What’s an example of when you “hit it out of the park” in an interview?

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When I am interviewing a great candidate and I ask. "What are you looking for in a medical school?" and they reply with an answer that seems genuine, and also highlights the strong, unique points of our medical school, in a way that makes sense with their life story. Sometimes, can be "faked" just by the applicant reading up on our school, but true authenticity is hard to fake. The better the fit, and more excited the student would be to attend, the better, as we do want these very desirable applicants to want to choose our school in the final stretch, over the likely many others from which they will be able to choose. In many cases, some of the interview is definitely a "sell" for our school (especially if the interview goes well).

I am also a sucker for hard luck stories - resilience with a strong positive attitude despite adversity with just the right amount of humility. A couple of my favorite interviews were with people brought to this country in middle school or high school - not even really speaking English - who somehow made friends, learned English, and excelled in HS and college.

I also like applicants who took courses out of their comfort zone - even if they do not get an A! I often ask students to tell me what they learned from an unusual course on their transcript.
 
My best example was not because of any particular interview skill. I was asked to provide an example of an issue I am passionate about, either in or out of medicine. Well, I am one of the most militant vaccine advocates you will ever meet.

I knew it was pretty unlikely my interviewer would be anti-vax, so I felt safe sharing that. I told her that I am extremely passionate about vaccines, and she responded by pumping her fist and yelling, “Yes!!!” really loudly lol.

We then bonded over stories of dealing with anti-vaxxers, and I locked it in by asking for any tips she had (I actually was interested to hear them because she apparently had a lot of success on her peds rotation).

We’re friends on Facebook now, she listens to my podcast, and I’ll be starting at that school in July. 🙂
 
Interviewing with the head of the admissions committee. Before I even sit down he goes, "tell me a story". I launch into this story (unrehearsed and that I had never told before) about a time when, while working as an EMT-B, I did something that was maybe dangerous and could maybe have gotten me/the company sued, but seemed ethically (not medically) like the right thing in terms of patient autonomy. He agreed with my decision, and it turned out he had a personal interest in this kind of thing and recommended like 5 books for me to read.
 
I was an art history minor in college, and am very artsy overall. Once you get me started, I can wax poetically about some of my favorite artists. At many of my best interviews imo, I would talk about my art history projects. At one of my interviews I literally spent like half the time, explaining one of the pieces I did my project on to my interviewer. She happened to be the head of admissions and absolutely loved it. When I got the acceptance she personally called me to let me know.
 
At one of my interviews my interviewer threw me off a bit by mentioning that they were really impressed with my rec letters. They then mentioned a challenge one of my rec letters wrote about and asked me to talk about it. I was totally thrown off because I hadnt expected them to write about it. Was a super emotional/difficult situation. Ended up talking about it and how I think I could have handled it better but explained why i did what i did at the time. In the end my interviewer was really happy with my extremely honest answer and that i owned up to any mistakes I had made. They then gave me some life advice to keep in mind for similar situations in the future and the rest of the interview was super chill. They were the only interviewer i sent a thank you letter to lol. Im also very glad they made it to my interview because apparently they almost cancelled and then made it last minute. Got the acceptance call on the first day acceptances were going out (october 15th). I think ive had other decent interviews since but that one was probably one of the ones i felt was best. It was also very early in the cycle before I got burnt out from repeating myself a ton 😕
 
I had a very old-school, traditional Eastern European interviewer at an MMI station. I managed to slip in the fact that I did martial arts for 12 years and he launched into a story about how much he loved his Korean grocer who beat up a shoplifter once. At the end of interview he gave me a huge smile and said if it were only up to him I’d be in no problem.
 
