What do you think of the new interview style that Stanford has implemented?

[MediCynical]

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I haven't read what other people posted, but I had a MMI at Virginia Tech this year (it was my very first interview, too).

I didn't like it for a number of reasons.
- I didn't get to know any of my interviewers
- The questions don't speak to your character at all, they just get you to think on your feet about random situations
- You don't have a chance to 'sell' yourself
- You walk out with absolutely no idea how it went
- Much more stressful than a conversational interview

I should say, though, that the MMI was a good experience and really prepared me for my other interviews (I was much less nervous about conversational interviews having been through this). Also, it was a little bit fun (in a weird way) once you got into it... however the first 1-2 mini-interviews were like

 

[Narmerguy]

I don't like the sound of this.

This sort of interview really smacks home that they feel they can make you do whatever they want and that you'll dance through whatever hoops necessary. Seems a little arrogant. Sure Stanford might feel entitled to do that but it's still arrogant.

 

[WildWing]

SDN just published an article on prepping for MMIs:
http://www.studentdoctor.net/2011/01/the-multiple-mini-interview-for-medical-school-admissions/

 

[CoolWhipp]

"In addition, standard interview questions may not reveal an individual's communication skills, problem-solving abilities, level of professionalism or other skills important for the practice of medicine." -SDN Article on MMI

I really don't believe this. I think MMI has that "Mile wide, Inch Deep" approach that has failed so many K-12 schools.

For instance, how many people have you met (usually around the academic setting) that can provide an seemingly smart response to a difficult question, but when probed with slightly deeper questions of the same subject fail to give you a straight answer?

Traditional interviews allow for depth and understanding, whereas 8 minutes interviews allow for pre-programmed/quick witty empty answers.

 

[deleted357625]

I think it's crap. It isn't an interview, so it's a whole lot less likely to screen out the people who suck. Yes, it'll test how you think on your feet, but you can do that easily without introducing a gimmick this extreme and eliminating the main purpose of the interview process.

Canadian schools have been doing this sort of thing for quite some time, I believe.

I agree, it sounds like a lot of non-sense.

What happened to the "normal" interviews..😕

 

[MilkmanAl]

Those of you talking about how effective the MMI system is...care to put a finer point on what you mean by "effective?"

As someone (Kaushik?) said, it's pretty damn easy to hold back your craziness in 10-minute segments. It's not nearly as simple if you're talking to one person for a half hour. Maybe that's why some people like MMI so well (😉), but schools are probably doing themselves a substantial disservice by not weeding out the crazies as well.

 

[ILikeDrugs]

Those of you talking about how effective the MMI system is...care to put a finer point on what you mean by "effective?"

As someone (Kaushik?) said, it's pretty damn easy to hold back your craziness in 10-minute segments. It's not nearly as simple if you're talking to one person for a half hour. Maybe that's why some people like MMI so well (😉), but schools are probably doing themselves a substantial disservice by not weeding out the crazies as well.

By crazies do you mean socially inept people? Judging from my experience with lots of physicians and residents as a hospital volunteer and hospital worker for 4 years, schools, who most likely used traditional interviews, haven't been doing a good job of weeding out those people. I don't think the MMI style will do any better or worse at weeding out those people. If you ask me, I think it can only get better when taking into consideration the amount of socially inept docs out there. 😉😉😉

 

[MilkmanAl]

Yeah, them. Normal interviews aren't perfect, but if these people can fake the funk for an hour, imagine how many can make it for 10 minutes. I'm not saying what we have is great - I'm on record many times saying they need to scrap the whole damn process and build up from scratch - but steps backward aren't exactly helpful.

 

[rjmn]

What about having interviews and MMIs both?

 

[Charles_Carmichael]

What about having interviews and MMIs both?

That would be a painful interview day, IMO. I can't imagine sitting through an hour long interview and then, spending another 1.5-2hrs doing these 8-10min long pressure sets. Also, I don't know if schools can really fit both of them into one interview day. Based on my experience, my interview days have pretty much lasted from 9 or 10 am all the way until 3 or 4 pm.

 

[chiapet874]

Those of you talking about how effective the MMI system is...care to put a finer point on what you mean by "effective?"

