"Tell me about your brothers & sisters" . Why do they always ask this?

[jmejia1]

At most if not all my interviews I'm asked about what my brothers and sisters do. Personally, I feel that knowing about someones brother and sister may lead one to make bias judgements. For example, if someones brother attends Harvard Law School and double majored in Economics and Biochemistry as an undergrad, an interviewer may feel that there's "good genes" in the family or that their environment was very conductive to academics. At the opposite spectrum, if one's brother or sister works as a dental assistant than there might be some negative generalizations.

What do you guys think about this quesion, and the actual purpose of it?

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[Notorious D.O.C.]

I got that same question at one of my interviews. We actually spent about 5 minutes talking about my older sister's career. Then he followed up with "What does your sister think about you getting into medicine?"

 

[Trek]

To strike up a conversation. It's better than talking about the weather. --Trek

 

[Firebird]

ADCOM: Mr. Firebird, tell me about your brothers and sisters.

Me: I don't have any.

That's an easy question for me...

 

[jase133]

Haha... Yeah, I talked about my siblings too.

 

[Doctora Foxy]

I HOPE they ask me that...i have 2 brothers and my sister is my closest friend...I would love to talk about them ,......and my little brother is 12 years younger.....yeah can you guys please call up GW and tell them to ask me that? Thanks.

 

[WaitingImpatiently]

I was wondering the same thing. At about half of my interviews, I was asked this question, along with what my parents do for a living. And it's not just an icebreaker-- they would ask about this halfway into the interview. I wish I knew what they were looking for.

 

[locitamd]

Foxy, since the GW interviews are blind, I found the interviewers let me lead the conversation to a large extent. Therefore, if you want to talk about your siblings, all you have to do is bring it up...

 

[med student]

I think what they are looking for is that if you have 2 brothers and they are both in medical school and your father was also a doctor plus so was his father then there may be some pressure for you to go into medicine also and this is a candidate the school knows it havs to be careful with. It is not that the school doesn't want a candidate like this they just don't want someone who is only doing it because their father made them. So this line of questions can sometimes give them some reasons why you want to go into medicine. It all goes allong with the question how does your family feel about you going into medicine.