I talked about how I like Ben Carson and my interviewer lit up. He offered to let me do research in orthopedic surgery with him over the summer before I start. Needless to say I'm going to that school in July 🙂
 
I interviewed at a school where the MMI stations were set up such that we would get our first interviewer twice - once in the beginning and once at the very end. The first time I met with him, I was able to talk about my interests in health policy and social justice, which he was really into. When I got to him at the end, the MMI scenario was written so that I would be able to come around full circle and basically apply all my beliefs about health justice to an actual patient scenario. I walked into the room and immediately told him that I was excited to be able to answer that particular question, and he said he was excited to have me back for that question. We proceeded to have a great conversation. Went way better than any other MMI I’ve been on as I generally dislike them. I’m going to that school in the fall
 
now reading this thread i start thinking that i SERIOUSLY failed my interviews. Darn it. In my last interview in WVU i was SO sick, I could barely talk, I actually lost my voice right after my last interview of the day. Got waitlisted there.
I think, if i do not get in this year, i will need to get some serious training in interviewing.
 
mmaslyanko said:
now reading this thread i start thinking that i SERIOUSLY failed my interviews. Darn it. In my last interview in WVU i was SO sick, I could barely talk, I actually lost my voice right after my last interview of the day. Got waitlisted there.
I think, if i do not get in this year, i will need to get some serious training in interviewing.
Click to expand...

Honestly, you should have done serious interview prep before this cycle. But with 6 IIs you have an amazing shot at getting in somewhere. People are also a poor judge of their performance. The fact that you have 3 WLs means you probably weren’t completely horrible. Do you have any interviews left?
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
Honestly, you should have done serious interview prep before this cycle. But with 6 IIs you have an amazing shot at getting in somewhere. People are also a poor judge of their performance. The fact that you have 3 WLs means you probably weren’t completely horrible. Do you have any interviews left?
Click to expand...
i thought i DID do a lot of prep prior for MONTHS (but of course i am sure that was not enough). I watched literally hundreds of hours on youtube, studied through two books, did a lot of practice questions with my loved ones. I thought my interviews went well, but i agree- it is hard for me to judge myself objectively.

So, technically i have 2 waitlists (WVU as OOS and EVMS as IS), 1 hold post-II (ETSU, it is a little weird how they do their thing, i am never sure how to describe it), I am still waiting on Drexel interview results. I have Vermont this Friday (MMI), and i cancel my 6th interview (VA tech), because there was a conflict with my job schedule, and there is nothing i could do.

now I am thinking that i might be hurting on my stats, and which is why i might be waitlisting.
 
mmaslyanko said:
i thought i DID do a lot of prep prior for MONTHS (but of course i am sure that was not enough). I watched literally hundreds of hours on youtube, studied through two books, did a lot of practice questions with my loved ones. I thought my interviews went well, but i agree- it is hard for me to judge myself objectively.
Click to expand...

You might just be overthinking it. They want to see who you are. You might come across as over prepared. Just be yourself.

So, technically i have 2 waitlists (WVU as OOS and EVMS as IS), 1 hold post-II (ETSU, it is a little weird how they do their thing, i am never sure how to describe it), I am still waiting on Drexel interview results. I have Vermont this Friday (MMI), and i cancel my 6th interview (VA tech), because there was a conflict with my job schedule, and there is nothing i could do.
Click to expand...

I know how ETSU works. I’ll be starting there in July. 🙂

You couldn’t reschedule your vtech interview?

now I am thinking that i might be hurting on my stats, and which is why i might be waitlisting.
Click to expand...

Maybe. But if you got an interview, they thought your stats were good enough.
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
You might just be overthinking it. They want to see who you are. You might come across as over prepared. Just be yourself.

I know how ETSU works. I’ll be starting there in July. 🙂

You couldn’t reschedule your vtech interview?

Maybe. But if you got an interview, they thought your stats were good enough.
Click to expand...

they scheduled me for the very last interview in VA tech, so there was no chance to reschedule.
Maybe i am overthinking this... I am generally very self-critical. well, I will just have to wait what happens to ETSU, Vermont, and Drexel and hope for those waitlists. I really dont want to even think about reapplying next cycle 🙂))
 
The interviewer had a son that was accepted to school X for undergrad and she wanted him to go there. Interviewer also saw that I went to School X. We spent the entire interview talking about my undergrad and what I liked and didn't like about it. Not a single second was spent talking about "why medicine" or "why this school". Afterwards my interviewer straight up told me I'd get in lol
 
I interviewed at one of the combined BA/MD programs several years back, and one of the interviews was only 15 minutes with the Senior Associate Dean of Medical Education. At the end of the interview, she told me that I was one of the most articulate, insightful high school candidates she had interviewed in the past 10 years. Of course, being a neurotic high schooler and all, I was still pretty nervous to hear my decision, but I ended up being accepted into that program.
 
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