As someone (Kaushik?) said, it's pretty damn easy to hold back your craziness in 10-minute segments. It's not nearly as simple if you're talking to one person for a half hour. Maybe that's why some people like MMI so well (😉), but schools are probably doing themselves a substantial disservice by not weeding out the crazies as well.

I believe that was me 😀

MMIs claim to test how you talk while stressed. Thats a silly goal IMO, you can easily train someone to do that. Thats part of the purpose of going to med school, learning all the various aspects of being a doctor. Its like schools expect you to know everything before you walk in and than pay them regardless.

 

[WeAreNotRobots]

What do you guys think of the standardized patient exposure and examinations a lot of schools use with medical students? I feel like the mmi has much in common with those practices.

And i'm not going out of my way to support mmi, but i want to share these thoughts: the actors in the scenarios were ****ing good, and everything in the scenarios felt real. Many other applicants had similar thoughts. I know it looks like jumping through hoops (which most of the process is) but it gets pretty serious in the moment.

 

[chiapet874]

What do you guys think of the standardized patient exposure and examinations a lot of schools use with medical students? I feel like the mmi has much in common with those practices.

And i'm not going out of my way to support mmi, but i want to share these thoughts: the actors in the scenarios were ****ing good, and everything in the scenarios felt real. Many other applicants had similar thoughts. I know it looks like jumping through hoops (which most of the process is) but it gets pretty serious in the moment.

I agree that MMIs do have common aspects with the standardized patient exposure tests. But the difference is: one is being used to judge a potential applicant for admission, while the other is being used AFTER a couple years of training (I believe, forgive me if my information is wrong). And again, I feel that the skills they are trying to test with MMIs are easily trainable and basically irrelevant towards judging someone for admission.

That's just my opinion though

 

[duress]

While I think the stations involving puzzles, or other similarly ridiculous activities shouldn't be part of MMI, I think the overall system is much better than traditional interviews. If you notice, the bulk of the questions are pretty interview standard. The only difference is that you have 8-10 people evaluating you as opposed to 1. And while it is true that 8 minutes seems entirely superficial, on the other hand, 1 hour seems like an eternity when it appears the interviewer doesn't like you for any particular reason.

Sadly, people can be extremely subjective in their judgments, MDs are not excluded. I think MMI addresses this by creating a metric where all applicants are evaluated by the same group of people, rather than by one or two different interviewers.

Ideally, applicants could have multiple full-length interviews with the same group of interviewers, but that doesn't seem like it would go over too well either.

 

[Narmerguy]

While I think the stations involving puzzles, or other similarly ridiculous activities shouldn't be part of MMI, I think the overall system is much better than traditional interviews. If you notice, the bulk of the questions are pretty interview standard. The only difference is that you have 8-10 people evaluating you as opposed to 1. And while it is true that 8 minutes seems entirely superficial, on the other hand, 1 hour seems like an eternity when it appears the interviewer doesn't like you for any particular reason.

Sadly, people can be extremely subjective in their judgments, MDs are not excluded. I think MMI addresses this by creating a metric where all applicants are evaluated by the same group of people, rather than by one or two different interviewers.

Ideally, applicants could have multiple full-length interviews with the same group of interviewers, but that doesn't seem like it would go over too well either.

I see your point, but it seems to me that instead you will get multiple interviewees now coming out of these processes with little to differentiate them than their ability to think on their feet. This seems like a poor metric to distinguish applicants, less biased or not.

 

[duress]

I see your point, but it seems to me that instead you will get multiple interviewees now coming out of these processes with little to differentiate them than their ability to think on their feet. This seems like a poor metric to distinguish applicants, less biased or not.

But that's the traditional interview? What else could they be when interviewers spend 10 minutes grilling you on your research or another EC, or healthcare, or abortions aside from a test of how you think on your feet? If anything MMI is the opposite because you have 2 minutes to think about the question before you walk in to answer it.

 

[NoMatterWhat]

I like it. Being interviewed by 8 people in shorter amount of time is more fun 😀 and less likely to produce bias.

 

[osumc2014]

I did an MMI, had fun, thought I did excellent, didn't get into the school, but got into much better schools. Does it work? who knows