Length of response to dental school interview questions?

[IdleKoala]

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Hey all,

I have a few interviews coming up and was wondering about how long your responses should be to the questions they ask? I know ad coms. are looking for conciseness and clarity, so i've been timing my responses to questions like "Why dentistry?" and "Why our school?" and I consistently get around 2-2:30 minutes for these responses. Is that considered long? I had a committee/mock interview a few weeks ago and some of the feed back they gave me was to shorten my responses, but I feel like if I do, the impact of my stories will be diminished because I have to leave something out. Do yall think its okay to go long on key questions like "why dentistry?" while keeping it short and concise for others? Any opinions? Thanks.

 

[artist2022]

Find whatever works for you. I found that most of my interviews were honestly conversational, as if I was just talking to a friend. Sometimes my interviewer would interject a small question when I paused, so then we'd go onto a different topic. Just don't make your responses really long (I think 1:30 should be where to aim for) cause you don't want to "bore" them-- they ask the same questions to everyone who interviews, and I don't think they want long, drawn out answers . If you feel like you left something out and it was really important, try and see if you can incorporate it in another response 🙂 Good luck!

 

[IdleKoala]

Find whatever works for you. I found that most of my interviews were honestly conversational, as if I was just talking to a friend. Sometimes my interviewer would interject a small question when I paused, so then we'd go onto a different topic. Just don't make your responses really long (I think 1:30 should be where to aim for) cause you don't want to "bore" them-- they ask the same questions to everyone who interviews, and I don't think they want long, drawn out answers . If you feel like you left something out and it was really important, try and see if you can incorporate it in another response 🙂 Good luck!

Thanks for the feed back! By nature I'm definitely an over sharer, so I find it hard to divorce my life story from simply why I'm interested in dentistry lol. I will definitely try to shorten my responses a little, I don't wanna come across to long winded.

 

[Bingwen]

I agree give as much information that you see fit. Also realize that some admissions comittees may have read your personal statement (if it is not a closed app interview).

Two useful tip I got from some friends in dental school is to treat it like speed dating. You need to get the most pertinent information across in the shortest amount of time. The other tip was to read the room, give a concise response, if they want you to continue you will hopefully beable to gauge based on their body language and they will likely ask you follow up questions if they want to get more information.