what to say if a medical school asks why md

Medical schools receive thousands of applications for very limited spots in their incoming course every yr. Many medical schools endeavor to sympathize their applicants' journeys and narratives. They often pose open up-ended questions during an interview, including Tell me virtually yourself? and What will you contribute to our medical school? These questions are designed to highlight experiences that have contributed to your development and led you to medicine. A strong answer to these questions is essential to create a solid foundation for a detailed and robust interview that sets you apart from other candidates.

In this post, nosotros will cover:

• How to answer the "Tell me almost yourself?" in your medical schoolhouse interview
• Sample "Tell me about yourself?" response
• How to prepare for other common medical school interview questions
• Common medical school interview mistakes to avoid
• Download our Smashing Med School Admissions Interview Guide

Become more common traditional medical school interview questions and sample Multiple Mini Interview questions past downloading our Cracking Med School Admissions interview guide!

"Tell me nigh yourself" is oftentimes the first questions asked in medical school interviews.  When answering, it is important to keep in listen that the interviewer is trying to get to know yous as a person, including your background outside of medicine. Nosotros want to emphasize that the structure of your response every bit a articulate, strong framework tin provide a roadmap for your interviewer to follow as you lot lead them through the details. The framework and questions below are to help guide you begin your response to this open up-ended question. You do not need to answer every single question in the framework below.

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

Step #one: Describe your background

• Questions to respond: What is your family unit structure similar and where did you grow up? What kind of upbringing did you accept? Did you have siblings? How did y'all develop your interests and appoint your marvel early on? What values did you lot proceeds from your upbringing and your family unit?
• Why this is of import: This provides some context on your upbringing to allow your interview to understand you better. Additionally, you volition build personal connections with your interviewer.
• Tips: Ane common mistake that applicants make is that their responses for the background section are too long. Stick to what's of import in your childhood and family and what is relevant for a career in medicine.

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

• Questions to answer: What did y'all study? What motivated you to pursue/focus on these particular areas? Why did you choose these extra-curricular activities? What did you lot larn most yourself and what you did? How did your activities contribute to your desire to be scientifically inclined and dedicated to service for others? Why did you pursue avant-garde pedagogy beyond college?
• Why this is important: This department introduces how yous 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 practice we want a resume dump.

Pace #3: Draw any gap year activities, advanced degrees, work experiences earlier medical schoolhouse

• Questions to answer: Did yous work before applying to medical school? Why did you work in the field/industry that y'all did? If you had another career before medical school, what fabricated you decide to leave and pursue medicine?
• Why this is important: Since many applicants have very unique backgrounds, this helps an interviewer to gain an boosted perspective on your journeying. This can also help you to prove how you have engaged with medicine earlier applying likewise.
• Tip: Link these gap year experiences to what you want to do at that specific medical school and why you want to go into medicine.

Step #iv: Describe your present-day self and futurity goals

• Questions to reply: What are you doing correct at present? What are some of your hobbies? What other pursuits are you engaging in? What are you hoping to proceeds from attending medical schoolhouse? What is the future impact that y'all hope to create after medical schoolhouse?
• Why this is important: This department is the nearly of import i and ties together many of the strings that you take introduced in previous steps into a coherent explanation of who you are and why you are seeking to pursue medicine equally the next logical step in your journey. If you have laid a solid foundation before this, your interviewer will find themselves nodding forth as you describe how you lot believe practicing medicine aligns with your goals.
• Tip: You can receive bonus points if you can link what you lot are doing now to what y'all will be doing in that specific medical school.

Download our Gratis Interview Guide!

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

Background:

• Howdy, my name is [_______].
• I grew up as the eldest of three children in an Haitian-American family, son of a nurse and structure worker in San Diego. As the eldest kid, I was often relied on to look afterward my siblings, whether that was helping them with their homework or ensuring that they were eating well every bit my parents worked long shifts at work. My parents were immigrants and we had petty extended family unit around us so we remained highly reliant on each other for entertainment and to find what nosotros needed within and outside of schoolhouse.

Major Pursuits in College

• While at UC Berkeley, I decided to major in Biology and History because of my fascination with the man body and also how our modern-day society has been shaped by events in the past. I enjoyed the interdisciplinary learning that my schoolhouse cultivated and I embraced that past 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 fabricated me a more well-rounded person who is passionate about understanding medical history and how it affects care delivery today.
• I was also highly involved in both bones and clinical research and served as a enquiry fellow in my genetics lab studying the genetic elements of insulin production. I also enjoy instruction biology in underprivileged classrooms in the Bay Expanse equally well every bit working as a didactics assistant in the Department of Chemistry. I have likewise enjoyed building my community at higher through the Haitian Students Brotherhood and hope to continue to build bridges with others in my profession.

Work afterwards Medical Schoolhouse

• Subsequently graduating higher, 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 connected much of my volunteering piece of work and pedagogy wellness and biological science classes for many local community centers.
• As somebody interested in academic medicine, I believe my research and pedagogy experiences will allow me to flourish in my pursuits as a medical schoolhouse student interested in internal medicine.

