Question About Open File Interviews

[med2424]

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For open file interviews, how should we approach answering questions that we already wrote about somewhere in our application? I expect this might happen for more common questions. For example, if a secondary questions was "Why this school" and they ask you that in the interview?
Should we
- Briefly rehash what we wrote in the app assuming that the interviewer doesn't really remember what we wrote, given that we wrote our most important reasons in the app
- Assume the interviewer does remember what we wrote and spend more time adding more detail
- Add entirely new reasons (of course that are consistent with our app)

I guess bigger picture question is how well can we expect interviewers to remember what we wrote in our app when answering interview questions?

 

[wysdoc]

Don’t quote yourself exactly but stay on your true reasons
They will often have your activities/ essays in front of them and they’re not trying to quiz you to see if you remember what you wrote, but to hear more or a new detail or aspect

 

[Goro]

Don't assume that you will get a question that is identical to the prompts in your secondary.

The only reason why they would be asked is if you did not answer them to the interviewers satisfaction. So, just answer truthfully and from the heart.

That said, anything in your file is fair game to ask about

 

[Hollow Knight]

If you did research be prepared to explain it to people who know as much or more about the field than you.

If you mention something medical (a disease or treatment or etc), be prepared to get pimped on it.

Otherwise, I'm just trying to get to know you and have a good time. But my interviews are the chillest imaginable so maybe I'm a bad person to get advice from.

I will say- I care about mission fit a lot. And honesty. If you're from Seattle and have only shadowed neurosurgery, but you tell me you're dead set on Family Medicine and doing a WWAMI network residency, I'm going to ask you to explain your motivations. If you don't give me a satisfactory answer, I'm going to tell my school you're a liar and not to admit you.

I'm not trying to scare you; I've been on my school's adcom for almost a couple of years now and I've only done this like twice. But the kids were literally like "My time shadowing neurosurgeon Smith intensely grew my passion for being a rural primary care physician" and I was like........ really dawg? (In my mind anyway)

 

[Rachapkis]

Listen to the question and answer the question posed. There may be some overlap with what you've written in your essays but that's okay. Have a bullet point list in your head of how you want to respond to frequently posed questions, but don't script your answers. I would also have a game plan in mind for dealing with totally off the wall questions.

 

[Stellar Mudd]

If you did research be prepared to explain it to people who know as much or more about the field than you.

If you mention something medical (a disease or treatment or etc), be prepared to get pimped on it.

Otherwise, I'm just trying to get to know you and have a good time. But my interviews are the chillest imaginable so maybe I'm a bad person to get advice from.

I will say- I care about mission fit a lot. And honesty. If you're from Seattle and have only shadowed neurosurgery, but you tell me you're dead set on Family Medicine and doing a WWAMI network residency, I'm going to ask you to explain your motivations. If you don't give me a satisfactory answer, I'm going to tell my school you're a liar and not to admit you.

I'm not trying to scare you; I've been on my school's adcom for almost a couple of years now and I've only done this like twice. But the kids were literally like "My time shadowing neurosurgeon Smith intensely grew my passion for being a rural primary care physician" and I was like........ really dawg? (In my mind anyway)

I get what you are saying, just have to point out I know someone who shadowed a psychiatrist for a couple years, and while they learned a lot, knew they didn’t want to go into psych by the end. Also shadowing a surgeon did that too lol. Just had to point out sometimes process of elimination is really a thing sometimes

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I guess bigger picture question is how well can we expect interviewers to remember what we wrote in our app when answering interview questions?

It's like what you do in class when you read something: We take notes.