5 tips to Master your Medicine Interview
Medical school interviews can be daunting… especially if you don’t have much experience being interviewed. What can they ask you? How should you come across? Are there any specific red flags to avoid saying or doing? These are all common questions and anxieties now we’re entering interview season, so here are five important tips to ensure the process makes a bit more sense.
1. Do your recon
As with any interview, you need to do your research on the institution, what they value and how they structure their interviews. Finding our whether the interview is a traditional panel or Multiple Mini Interviews (MMI) is a good place to start. Most UK medical schools now use MMI, but the station structure will differ between institutions. Of course, take everything you read online with a pinch of salt, but there is useful information out there on what station themes have been used in the past. For example, most MMIs will include a station involving a role-play, and most will include a ‘Why Medicine?’ station. Some may ask about leadership or resilience. At my St Andrew’s interview (years ago) they asked me to solve a 3D jigsaw puzzle on one station. At Oxbridge they sometimes ask you to solve theoretical scientific problems. It’s vital to do your research on the establishment that has invited you to interview so you’re not going into the interview blind.
It’s also good to know the history and setting of the university. It’s doubtful they’ll ask you about this, but you will feel more confident going to your interview if you know how old the medical school is, where its campuses are, how they structure their course etc. inside and out. It’s a cliché, so apologies, but failing to prepare is preparing to fail…
2. Know your personal statement inside and out
Regardless of whether your interview is a panel or MMI, they will ask about your personal statement, or you’ll at least be required to use examples from it. The best advice I can give here is to print it out and annotate it as if you’re an angry examiner. Pretend you’re 10 hours into a shift reading statements before interviewing candidates, your wife has just left you, your house has burnt down and you’ve just lost a £12,000,000 lottery ticket. Most likely, your interviewer won’t have had this awful of a day, but be brutal with the questions you come up with. Write down a few obvious and a few not-so-obvious ones for each paragraph of your statement, then have a go at answering them.
After you’ve done this, I’d go through the personal statement from start to finish with a highlighter, ensuring you know the details behind every last sentence in case they ask you to elaborate on anything in general terms. Knowing your statement like the back of your hand will stand you in great stead for your interviews.
2. (continued) … & Don’t be a robot
After analysing your statement and mentally preparing answers to questions, it’s easy to fall into the trap of memorising these answers and turning up to your interview like a suited version of C3P-O. Even if you have the best answers of all candidates in the application cycle, if you sound robotic and like you’ve memorised them you won’t make the best impression.
The way around this is by mentally preparing answers in general terms, or if writing them down use bullet points rather than prose. It’s okay to memorise general points, but allow the sentence structure and exact words to come to you on the day. Even if ad-libbing isn’t your strong suit, it looks better to fumble a little on the day but provide an honest, insightful answer than to rattle off a pre-memorised response like a Dalek.
3. Practice practice practice
Practice with friends, family, colleagues, teachers or whoever is willing to help you. Coming up with your own questions based on your statement is great, but often a fresh pair of eyes can come up with new questions you may not have considered.
When I applied to medical school, my school ran a very barebones MMI session, but I didn’t have much idea how to prepare for a medical school interview outside of this. After a few hours on Google I’d found a multitude of sample questions and role play scenarios that had been used in the past, and practiced running through these with whoever was available. Practicing feeling comfortable in an interview setting (which is inherently uncomfortable!) will make you come across more calm and collected on the day.
4. Be yourself
This is the greatest cliché of all, but it’s very true. Medical schools don’t want all of their candidates to be charismatic grade-8 violinists who captain a rugby team and volunteer at a nursing home. If this is you, then great, well done on the accomplishments! But this wasn’t me, nor was it a lot of my colleagues, but that’s okay as medical schools want diversity. They want people to present their true selves at interview and to come across as genuine and personable, which are some of the most important qualities that doctors need to possess.
Don’t pretend to be something you’re not, and present yourself as honestly and openly as possible; this is a lot more impressive than bragging about any accomplishment!
5. Present yourself well on the day
This means turning up with plenty of time and being polite and courteous to the staff members checking you in. Say good morning to the interviewers when you meet them and introduce yourself. Ensure your clothes are ironed and you’ve not got sleep in your eyes. This all shows preparation and respect for the institution that is interviewing you, which is something interviewers will pick up on, even if only subconsciously.
To conclude, there are many ways to prepare for an interview, but these 5 important tips are things you should not ignore. If you would like further advice on your medical school interviews, let us know by email, or enquire on our website!
Rhodes Willoughby is Co-Founder and Director of STEMaccess, at the time of writing in his fifth year of his MBBS/BSc degree at Imperial College School of Medicine.
