, UMSON recommends four steps: review the AACN Essentials, attend a DNP online chat, read the Doctor of Nursing Practice FAQs, and study the specialty page so you can ask specific questions.

Meanwhile, the instructions for your acute-care unit manager's recommendation letter give you a clear signal on clinical topics. UMSON asks your supervisor to address your experience with critically ill patients and techniques including central line monitoring, ventilator care, and infusion therapy. Expect the panel to probe those exact bedside skills alongside your behavioral answers.

• Why nursing and why CRNA: Experiences that shaped your interest in nursing, how earning a DNP supports your goals, and how the CRNA role fits your career plan
• Strengths and growth areas: Personal strengths and skills, plus an honest weakness and how you are working to improve it
• Academic track record: Academic successes, academic challenges, and obstacles you have worked through
• Mistakes and stress: A time when you made a mistake and how you handled it, plus how you manage stress
• Memorable and difficult cases: Your most memorable experience with a patient, and your most challenging situation with a patient or colleague and how you addressed it
• Professionalism and mentorship: Who your mentor is and why, how colleagues and leaders would describe you, and your involvement in professional organizations or shared governance
• High-acuity ICU management: Central line monitoring, ventilator care, and infusion therapy in surgical or cardiothoracic ICU patients

We built the practice set below from the behavioral questions published by UMSON's DNP leadership and the clinical priorities on the specialty page (surgical and cardiothoracic ICU care, central line monitoring, ventilator care, and infusion therapy). For a broader question bank across programs, see our guide to CRNA school interview questions.

Below the question list, we wrote three full example answers (one clinical scenario, one pharmacology question, and one behavioral prompt) so you can see how to structure a crisp response for a faculty and clinical coordinator panel.

Clinical scenario, Prompt: Walk us through a critically ill surgical or cardiothoracic ICU patient you managed who became hemodynamically unstable. How did you use central line monitoring, ventilator adjustments, and infusion therapy to stabilize them?

"Last winter in our cardiothoracic ICU, I admitted a 68-year-old man post-CABG who dropped his mean arterial pressure from 72 to 52 over 15 minutes. His chest tube output had been 150 mL over the prior hour, then suddenly stopped. His arterial line waveform was dampened with a narrow pulse pressure, his central venous pressure climbed from 8 to 18 mmHg while his pulmonary artery diastolic pressure equalized near 19 mmHg, and his mixed venous oxygen saturation dropped to 52%. Combined with the sudden halt in chest tube drainage, I suspected cardiac tamponade from a clotted mediastinal tube.

While calling the cardiothoracic fellow to the bedside for an emergent bedside echo and chest exploration setup, I started a norepinephrine infusion through his central line to keep his MAP above 60 and paused his propofol sedation so we wouldn't drop his preload further. On the ventilator, he was on volume control with a PEEP of 8. I worked with respiratory therapy to drop his PEEP to 5 cmH2O so intrathoracic pressure wouldn't further restrict venous return to his right heart. The fellow confirmed a clot, we cleared the tube per protocol with the surgical team at the bedside, evacuated 300 mL of dark blood, and his CVP dropped back to 10 with an immediate rebound in blood pressure." Example answer written by our team. The applicant is invented.

Pharmacology question, Prompt: Compare norepinephrine and phenylephrine on receptor activity and cardiac output. When would you reach for one over the other in a hypotensive patient?

"Both drugs raise systemic vascular resistance through alpha-1 adrenergic receptor agonism on vascular smooth muscle, which increases arterial and venous tone. The difference is beta-1 activity.

Phenylephrine is a pure alpha-1 agonist. Because it has no beta-1 activity, the rise in afterload and blood pressure often triggers a baroreceptor-mediated reflex bradycardia, which can drop cardiac output in a patient with poor left ventricular function. I reach for phenylephrine when hypotension is driven by acute vasodilation with a normal or high heart rate, such as after an induction bolus of propofol, or in a patient with severe aortic stenosis where tachycardia is dangerous. Norepinephrine is primarily an alpha-1 agonist but also has modest beta-1 agonist activity. That beta-1 stimulation supports myocardial contractility and helps maintain heart rate against the rise in afterload, so cardiac output is preserved or slightly increased. In our surgical ICU, norepinephrine is my first-line infusion for septic shock or post-operative vasoplegia when the patient needs vasoconstriction plus inotropic support." Example answer written by our team. The applicant is invented.

Behavioral question, Prompt: Tell me about a time when you made a mistake and how you handled it.

