Interviews
Medical school interview practice
The last stage, the one that rewards practice most, and the one almost nobody practises properly because it has to be done out loud.
What actually happens
Most medical and dental schools interview from December through to March, in one of two formats. MMI is a circuit of short stations, each a few minutes, each scored independently by a different assessor. Panel is a longer conversation with two or three interviewers.
MMI is the more common format and the stranger experience: a station ends mid-sentence, a bell goes, and the next one starts with no connection to the last. Candidates who have only rehearsed answers in their head find the format itself disorientating.
What the stations ask
- Motivation. Why medicine, why this school, what you have done about it. The most predictable question in the process and still the most commonly fumbled.
- Ethical scenarios. Consent, confidentiality, capacity, resource allocation. There is rarely a right answer. The mark is for recognising the competing interests and reasoning out loud.
- Role play. Often with an actor: breaking difficult news, handling an upset relative, raising a concern with a colleague. Assessed on listening and empathy far more than on getting to a resolution.
- Data and calculation. Short numerical or graph-reading stations under time pressure.
- Reflection on experience. Not what you did on work experience, but what you took from it. Candidates describe; the marks are for reflecting.
Why reading about it does not work
Interview performance is a spoken skill. A candidate who has read twenty model answers has rehearsed nothing. The first time most applicants say any of it aloud is in the room, to a stranger, with a timer running.
Three things only show up when someone is actually watching: answering the question that was asked rather than the one that was prepared, finishing within the time, and sounding like a person rather than a prepared statement. All three improve quickly, and only with practice against someone who interrupts.
How we run it
Timed mock stations, in the format the school uses, with feedback immediately after each one while it is still fresh. We push back the way an assessor would, because an answer that survives being challenged is the only kind worth having.
Our tutors sat these interviews within the last few years and remember the stations. We will not pretend to know a particular school's current station list, and anyone who claims to is guessing.
How we teach it
- Timed questions from the first lesson. Students who only ever work untimed are practising a different skill from the one being examined.
- Work set between lessons, and marked. An hour a week changes very little on its own. The work in between is where the grade moves.
- A full paper under exam conditions every four weeks. Same timing, same silence, no notes. The score is recorded so progress is a number.
- Written progress to parents every month. What was covered, what the scores were, what we are working on next.
- Groups capped at five, or one-to-one if that suits better.
Start with the free diagnostic
Every student begins the same way: one full hour under exam conditions, marked against the real mark scheme, followed by a written summary of where the marks are going and what we would do about it. It costs nothing, and the assessment is yours to keep whether or not you carry on.