How do they determine who interviews you

[qwertyytrewq]

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When your invited to interview at a medical school and they select the person (or people to interview you) do they pick a specific person based on your application (or any reason) or is it random?

 

[mauberley]

When your invited to interview at a medical school and they select the person (or people to interview you) do they pick a specific person based on your application (or any reason) or is it random?

I suspect that ideally there are reasons for matching interviewers to interviewees, but at the same time you're talking about people with busy schedules, so a lot of it probably is just based on who's available at any given time.

 

[music2doc]

This would likely depend upon the school, but as said above, chances are good that at most places unless there is something striking about your app that makes the director of admissions says "WOW! He just has to interview w/ Dr. Xyz!" you probably will be placed with a fairly random interviewer. Of course, checks are going to generally be made to ensure you don't [likely] know your interviewer.

 

[CodeBlu]

I know that at certain schools the person who reviewed your application is the one that decides to interview you.

They are the one that says... "Yes, I'd like to meet this person and learn more about them".

 

[Morsetlis]

If you're Asian, you get a PhD Endocrinologist and a Radiation Oncologist as your interviewers. They will ask you about your research and calculus and they will be dressed sharper than you are.

On another note, some schools will have interviewers just turn in a report. For others, the interviewer will be on the panel evaluating you in real time with other adcom members.

 

[ppfizenm]

Major was Neuro, interviewed at two schools last year, both times my interviewers were PhD's researching/teaching in neuro

 

[aSagacious]

I'm sure at some schools it's relatively random, others might have system in place. For example I vaguely remember someone describing being paired with a GI physician because they listed a few years of GI research on their app (so the school apparently made an effort to find an AdCom member that had something in common with the applicant). I doubt that there's a universal answer to this question though.

 

[Lil Mick]

Some are random; some are based on adcom members expressing an interest in meeting you. For instance, I'm fluent in another language, and one of my interviewers happened to have lived in a town abroad in which I'd spent part of my childhood. That one wasn't so random. I also ended up being interviewed by a surgeon with no shared interests who wasn't a researcher. That was probably random.

Generally, the more unique of experiences you have (living abroad as a kid, serving in the military, switching careers, growing up in the inner city, being in recovery), the more likely it is that you will encounter interviewers who requested you (or offered to interview every candidate with X experience).

 

[LizzyM]

At my school it is mostly random and based on interviewer availability although you will not be assigned an interviewer who knows you (or is a friend of your parents).

 

[doctorshateher]

University of Pittsburgh's secondary has a question where you indicate your top three areas of interest in medicine so that if you are offered an interview they can try to set you up with someone in one of those fields. That's the only school where I've seen/heard of a matching system for interviewers (or at least one where the applicant is aware that they are being matched).

 

[wanderer]

I've been to interviews where the topic somehow came up and it seemed that several of the interviewees were matched to interviewers based on clinical experiences or culture/ethnicity.