Northwestern Panel Interview

[badlydrawnvik]

So what's the deal with the panel interview at Northwestern? Is it an interviewee and several interviewers? Is it stresful?

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[theunderdog]

if i'm not mistaken, i believe it's a committee / panel interview. there are several interviewers in one room and it's open file. it's kinda intimidating, but honestly, i think it';s better than one-on-one.

 

[dajimmers]

Three interviewers (I had a PhD prof, an MD, and a 4th year studend). Three interviewees, paired together apparently at random. I didn't think it was too stressful, but they did put one of the other applicants on the spot for a question or two, which was probably stressful considering she had two peers staring at her throughout. Overall, the idea is to build a cooperative mini-group during the interview. While the questions start out pointed and individual (it's a closed-file interview, btw), they progress towards more conversational all-inclusive questions, until you finally have to work through some question as a group and present your answer.

We had to come up with a new method of accepting/rejecting medical school applicants. Some other group had to assume the roles of FEMA, LA gov, and LA mayor and talk about the preventative and emergency plans they would each enact, and how they would cooperate (it was right after Katrina).

You'll have some time before the interview to talk with the two others you'll be with. Good time to find similarities and differences, and discuss how you'll tackle the group question.

 

[45408]

I had two MDs (one research, one clinical) and an MS4, and two other applicants. It wasn't too stressful for me, but it all kind of depends on what questions you get asked, and whether or not you have a good answer. One girl had a really tough question, but a really good answer. The other guy had some (what I thought) relatively easy questions that he really fumbled with.

 

[bobito]

I thought it was fun. It was really interesting to see how other people answered questions in interviews. Be prepared for questions you haven't prepared for though. They asked some unusual ones. Interview feedback is really useful. When they ask the group question, it has nothing to do with what your answer ends up being, they're looking to see how you would work in a group setting since they are really big on PBL.