What is the real purpose of the medical school interview? What are the medical schools really looking for when you come in on your interview day?
Many students think they should be selling the school on how amazing they are. But that’s not what you need to do.
And if you haven’t yet, grab a copy of The Premed Playbook: Guide to the Medical School Interview to help you gain more confidence during your interview trail.
[01:16] Why Medical School Interviews Are Important
“The actual purpose of the med school interview is for the admissions committee to get to know you as a person.”Click To TweetThe medical school interview is important to let the admissions committee see how you communicate and how you act in a stressful situation. They want to get to know the REAL you. It’s hard for med schools to see these things from just your application.
The medical school interview day is stressful. How are you going to act in that situation? Are you going to act appropriately? Or are you going to act like an alpha? How are you going to act? That’s very important because it’s very hard to get across in an application.
When you apply to medical school, you’re putting down your personal statements, all of your activities. You’re writing your secondary essays, you’re getting letters of recommendation.
Hopefully, they’re pointing to some of these things that the interview will get out of you as well. But that’s all on paper or in bits and bytes on a computer at this point. The reviewer looking at your application doesn’t really know who you are from that information.
[02:30] Don’t Sell Yourself to the AdCom
The admissions committees are usually a very small group of people trying to figure out from thousands of applications and several hundreds of students who they’re going to invite for an interview.
A lot of students, unfortunately, think that the medical school interview is their opportunity to sell how amazing they are to the medical school and the admissions committee. Well, the admissions committee already knows you’re amazing.
The interview spots are a very limited commodity. And if they invited you, it’s because they liked you – activities, personal statement, secondaries, your letters of recommendations, stats.
“You don't need to sell the fact that you're amazing in the med school interview. They already know that.”Click To Tweet[03:43] Your Job and the Interviewer’s Job
Now, your job on the interview is to show them who you are as a person, that you can communicate, and you can connect.
The interviewer’s job, if it’s a traditional interviewer, is to sit there and listen to you and have a conversation with you. They’re going to picture you taking care of their loved ones and they’re going to picture if they want you doing that or can they see you doing that? Can they trust you?
“You're not interviewing to prove to the med school that you're competent to take care of patients but that you're a real person who can be trusted to take care of patients.”Click To TweetThe interview is all about listening, communicating, and connecting. Remember, the moment you try to start setting yourself apart from your peers is the moment you start failing in your medical school interview. Go in, be yourself. Have a conversation. Answer the questions.
Links:
The Premed Playbook: Guide to the Medical School Personal Statement
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