Med School Interview Question

[BluejayMD]

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I understand that medical schools pick a select number of people from the applicant pool to be interviewed, and from those that are interviewed, only a few actually get accepted. However, after medical schools interview the students, how do they decide who gets accepted? Is it based primarily on the interview, or do they run through your application one more time and compare it with other students who were interviewed as well?

 

[Mornhavon]

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[el_duderino]

From what I was told at my two interviews, the interviewer(s) write notes and possibly score the interview on a variety of metrics. They are put into the file. The entire admissions committee gets together and goes through each interviewed applicant one by one, discussing the applicant in total, not just the interview or the MCAT or whatever. Then a decision is made whether to accept, waitlist, reject, or something else. Some schools assign a weight or rank to the applicant if put on the waitlist.

 

[masaraksh]

they simply bring out a tray of poop hot dogs.

Someone say hotdogs?

 

[mvenus929]

It depends on the school. One school I interviewed at assigned points to everything, and if you had better than the average of the matriculating class, you got an acceptance. Otherwise, you were wait listed. My school has their adcom meetings at the end of the week, and they discuss the applications in whole, with the two interviewers summarizing the application and their impressions, as well as what they recommend. Then the whole committee votes on what to do.

 

[Mornhavon]

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[Chemstudent]

From what I was told at my two interviews, the interviewer(s) write notes and possibly score the interview on a variety of metrics. They are put into the file. The entire admissions committee gets together and goes through each interviewed applicant one by one, discussing the applicant in total, not just the interview or the MCAT or whatever. Then a decision is made whether to accept, waitlist, reject, or something else. Some schools assign a weight or rank to the applicant if put on the waitlist.

Hmm I've always wondered that too. So if you have an applicant that's clearly stronger than another on paper and the weaker applicant comes across as slightly better on the interview, the stronger applicant would be accepted first? I mean it's all subjective but it's not like entirely based on the interview

 

[aspirantmed]

Again, it depends on the school. At some schools, the interview then becomes another piece of the puzzle and the applicant is reviewed in the context of their overall application as a 'portfolio' of essays, letters, activities, scores, interview feedback, etc. At others, the interview is almost solely the determining factor to compare applicants after the decision to interview has been made.

Honestly, all this stuff is so opaque at most schools that it's not really worth thinking about. After all, you can't really even strategize around it. Just make your application the best you possibly can, and then let the process play out as it will.

 

[snowflakes]

LizzyM has used the staircase analogy before, which is super helpful. Basically, applicants are sorted into tiers before the interview, based on their application. After the interview, applicants can move up or down the stairs, or stay the same. Then, schools will accept everyone on the top X number of stairs.

So, it's possible to be on pretty low stair to start out with, have a terrific interview, and move up enough to get accepted. Conversely, you could be on a very high stair to start out with, have a meh interview, and still get accepted. Or, you can be on a medium stair, have an above average interview, and still not wow them enough to be accepted.

 

[lmn]

Hmm I've always wondered that too. So if you have an applicant that's clearly stronger than another on paper and the weaker applicant comes across as slightly better on the interview, the stronger applicant would be accepted first? I mean it's all subjective but it's not like entirely based on the interview

Schools weigh interviews differently, it also depends on how good or bad the interview is and how good/bad you are on paper. Every school seemed to do it slightly differently, but a good number seemed to pre-score you based on your application/gpa/mcat/etc and rank you (from which they chose who to interview or pre-ii reject/silent reject), then as they make their way down the list with interviews they would score you based on your interview and consider that in your overall score. Then schools would usually accept a certain number of people from larger batches of interview dates based on their overall scores and the school's projections for how many seats they want to fill in each round. People whose overall scores were below a certain threshold after interviewing were either sent rejection letters then, or a few schools seemed to like to defer/waitlist everyone - to keep their options open I would guess. In-between the outright accepted and denied/waitlist groups, some schools would defer a final decision for as long as it took for you to either rise to the acceptance range/drop to rejection or until the end of the season comes where they decide to waitlist you or reject you (for example places like Dartmouth or Tufts). For these, they would say that they were constantly reevaluating you at each committee meeting to decide acceptances/rejections as the season went on (although I honestly don't know how in-depth a review that really meant unless you happened to reach the accept or reject borders). Also schools that allow updates factor in significant updates/accomplishments into your overall score/ranking I believe.

disclaimer: this is just from what I learned my interviewing season, from the perspective of an applicant based on what deans/schools told me, our actual adcom members can probably provide more information/perspective.

 

[Goro]

This is how it's done at my school.

From what I was told at my two interviews, the interviewer(s) write notes and possibly score the interview on a variety of metrics. They are put into the file. The entire admissions committee gets together and goes through each interviewed applicant one by one, discussing the applicant in total, not just the interview or the MCAT or whatever. Then a decision is made whether to accept, waitlist, reject, or something else. Some schools assign a weight or rank to the applicant if put on the waitlist.