How Do You Envision Using Your Medical Education

Medical schools receive thousands of applications for very limited spots in their incoming class every year. Many medical schools try to understand their applicants' journeys and narratives. They often pose open-ended questions during an interview, including Tell me about yourself? and What will you lot contribute to our medical school? These questions are designed to highlight experiences that accept contributed to your evolution and led yous to medicine. A strong answer to these questions is essential to create a solid foundation for a detailed and robust interview that sets you autonomously from other candidates.

In this postal service, we volition embrace:

How to reply the "Tell me about yourself?" in your medical schoolhouse interview
Sample "Tell me about yourself?" response
How to prepare for other mutual medical schoolhouse interview questions
Common medical schoolhouse interview mistakes to avoid
Download our Cracking Med Schoolhouse Admissions Interview Guide

Go more mutual traditional medical schoolhouse interview questions and sample Multiple Mini Interview questions by downloading our Dandy Med Schoolhouse Admissions interview guide!

"Tell me almost yourself" is often the kickoff questions asked in medical school interviews. When answering, it is important to keep in mind that the interviewer is trying to become to know you lot as a person, including your background outside of medicine. We desire to emphasize that the construction of your response as a clear, strong framework tin can provide a roadmap for your interviewer to follow equally you pb them through the details. The framework and questions below are to help guide you brainstorm your response to this open-ended question. You do not need to answer every single question in the framework below.

A winning framework to responding to the "tell me almost yourself" questions consists of the following:

Footstep #1: Depict your background

Questions to answer: What is your family construction like and where did you grow up? What kind of upbringing did y'all have? Did y'all have siblings? How did you develop your interests and appoint your curiosity early on? What values did you gain from your upbringing and your family?
Why this is important: This provides some context on your upbringing to let your interview to understand you better. Additionally, you will build personal connections with your interviewer.
Tips: 1 common fault that applicants make is that their responses for the groundwork section are as well long. Stick to what's of import in your childhood and family and what is relevant for a career in medicine.

Step #2: Highlight your major pursuits in high school (if relevant) and college

Questions to reply: What did you report? What motivated you to pursue/focus on these particular areas? Why did you choose these extra-curricular activities? What did you learn about yourself and what you did? How did your activities contribute to your want to be scientifically inclined and defended to service for others? Why did you pursue advanced education beyond higher?
Why this is of import: This section introduces how you have begun to develop your interests and shows your interviewer some of the depth of your interests and experiences.
Tip: We don't want to hear a laundry list of activities nor do nosotros want a resume dump.

Step #3: Draw whatsoever gap year activities, advanced degrees, work experiences before medical school

Questions to reply: Did y'all work before applying to medical school? Why did you work in the field/industry that y'all did? If you had some other career before medical school, what made you decide to exit and pursue medicine?
Why this is of import: Since many applicants have very unique backgrounds, this helps an interviewer to gain an boosted perspective on your journey. This can also aid you to show how you lot have engaged with medicine before applying as well.
Tip: Link these gap year experiences to what you desire to practise at that specific medical school and why you want to go into medicine.

Footstep #4: Draw your nowadays-day self and future goals

Questions to answer: What are you doing right at present? What are some of your hobbies? What other pursuits are yous engaging in? What are y'all hoping to proceeds from attending medical school? What is the future touch on that you hope to create after medical school?
Why this is of import: This section is the almost important one and ties together many of the strings that you have introduced in previous steps into a coherent explanation of who you lot are and why you are seeking to pursue medicine as the next logical step in your journeying. If you have laid a solid foundation before this, your interviewer volition find themselves nodding along as you depict how you believe practicing medicine aligns with your goals.
Tip: You lot can receive bonus points if you can link what you are doing now to what you volition be doing in that specific medical school.

Download our FREE Interview Guide!

If you are prepared, the Bully Med Schoolhouse Admissions interview gives you the perfect opportunity to standout and shine by sharing with people what yous are passionate nigh.

Med School Admissions Interview Guide eBook Cover

Background:

Howdy, my name is [_______].
I grew up as the eldest of iii children in an Haitian-American family unit, son of a nurse and structure worker in San Diego. Every bit the eldest child, I was oft relied on to await subsequently my siblings, whether that was helping them with their homework or ensuring that they were eating well equally my parents worked long shifts at piece of work. My parents were immigrants and we had little extended family unit around the states and then nosotros remained highly reliant on each other for entertainment and to find what we needed inside and outside of schoolhouse.

