Journal Articles About Interviews

[cytotech27]

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Just an FYI-I did a quick search for articles about the med school interview and if you have access to e-journals you can look these up, unfortunately a link would not work here. Some of these articles basically say the interview is like a lottery and not a good way to judge applicants, as compared to GPA and MCAT. Since these are peer reviewed, it's "straight from the horse's mouth".

Investigating the reliability of the medical school admissions interview
Advances in health sciences education. 9(2):147-159, 2004

asessing personal qualities in medical school admission.
academic medicine. 78(3):313-321 march 2003

assesing admission criteria
academic medicine. 76(2):107-108, feb. 2001

a structured interview for medical school admission
academic medicine.76(1) 66-71, jan. 2001

the ability of a medical school admission process to predice clinical performance and patient's satisfaction
academic medicine. 75(7): 743-747, july 2000

 

[constructor]

i disagree a little with that... i think interviews say a lot more about whether or not someone will be a good doctor than the gpa and mcat scores...

 

[IndyZX]

heres my thinking. its easier to say what the interviewer wants to hear in an interview than it is to get a high gpa/mcat. for that reason i wouldnt weigh the interview much more than the numbers, but its definitely a huge factor. sometimes though, it does seem like the variability is all over the place.

 

[wends]

heres my thinking. its easier to say what the interviewer wants to hear in an interview than it is to get a high gpa/mcat. for that reason i wouldnt weigh the interview much more than the numbers, but its definitely a huge factor. sometimes though, it does seem like the variability is all over the place.

oooooooooh, good point....but i hate saying what the interviewer wants to hear...and half the time i dont even know what they want to hear....

 

[WatchingWaiting]

oooooooooh, good point....but i hate saying what the interviewer wants to hear...and half the time i dont even know what they want to hear....

It doesn't take too much brainpower to know that the interview doesn't want to hear that you're going into medicine for money, job security, or prestige and does want to hear that you are going into medicine due to some combination of a genuine desire to help others, the intellectual rewards of the field, a love of science.

 

[John Deere Gree]

The school I currently attend the interview counts a ton. It's the reason why I wasn't admitted last year (it was horrendous in mroe ways than one) but was accepted this year.

 

[Pinkertinkle]

And what school is that?

 

[wends]

It doesn't take too much brainpower to know that the interview doesn't want to hear that you're going into medicine for money, job security, or prestige and does want to hear that you are going into medicine due to some combination of a genuine desire to help others, the intellectual rewards of the field, a love of science.

gee thanks.....apart from the obvious answers is what i meant.....i guess you're brainpower is just too superior 🙄

 

[constructor]

you'll be surprised how many people **** up during interviews and how easy it is for doctors who interview patients all the time to see right through applicants saying "what they want to hear". i think getting a high gpa/mcat is much easier because everyone will get it if they work hard because being a doctor is not about being smart. but the way you communicate is more ingrained in your upbringing and other intangible factors that you can't really change too much at this point in your life. i know other people feel differently, but that's my personal view on it. and there is evidence that shows that people who score lower on the mcat are better in the third and fourth years of medical school and beyond than people who score higher on the mcat because for lack of a better way to phrase it, people who score high on the mcat tend to be social dorks, which doesn't help relate better to patients.

 

[IndyZX]

and there is evidence that shows that people who score lower on the mcat are better in the third and fourth years of medical school and beyond than people who score higher on the mcat because for lack of a better way to phrase it, people who score high on the mcat tend to be social dorks, which doesn't help relate better to patients.

show me that evidence.

and... whatever helps ya sleep at night. 👍

 

[DoctorFunk]

and there is evidence that shows that people who score lower on the mcat are better in the third and fourth years of medical school

Citation?
🙄

 

[constructor]

http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Union/5092/valid.html

this isn't the place i read about this stuff the first time, but it does the job... here are some of the quotes:

"The MCAT score was a strong predictor of medical school performances, particularly those criteria measured by medical school GPAs and the National Board of Medical Examiners examination scores, but its predictive power dropped sharply when clinical performance and personal suitability were part of the performance evaluation. Specific personality traits not only strengthened the predictive power of cognitive and personality variables jointly, they became the primary predictors of clinical performance and personal suitability."

"Although undergraduate GPAs and MCAT scores are good indicators of NBME I performance, they are not useful in predicting clinical performance. "

Whereas only 4% of the common variance in the ratings of clinical competence could be accounted for by the MCAT scores, 14% could be accounted for by the psychosocial measures. CONCLUSION. The "noncognitive," or psychosocial, measures increased the magnitude of the relationships between the predictive and criterion measures of the students' academic performances, beyond the magnitude attained when only the conventional admission measures were used. Therefore, psychosocial measures should be considered as significant and unique predictors of performance in medical school."

