medical school acceptance rate post interview

Things that may be evaluated during the interview

Beyond your prepared questions, you are likely to be asked a series of questions about yourself.

These may include:

• Why do you want to be a doctor? Be prepared to answer this question in detail. If there is one thing you should take away from this article, it is that you need a very good reason for pursuing medicine. A good answer will not mention money or prestige or the fact that being a doctor sounds cool (it isn’t). A good answer will demonstrate that you have done research into the field and understand what being a doctor really means (the long hours, the stress, etc.), but also highlight why this doesn’t deter you.
• What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses? When talking about your strengths, give specific examples of how these strengths will help make you an excellent physician. Your weaknesses can be something that relates to your medical career; however, they can also be something unrelated such as public speaking. Overall, though, try not to sound self-deprecating when answering this question since many interviewers don’t like it when applicants point out their own shortcomings.
• Describe your greatest accomplishment and/or how you learned from a failure/setback. This question is similar to the strength/weakness question except with more of an emphasis on how you were able to overcome setbacks or failure in the past so that it does not become an obstacle for future success.

How to prep for the interview

Now that you know what questions to expect, how can you prepare for these?

• Know your strengths. This is a crucial step of interview preparation that is often overlooked. The best way to convey your strengths during an interview is to have concrete examples of them. Write down a list of your top five strengths, based on what you have heard from others. Then think of specific stories or experiences that support each strength. For example, if “empathy” is one of your strengths, maybe there was a time when you helped someone through a difficult situation by listening and offering support. Be sure to include the details so that the story comes alive in the interviewer’s mind (who/what/where/when/why).
• Practice with mock interviews: Once you have some examples ready for your top five strengths, it’s time to practice telling them out loud in an interview format with someone else playing the part of the interviewer. To prepare for those unexpected questions we talked about earlier, ask this person to throw in some curveballs at random intervals throughout the mock interview. While practicing with a friend may seem awkward at first, it will pay off big time once you are sitting face-to-face with an admissions committee member who could make or break your future career!

don’t drop the ball on preping for your med school interviews

When it comes to preparing for your medical school interview, you don’t want to overdo it. The last thing you need is to come off as a robot who only knows how to recite answers from an interview guidebook.

On the flip side, though, you also don’t want to underprepare. You’ll want to practice interviewing and go through common questions and responses with a friend or family member. This will ensure that when the time comes, you won’t sound unprepared or caught off guard by any of the questions directed your way.

At the end of the day, your interviewer wants a real person sitting across from them—not someone who sounds like a machine. But they also don’t want someone who’s too informal or unprofessional in their approach.