evenfeather
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Honestly, it’s more important to be yourself and just show genuine enthusiasm for the program. MMIs are designed so that you can’t memorize your answers. Try your best to think of stories that you can tell for each question because that’s how they’ll remember you since personal stories are more genuine.I was very very fortunate to receive an interview invite at a medical school (that does MMIs) earlier this month. I have been trying to prepare by going over some practice scenarios. The problem is that, while I think my answers are okay to pretty good overall, the model response seems to completely blow it out of the water. They are bringing up multiple things I knew are important but completely forgot to include in my answer, perspectives I hadn't even considered, and are also able to seemingly fit an entire essay's worth of points in 2-3 minutes when my responses take 4-5 minutes (sometimes up to 6) to say less things.
I know that it is not advised to overprepare, and it is not realistic to try to memorize the "correct" answer for all possible different scenarios. I also understand these are model answers for a reason and not necessarily representative of an average matriculant's performance. At the same time, I can't help but feel discouraged and lost about how I can improve my answers.
For example, a common piece of advice is to have some sort of structure to your answer, addressing the main issue, different perspectives and options, weaving in a personal anecdote, then making a decision, etc. But as a real human being who is trying to think on the spot and sound coherent, on top of interview day nerves (which I will likely have), I'm not quite sure how I can do all of that in 3 minutes or less... I am also concerned that if I don't "hit all the points" so to speak, I will be docked points.
Right now I'm just practicing impromptu with different questions online + with a friend and focusing more on being confident and natural. Is there anything else I could be doing? My stats are on the lower end so I feel that the interview will be very important for me in swaying my chances.
This might be good advice for a traditional interview, but not for an MMI style interview.Honestly, it’s more important to be yourself and just show genuine enthusiasm for the program. MMIs are designed so that you can’t memorize your answers. Try your best to think of stories that you can tell for each question because that’s how they’ll remember you since personal stories are more genuine.
You don’t have to have “high marks” for all the stations, and they’ll understand if you’re nervous and whiff the first two stations.
In short, you will be ok! An interview invite means they can see you going to their program. You ARE enough, despite your stats. Prove them right with the interview.
Absolutely, stay on topic. Though, I had 3 MMI interviews this cycle, and in most of them, each station’s question was pretty broad and open to answering in a personal way (I did so using stories and I got A’s at all 3 schools). But absolutely be intentional in how you respond to each station 🙂This might be good advice for a traditional interview, but not for an MMI style interview.
In an MMI, sensibly answer the question that was asked.
Don't go off topic to talk about yourself and your resumé.
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