 

[IndyZX]

http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Union/5092/valid.html

this isn't the place i read about this stuff the first time, but it does the job... here are some of the quotes:

"The MCAT score was a strong predictor of medical school performances, particularly those criteria measured by medical school GPAs and the National Board of Medical Examiners examination scores, but its predictive power dropped sharply when clinical performance and personal suitability were part of the performance evaluation. Specific personality traits not only strengthened the predictive power of cognitive and personality variables jointly, they became the primary predictors of clinical performance and personal suitability."

"Although undergraduate GPAs and MCAT scores are good indicators of NBME I performance, they are not useful in predicting clinical performance. "

Whereas only 4% of the common variance in the ratings of clinical competence could be accounted for by the MCAT scores, 14% could be accounted for by the psychosocial measures. CONCLUSION. The "noncognitive," or psychosocial, measures increased the magnitude of the relationships between the predictive and criterion measures of the students' academic performances, beyond the magnitude attained when only the conventional admission measures were used. Therefore, psychosocial measures should be considered as significant and unique predictors of performance in medical school."

i hope you realize that in no way does this lend evidence to "people who score lower on the mcat are better in the third and fourth years of medical school"

 

[EvoDevo]

Please? Social dorks? I'll have you know that both myself and a good friend *both* scored in the 90th percentile and we are not social dorks. In fact we're both extremely outgoing.

I really wish you wouldn't spout garbage b/c it makes you feel better. Thanks for playing.

 

[constructor]

bottomline... the point i was trying to make is that the interview says more about your abilities as a doctor in the long run than your mcat and gpa, granted you have the gpa and mcat to get in, and the evidence for this is clear. apparently, people who have high mcat's and gpa's took this as a personal attack on their abilities. that was not my intention... but people with 3.9/42 in my opinion do work harder and make many more sacrifices than people who get a 3.5/30 and it's to your credit... but this doesn't say anything about your abilities as a doctor compared to the other guy, as much as you would like to think so.

i scored in the 95th percentile and i'm an engineer (who by the way are not reputed to have much of a social life) but i realize that my hard work doesn't really mean i'm going to be a better doctor than people with average stats. fine, it might be to harder to get the stats, but it doesn't help you stand out much after the second year of medical school. other things such as your personality matter a lot more and are "unique determinants" of your performance.

i'll agree that the statement i made saying people with high mcat scores are social dorks is hardly a generalization, but in my experience almost all the "social dorks" i know got scores in the 40's because all they do is study. but there are social dorks with lower scores too, but just not as many in my opinion. i think we all know what i'm talking about... see you at them interviews 👍

 

[IndyZX]

no personal offense taken. however, you did post that there is evidence that "people who score lower on the mcat are better in the third and fourth years of medical school". it was completely unfounded; that was my complaint.

 

[constructor]

like i said, the posted link was not where i found the information the first time. i read it a while back in a study that was on the aamc website i believe, but i wasn't able to find it.

by the way, i hope you realize that i'm only saying that interviews matter more after you have the requisite gpa/mcat to demonstrate that you belong at the school... i'm not saying interviews should be more important even if you have a ****ty mcat/gpa... but in my opinion, everyone should be able to get the minimum mcat/gpa to be competitive at most schools if they work hard... that's just my personal take because as an engineer, i don't think the mcat or the science courses are so much about intelligence as they are about hard work.

i think the fact that every school interviews candidates and rejects many people with very high mcat's/gpa's after interviews corroborates what was mentioned in the study... that interviews do mean a lot, otherwise they wouldn't bother wasting their time and resources.

 

[kstone13]

An interview serves as a useful tool in gauging people's ability to adapt to a foreign environment and present themselves in a genuine, likeable and effective manner. However, adcoms do not use interviews to find out why your a desirable cnadidate, they already know you have a valid case and are simply looking for reasons to screen you out, whatever people think those reasons may be.

Having said that, people should not be inferring that an interview is the only means to measuring somebody's "noncognitive, or psychosocial skills", which appears to be a primary claim of most people's postings. I think pple are ignoring the fact that letters of rec serves a similar purpose. It also seems a gross simplification for anyone to believe that 45 minutes of social interaction between interviewer and interviewee should be stressed as a significant determinant for the quality of a lifetime worth of doctor-patient relations.
If I am successful at using the interview process to gain admission, it just seems way too easy to say that i wouldn't end up being a dick to my patients in the future.

 

[wends]

so with all the people that interview.....whats are the deciding factors for schools of accepting some and declining others? is it just subjective, like the interviewer, adcom didnt like the applicant, or just nothing stood out about him/her?? any opinions?