"During my second year in the surgical ICU, I was managing a patient on continuous renal replacement therapy and a heparin infusion. At shift change, the off-going nurse and I reviewed the flowsheets on the screen instead of tracing the physical tubing together from the pump to the central line. Thirty minutes later, when I went to draw a scheduled PTT, I realized the heparin line was clamped at the manifold port.

The patient's filter hadn't clotted yet, and his circuit pressures were stable, so I unclamped the port immediately, checked his baseline labs, and notified the intensivist and charge nurse right away. His PTT came back slightly subtherapeutic, and we adjusted the rate per protocol without losing the circuit. After that shift, I changed my personal handoff habit: I never sign off on high-alert infusions until both nurses physically trace the line from the bag to the patient's hub. I also brought the near-miss to our unit's shared governance council, and we added a physical manifold check to our CRRT handoff checklist." Example answer written by our team. The applicant is invented.

• Clinical: Describe a patient where your arterial line or central venous pressure waveform alerted you to a problem before the cuff pressure or vital signs changed.
• Clinical: A mechanically ventilated patient in your ICU suddenly develops high peak airway pressures and desaturates to 86%. Walk through how you separate a tube/circuit issue from a compliance issue.
• Clinical: Tell us about the sickest patient you managed in the last month. What infusions were running, what were your hemodynamic targets, and what was your biggest concern?
• Pharmacology: Walk through the mechanism of action, onset, duration, and hemodynamic profile of propofol versus etomidate.
• Pharmacology: How do dexmedetomidine and propofol differ at the receptor level, and how does each affect respiration and hemodynamics?
• Pharmacology: Compare succinylcholine and rocuronium, including contraindications for succinylcholine that you watch for in ICU patients.
• UMSON Behavioral: Why do you want a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree rather than a master's, and how does the DNP fit your post-graduation plans?
• UMSON Behavioral: Tell us about your most challenging situation with a colleague or physician in the ICU and how you addressed it.
• UMSON Behavioral: How would your unit manager and your bedside colleagues describe you under pressure?
• UMSON Behavioral: You will take 15 credits in Fall Year 1 and 17 credits in Spring Year 1, plus 90 hours of simulation lab time. How will you manage the stress and workload?

Use this two-week plan to get ready for your four hours on Lombard Street. Every step ties directly to what UMSON puts in writing on its admissions and interview pages.

When you are ready to test your answers under pressure, Confetto lets you run live panel and clinical mock interviews with immediate feedback on your reasoning and delivery. Start your free week.

• Days 1 to 3 (Audit your ICU stories): Write down three high-acuity cases from your surgical or cardiothoracic ICU where you managed central line monitoring, ventilator changes, and vasoactive infusions. Practice explaining the physiology and receptor pharmacology behind every drip on your pump.
• Days 4 to 6 (Drill UMSON's behavioral prompts): Prepare concise spoken answers for the exact prompts from Associate Dean Shannon Idzik and Senior Director Ronnie Quattrini: a mistake you made and how you handled it, how you manage stress, your most challenging situation with a patient or colleague, who your mentor is, and how your unit manager would describe you.
• Days 7 to 9 (Connect to the DNP and AACN Essentials): Read the Summer 2027 plan of study and the AACN Essentials. Be ready to explain why you want a practice doctorate (DNP) rather than a master's and name one clinical quality or safety problem you might explore for your four-course DNP Project sequence (NDNP 810 to 813).
• Days 10 to 12 (Prepare for the 4-hour campus visit): Review the simulation lab curriculum (90 hours in Year 1, VR modules, Glidescope, ultrasound nerve blocks) and the 27+ clinical sites so you have thoughtful questions ready for the lab tour, current students, and clinical site coordinators.
• Days 13 to 14 (Full panel simulation): Run two 30-minute mock panel interviews in professional attire. Have your interviewer interrupt with 'Why did you choose that drug?' and 'What happened to the cardiac output?' so you are comfortable defending your clinical thinking out loud.

Describe why you want to receive a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree with a Nurse Anesthesia specialty at the University of Maryland, what clinical experience prepared you for this transition, and how you plan to use your DNP after graduation.

• UMSON: DNP Nurse Anesthesia Specialty
• UMSON: Preparing for the DNP Interview
• UMSON: Nurse Anesthesia Simulation Labs
• UMSON: Tuition and Fees (2026-27)
• UMSON: Application Instructions and Deadlines
• UMSON: Doctor of Nursing Practice FAQs
• COA: List of Accredited Educational Programs (March 6, 2026)