Major Pursuits in Higher

While at UC Berkeley, I decided to major in Biology and History because of my fascination with the human body and also how our modern-day society has been shaped past events in the past. I enjoyed the interdisciplinary learning that my school cultivated and I embraced that by writing my senior thesis on the health effects tied to Caribbean colonization by the Spanish conquistadors. I believe that marrying my two passions of biology and history has made me a more than well-rounded person who is passionate about understanding medical history and how it affects care delivery today.
I was as well highly involved in both basic and clinical research and served as a research swain in my genetics lab studying the genetic elements of insulin production. I also enjoy teaching biology in underprivileged classrooms in the Bay Area equally well as working as a didactics assistant in the Department of Chemistry. I have also enjoyed building my community at college through the Haitian Students Alliance and hope to continue to build bridges with others in my profession.

Piece of work after Medical School

Subsequently graduating college, I have worked equally a clinical research coordinator in the Section of Neurosurgery at UCSF Medical Center studying the long-term outcomes of glioblastomas. I also have continued much of my volunteering piece of work and education health and biology classes for many local community centers.
As somebody interested in bookish medicine, I believe my inquiry and teaching experiences will allow me to flourish in my pursuits as a medical school student interested in internal medicine.

Present-day day cocky / Hereafter goals

Some of my hobbies include hiking whatsoever trail that I tin can find, reading philosophy and nonfiction literature, and playing jazz pianoforte.
In medical school, I am interested pursuing additional research in genetic diseases. I am particularly interested in ____[name researcher, centre, or projection you are interested in]

Mock Interviews: Refine your interview skills with u.s.a. 1-on-ane

Rachel Rizal, Chiliad.D.

Residency
Harvard, Emergency Medicine

Rishi Mediratta, M.D., K.Sc., M.A.

Undergraduate
Johns Hopkins

Residency
Stanford, Pediatrics

iv Common Medical School Interview Questions and How To Prepare

Common medical schoolhouse interview question #1:

Why practice yous want to come to _____ medical school?

Preparation:

Do your research well-nigh the school! Don't but wait at the homepage of the medical school website.

Look at the school's curriculum. And more important, look at programs you want to be involved with, professors you desire to meet, and elective classes you want to take.

Tips:

To give you some guidance, research what's unique about the school'southward curriculum, civilisation, location, and opportunities. Is there anything unique about the medical school's curriculum? For example, practice they get-go clinical rotations during the second yr of medical school? Or are you lot fatigued to the location of the school? Are you interested in doing clinical rotations in urban or rural areas? Do you desire more exposure to sure patient populations?
Pigment a motion picture virtually how yous will take reward of the opportunities and resource at the schoolhouse. These may include extra-curricular activities, enquiry projects, and other graduate degrees available. Past actively describing your plans and interests, you volition bear witness the interviewer that you have thought hard nigh why you lot practical to that schoolhouse, rather than checking off another school to apply to

Common medical school interview question #3:

"Where do you see yourself in 10 years?" OR

"Where do y'all see yourself in xx years?"

Preparation:

Look back at your master AMCAS and secondary applications. What were the themes of your awarding?
Are at that place certain types of career paths that y'all are interested in?

Tips:

Based on your application's themes, take some careers that y'all may be interested in. For example, if y'all've done all-encompassing work with cancer patients, you may want to be an oncologist. Or, if you lot've washed a lot of global wellness work, you tin say you want to incorporate global wellness in your career.
Some other style to tackle this question is to discuss what type of practice-setting or specialty you are interested in. For example, you lot may be interested in primary care in urban settings who wants to exercise community work related to drug addiction.
On that note, your response can as well touch on upon personal growth. Where will your strengths have taken you? What will you have worked on to shore up your weaknesses? For example, you can say "I besides value connecting with and communicating with my patients. As such, in five years I want to exist skilful in Spanish/Chinese/Arabic to meliorate meet an underserved population, and in 10 years I want to exist completely fluent." A quick 30 2d improver to this question reveals more about your grapheme. This is specially useful if they oasis't direct asked you lot "What are your strengths and weaknesses."
Recollect, it's okay to not have an exact career plan laid out!

Common medical school interview questions #four:

"Is there anything else you want me and the admissions committee to know?"

Preparation:

Know the components or principal parts of your application that you really desire to highlight.

