The first thing to note about medical school interviews is that they typically run from November through to late April. When you are interviewed bares no relation to the quality of your application, so do not be put off if you have not yet heard around January time whilst others may have already had their interviews.

The selection process is obviously a competitive one. However, the major hurdle is getting the invitation to interview. Once at interview, your chances of receiving an offer have risen considerably; typically 40-60% of those interviewed will receive an offer. So do make sure you give yourself every chance by spending time writing a quality personal statement.

Medical school interview formats vary from medical school to medical school. The most common is that of a ‘semi-structured’ interview. These typically last 20 minutes and consist of a 3 person panel (1 member of faculty who chairs, one student/junior doctor and another doctor/health professional). The interviewers may ask questions based on your personal statement pertaining to work experience, interests in medicine/science, personal characteristics and hobbies before asking general questions around medicine/qualities of a doctor/ethics and so on. However, some medical schools may not look at your personal statement at all. Therefore you should look to clarify this as it will affect how you plan for the interview.

Another increasingly common format for interview is that of having multiple ‘mini-interviews’ comprised of several stations.  Each station will have a different interviewer(s) who will be focusing on a specific scenario or areas of questions. If you attend an interview like this, try to find out what some of the themes for the stations are and what they might require. However, this is essentially just splitting the conventional interview into different parts, so your preparation will not need to alter much.

Other formats are based around an ethical scenario. If this is the case, you might want to do a bit of reading around the principles of medical ethics to give yourself a structure to approach such scenarios.

This is essential for a successful interview. First look at the school’s website/prospectus or any notes you have from open days to find out about the interview format. For semi-structured interviews where the interviewers look at your personal statement before the interview, naturally it is important to reacquaint yourself with your personal statement. Look at it critically. Think if you were an interviewer, what questions might you ask looking at the personal statement?  Reflect again on your work experience. What did you learn from the experience and how is that relevant to your desire to study medicine/insight into medicine/or developing attributes required for medicine? If you have mentioned that you are interested in a certain aspect of medicine, e.g. genetics, be prepared to talk about that at interview. Likewise, if you have mentioned you read the BMJ or New Scientist, be prepared to talk about interesting articles you have read in the mentioned publications. What about your hobbies and outside interests? How do they make you a better applicant? Also keep up to date with science and health news, since some questions may arise from current ‘hot’ topics in the press.

Whilst good preparation is essential, be aware that you can over-prepare by almost memorising stock answers for different questions. If you then regurgitate these at interview, the interviewers will quickly recognise this and will not think much of you. So do think about the sort of points you might want to make, but allow for some spontaneity to come across in interview by not memorising stock answers.

Interview days are often viewed with a great deal of apprehension by most students. Firstly, if you have made it to interview, you should be proud to be there, as a lot of students have not made it as far as you. Be positive, and look to enjoy the day. It is not an exam that you can influence by the amount of work you put in. All you can do is be yourself, be honest and talk about your experiences, nothing more. Remember, the interviewers don’t want you to be nervous because they want to you to represent yourself fully to find the best applicants.

To help relax, do not spend the day thinking about the forthcoming interview. Treat the day as an open day. Engage with the current students and other interviewees. This way you will spend less time thinking about the interview and getting nervous about it. The same applies in the pre-interview room.

As always, first impressions are important. When you enter the room, walk in confidently and smile. There will often be the option of a glass of water in the room. Don’t be afraid to ask/take one, as you may dry up during the interview and reaching for a glass of water may give you a second or two to think about your next answer. Be conscious of your body language. Sit up straight with an open body posture and relax. As you start answering questions, always take a few seconds to think about your next answer. A common mistake people make is diving straight into an answer which then leads them to an unstructured ‘point’.

 If you have certain points you wish to make in the interview, do try and bring them in, but not at the expense of not answering a question properly or making a random segue to it. It is uncommon to get through a medical interview without being ‘stumped’ by a question or two. If this happens, do not panic. Again, take a few seconds to think about it. Don’t be afraid to ask the interviewer to rephrase the question if you didn’t quite understand it. Try to have a go at answering the question as best as you can, but don’t try and blag it. For one, it doesn’t sound good and two, it is wasting time that could be spent answering other questions that you may have good answers for.

Throughout the interview, try to infuse it with your personality, enthusiasm, plus a bit of humour if appropriate. As it comes to an end, you may be asked if you have any questions for the panel. If you have a question that has not been covered in admissions talks, the prospectus or by current students then by all means ask, but don’t feel that you ought to for the sake of it. Also, it is probably best not to ask when you can expect to hear from them; it gives of an impression of being highly strung. You can always ask the current students after but do not get hung up on it. Finally, kindly thank the panel for their time.

After the interview, resist the temptation to overanalyse your performance. It is very difficult to interpret and many students who think it went badly will end up with an offer. Remember, if you are still in school, your priority is to get the grades you need. So focus on that and do not be too preoccupied with when you will hear from the medical school – that will take care of itself.

If you are unsuccessful after interview, consider where you might have come up short and how you could improve next time. If you are unsuccessful in all 4 applications, one option would be to take a gap year. If you get the grades required, you could use your gap year to get more experience. This could be working in a hospital (e.g. a healthcare assistant), more work experience or even work abroad if healthcare related voluntary projects. Alternatively, if there is another science based degree that interests you, you could do that and consider postgraduate entry medicine.

Plenty of students enter medicine both these ways, so you should be encouraged that if unsuccessful first time round, there are other ways to fulfil your ambition if you are still certain medicine is for you.

Best of luck!