With just a week left to sign up for the Scrubbed Up X UoM ISOC X Ask doc mock MMIs, I’ve been thinking back to when I had my medical school interviews. What did you guys do to prepare for your interviews? 🤔
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I made a list of all the most commonly asked questions- from google, Uni websites, forums and my teachers- and practised them until I felt I could answer all of them with out any hesitation. I made sure I was really confident verbalising my thoughts (shout out to my friends and family for listening to me repeat myself over and over!), because you might KNOW why you want to study medicine for example (super common question), but saying it out loud in a concise and interesting way is much harder.
I was lucky enough for my teachers to do a mock MMI, which simulated the pressure of the real interview. It also presented scenarios I hadn't thought of before, forcing me to think outside of the box; be prepared for this to happen in you actual interviews too!
Another really key thing is to make sure you can answer questions on things you've mentioned in your personal statement, such as volunteering, hobbies or roles/jobs you've had and how you can apply them to medicine. Aside from that, I'd say practise is the number one tip for preparing! Good luck to anyone with interviews coming soon, and be sure to check out the Scrubbed Up X UoM ISOC X Ask doc mock MMIs!!
I did the same with the commonly asked questions! I found as many as I could and wrote the most common ones on flashcards with a bullet point list of the main points of my answer. I think it's important to 'plan' answers just so you can articulate what you want to say in the short time you have at the actual interview as Hannah said :) that being said I wouldn't script answers or write them out in full in advance as you do risk sounding over-rehearsed!
I got anyone who would listen to ask me questions and then rehearsed by myself in my mirror - you can pick up on your body language and non-verbal communication and how you'd come across to the interviewer that way :)
@Sian Baldry i did a similar thing as well! I looked up pretty much any sort of scenario they could ask you (google comes up with a lot, trust me!) and wrote down the answers to them, before practicing them to myself and then to my friends and family. I also read through my personal statement and NA form for Manchester, and asked my mum to think of questions they could ask me on that as well. I would say, though, that don't over-rehearse the answers; what you write should be a vague summary because that comes across more natural at the actual interview
My friends and I used to do mock interviews with one another every week in the weeks leading up to my interviews, This was not a good opportunity to practice how to approach tricky questions that may come up but was also a brilliant way to rehearse how to answer commonly asked questions. It was also a good platform to see how others answered possible interview questions and learn/copy certain aspects of their answers