How much did you practice for interviews?

[Levitin]

How many hours did you practice for your interviews? Do you feel like you should of practiced more or less?

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[JFS]

5+ hours on the days leading up to my first interview. Just made outlines for the most common questions and made sure I could put them into words, reviewed my primary and secondary app, and reviewed notes on healthcare and the school. For my others, around 3 hours the day before interview reviewing what I previously mentioned.

Can't accurately quantify the time I spent reading about the school and healthcare before that, but it was substantial.

I felt it was sufficient for me. YMMV. If you have not gone on interviews before and feel you could get nervous in such a situation, then it would be best to have a bunch of mock interviews.

 

[mtbski]

How many hours did you practice for your interviews? Do you feel like you should of practiced more or less?

My school had a mock interview, so I did that. Just make sure you can articulate why you want to go into medicine, and talk about the experiences listed on your app. I studied a lot before my first interview, but realized it wasn't really worth it. I prepared less than 20 mins for my last 7 interviews, but thought of most of my questions/knowledge about the schools on interview days (most schools will tell you everything you need to know about the curriculum, opportunities, etc. in presentations). Check if you have a morning or afternoon interview to judge how much you should prepare.

 

[kyamh]

My pre-med committee mock interview was a great starting point to start thinking about questions.

In all honestly though, I could never bring myself to practice in a meaningful way. I didn't really have much time anyhow.

For the interviews I've gone on, I skim through my secondary essays for that school and memorize a few unique things about the school to pull out if I need time to think. Other than my MMI, my interviews have been conversational and took completely different directions such that in retrospect I couldn't have prepared for most of the questions anyway.

 

[McRunner]

I did a mock interview. Then the day before researched more on the school, specific programs and research labs. I also sat down with a friend who was also interviewing and briefly went thru the questions we thought would come up while we had drinks to relax. I think too much prep will make you nervous lol.

 

[Gene Parmesan]

Mock interview like 8 months ago, read over my app, the school's website (mainly about curriculum and opportunities outside the classroom), then read the Interview Feedback on SDN. They have a lot of questions from previous interviews and that was really helpful because all three of my interviews used questions from previous years.

Honestly, after interviewing once I felt confident moving forward where I didn't prepare much for the following two interviews. I had an idea of what I would say to the questions, but I didn't rehearse answers out loud. Personally, I think answering questions on the spot is challenging, yet gives me the best chance to show who I am. It feels more authentic than giving a rehearsed answer, so my advice is to strike a balance between having an idea about how you'd answer certain questions, but don't plot it out word for word.

 

[C.glabrata123]

Mock interview

SDN interview feedback - compiled list of questions asked by the school

Answered those questions in a word document

Practiced answering them until I felt relatively comfortable.

Needed to prepare less and less with each interview - mainly needed to practice the "why this school?" question as this was different for each school.

For some and if I had time: it helped to scope out the school/practice getting there so that when I went early in the morning it was easy.

 

[QuantumQuark]

Looked over the questions for each school on SDN interview feedback and thought about how I might start some answers to the questions.

I love talking to people so I didn't want to have written rehearsed answers, I just thought about a few things I wanted to make sure the interviewer knew about me and other than that I just answered the questions honestly and on the spot.

It depends on the person but at least a few of my friends and I never did a mock interview, never rehearsed answers, and we all have been accepted somewhere this cycle. I think practicing for interviews is overrated and can make you sound like all the other pre-meds applying/interviewing.

 

[C.glabrata123]

Looked over the questions for each school on SDN interview feedback and thought about how I might start some answers to the questions.

I love talking to people so I didn't want to have written rehearsed answers, I just thought about a few things I wanted to make sure the interviewer knew about me and other than that I just answered the questions honestly and on the spot.

It depends on the person but at least a few of my friends and I never did a mock interview, never rehearsed answers, and we all have been accepted somewhere this cycle. I think practicing for interviews is overrated and can make you sound like all the other pre-meds applying/interviewing.

It's not for everyone but I wrote stuff down because it helped me think about what possible answers I could give, and what I could mention. It helped me focus because I often need to write things down to think deeply about them. Once I interviewed, it flowed. I didn't give strictly rehearsed answers but having an idea of how to start/end the "why medicine" or "why this school" questions was helpful.

 

[airabuyu13]

Read a book on healthcare (the WashU book, it's really good!), and then in the beginning wrote a short outline for "Tell me about yourself" and "How did you decide to be a doctor"

On the plane to each interview I spent about 1.5 hours skimming through AMCAS and secondaries and making sure I knew why I wanted to go to the school and what questions I would ask.

 

[D2thaJay]

Mock interview and then the night before just reviewed the schools website. I did not want to sound like a robot and be too rehearsed. Just wanted to be myself and show the interviewer who I am.