Some General Interview Questions

[Thundrstorm]

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To all those experienced interviewees:

When discussing my research in an interview, will the interviewer often just say something to the effect of "Tell me about your research," and if they do, what kind of depth should I go for in answering? Should I have a 1 minute spiel planned to give an overview, and then wait for them to ask me questions?


Do MD/Ph interviews tend to be open or closed file? I guess this might depend on whether it's an adcom interviewer or a researcher?




Any input is appreciated. 🙂

 

[cadilakgrl]

Schools that are closed file will generally use the question "Tell me about your research" or it will come about when they ask you what you are doing now or during undergrad. I wouldn't prepare anything. It seemed to me you have to tailor your response to the interviewer and read their interest. One of my interviewers, an MD, was only interested in jotting down the title of my project and quickly moved on to asking me about something else. With my student interview, she was a 5th year MSTP so she wanted to know about the project in detail and I think was supposed to test your knowledge somewhat. The above mentioned interviews were both closed file for the med school. For the MSTP interviews I think most schools are open file so they have already read about your research and know the general idea. Some faculty will ask you to explain your most significant experience and others may have felt they know enough from your application and will ask you what you are interested in working on in the future. Expect a couple difficult questions that may test your knowledge of the project, but don't stress about it. If you don't know the answer (which was the case for me on one in-depth question about research I had done over 5 years ago) it may be okay if you say you don't know or don't remember, just don't try to give them any BS since they probably know the answer already!

With all that said I think it is good just to go with the flow and try to read the interviewer's interest and desire to listen to your speal. Good luck! Don't stress about it, it was much more relaxed than I expected. Read over your personal statements and research statements and practice talking to someone about your research, and you will be fine. 😀

 

[scneuro]

My experience thus far has been all open file interviews. Like the previous poster said, you go with the flow. Know your research like the back of your hand and start out general and go from there. If they're interested they may ask you more complicated or in-depth questions, just be prepared and you'll be fine!