Tips:

Throughout the interview, you lot should know what y'all've had the chance talk well-nigh and not. For example, say that two things y'all want to highlight are 1) your interests in community health and 2) how that relates to primary care. And, a few of your activities that support those interests include: shadowing a family medicine doctor, working with a mobile clinic in Mexico where yous taught patients well-nigh diabetes, and your public health research. Throughout the medical school interview, you should insert these activities equally talking points.
On a related note, know how to connect your various activities with each other. Using the previous instance, find proficient transitions between your United mexican states mobile clinic, enquiry, and your interests (both clinical and non-clinical) in medical school.

Our Cracking Med Schoolhouse Admissions squad hopes that this helps jumpstart your interview prep. We have helped several students over the years greatly better their interview skills.

Common medical school interview question #5:

"What's your most significant extra-curricular activity?"OR
"Tell me more virtually _____ activity."

Preparation:

Have a brusk answer and long respond prepared for this medical school interview question. The length of your respond will depend on how much you want to emphasize this particular activity, the position of this question in your interview, and what you've already talked most

Tips:

Exist able to requite a brief thirty 2d – one minute description about your major extra-curricular activities.
Say what y'all did and the impact you lot made. A common mistake we see students brand is that they talk too much almost the arrangement and not plenty about what they did in the arrangement.
You may want to give a reflection nearly how your experiences have shaped your perspective or how it will impact the fashion yous practice medicine in the future. Maybe, through your activity, yous were inspired to practise sure clinical research. Or, you realized a new way to communicate with your patients.

Download our Complimentary Interview Guide!

If you are prepared, the Cracking Med School Admissions interview gives you the perfect opportunity to standout and shine past sharing with people what you are passionate about.

Med School Admissions Interview Guide eBook Cover

There are common mistakes applicants make that touch their interview or may non pigment them in the all-time light. We have included some of the nigh commonly made errors during an interview and ways to avoid these pitfalls beneath.

Tip #one: Avert contradicting your story in your application

While some interviewers review your awarding earlier your interview, many others review it after. Nonetheless, they wait to see a high caste of similarity between your application essays and your interview. If they see meaning differences (i.eastward. you write your personal statement on volunteering simply never mention information technology in your interview), they may question which story is the about accurate and observe it difficult to advocate for yous to the admissions committee. Making sure that your narrative is consistent throughout the application procedure will make you more memorable and provide a clear rationale for what you will contribute as a future physician.

Tip #2: Avoid excessive focus on irrelevant experiences

Interviewers are looking to understand how some of the pivotal experiences that y'all have had have prepared you to pursue a career in medicine. If you begin to spend an inordinate corporeality of time describing experiences that are not relevant to the "Why medicine" question, you could distract the interview from agreement your main reasons of going into medicine. The best way to avert this from happening is to practise, practice, practise your answers to common questions like "Tell me about yourself?" and "Why medicine?"

Tip #3: Avoid getting too personal

Although your interviewer is trying to empathize details about you and your journey to medicine, recollect that this is a professional environment. In that location are sure topics that may be likewise personal to hash out with someone you only recently met. Try to shy away from over-sharing and perhaps placing your interviewer in an awkward position. For instance, if you are discussing a unique illness that one of your friends had at a young historic period that profoundly affected you and inspired you to go into medicine, mayhap avert detailing too extensively the price that your friend's illness may have had on y'all and instead focus on the lessons that it taught you and how you seek to help others suffering from like ailments.

Tip #iv: Avoid sounding unconfident

One turnoff is to audio unconfident or insecure about your application. Do not repent for your past experiences and answers.

Tip #5: Avoid sounding negative

Avert expressing a large corporeality of regret or negative takeaways from experiences unless information technology bolstered your desire to apply to medical school. Interviewers want to remember you positively, and not as someone who regrets many of their by decisions.

Now that y'all know how to approach answering the "Tell me about yourself," medical schoolhouse interview questions, you are prepared to lay a potent foundation for your interview and impress your interviewer. With a clear agreement of who you lot are and what motivates you, your interviewer is free to delve into particular areas they discover interesting or motility on to other questions they may accept. With the frameworks nosotros accept provided, you lot can confidently construct your narrative to convey your unique perspectives on how you volition make an excellent hereafter dr..

If you want to schedule a mock interview with our team, fill up out the contact form below.