Nowadays-24-hour interval twenty-four hour period cocky / Time to come goals

• Some of my hobbies include hiking any trail that I can notice, reading philosophy and nonfiction literature, and playing jazz piano.
• In medical schoolhouse, I am interested pursuing additional research in genetic diseases. I am particularly interested in ____[proper name researcher, center, or projection you are interested in]

Mock Interviews: Refine your interview skills with united states one-on-1

Rachel Rizal, M.D.

Residency
Harvard, Emergency Medicine

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

Undergraduate
Johns Hopkins

Residency
Stanford, Pediatrics

four Common Medical School Interview Questions and How To Set up

Common medical schoolhouse interview question #1:

Why do you want to come to _____ medical school?

Preparation:

Do your enquiry about the school! Don't just look at the homepage of the medical school website.

Look at the school's curriculum. And more of import, look at programs y'all desire to be involved with, professors you want to come across, and elective classes you desire to take.

Tips:

• To requite you some guidance, research what's unique about the school's curriculum, culture, location, and opportunities. Is in that location annihilation unique about the medical school's curriculum? For example, do they start clinical rotations during the second year of medical school? Or are you drawn to the location of the schoolhouse? Are yous interested in doing clinical rotations in urban or rural areas? Do you want more exposure to certain patient populations?
• Paint a picture about how you will accept advantage of the opportunities and resources at the school. These may include extra-curricular activities, inquiry projects, and other graduate degrees available. By actively describing your plans and interests, you volition show the interviewer that you have thought hard virtually why you applied to that school, rather than checking off another schoolhouse to utilize to

Common medical school interview question #3:

"Where do y'all see yourself in 10 years?" OR

"Where do y'all see yourself in 20 years?"

Preparation:

• Expect back at your primary AMCAS and secondary applications. What were the themes of your application?
• Are in that location certain types of career paths that you lot are interested in?

Tips:

• Based on your application'south themes, accept some careers that y'all may be interested in. For example, if you've done extensive work with cancer patients, you may want to be an oncologist. Or, if yous've done a lot of global health piece of work, you can say you want to incorporate global health in your career.
• Another manner to tackle this question is to talk over what blazon of practice-setting or specialty you are interested in. For example, you may be interested in chief care in urban settings who wants to do community work related to drug addiction.
• On that notation, your response can also impact upon personal growth. Where volition your strengths have taken y'all? What will you accept worked on to shore up your weaknesses? For case, you lot tin can say "I as well value connecting with and communicating with my patients. Equally such, in 5 years I desire to be expert in Spanish/Chinese/Arabic to better meet an underserved population, and in 10 years I want to be completely fluent." A quick 30 second improver to this question reveals more most your grapheme. This is particularly useful if they oasis't direct asked you "What are your strengths and weaknesses."
• Remember, information technology's okay to not accept an verbal career programme laid out!

Common medical school interview questions #iv:

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

Grooming:

• Know the components or main parts of your application that you really want to highlight.

Tips:

• Throughout the interview, you lot should know what you've had the chance talk about and not. For example, say that two things yous want to highlight are 1) your interests in customs health and 2) how that relates to master care. And, a few of your activities that support those interests include: shadowing a family medicine doctor, working with a mobile dispensary in United mexican states where you lot taught patients about diabetes, and your public health research. Throughout the medical school interview, you should insert these activities as talking points.
• On a related note, know how to connect your diverse activities with each other. Using the previous example, notice good transitions betwixt your Mexico mobile dispensary, enquiry, and your interests (both clinical and non-clinical) in medical school.

Our Great Med School Admissions team hopes that this helps jumpstart your interview prep. We have helped several students over the years greatly improve their interview skills.

Common medical school interview question #v:

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

Preparation:

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

Tips:

• Be able to requite a brief thirty second – ane minute description about your major actress-curricular activities.
• Say what yous did and the impact yous made. A common fault nosotros see students make is that they talk too much about the organisation and not enough about what they did in the organization.
• You may desire to requite a reflection nearly how your experiences accept shaped your perspective or how it will impact the way y'all practice medicine in the future. Perhaps, through your action, you were inspired to do certain clinical research. Or, you realized a new way to communicate with your patients.

Download our FREE Interview Guide!

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

There are common mistakes applicants brand that bear on their interview or may not paint them in the best light. We have included some of the nigh commonly fabricated errors during an interview and means to avert these pitfalls beneath.

Tip #i: Avoid contradicting your story in your application

While some interviewers review your application before your interview, many others review it after. However, they look to see a loftier degree of similarity betwixt your awarding essays and your interview. If they see meaning differences (i.due east. you write your personal argument on volunteering but never mention it in your interview), they may question which story is the almost accurate and notice it difficult to abet for y'all to the admissions committee. Making sure that your narrative is consequent throughout the application procedure will make you lot more than memorable and provide a articulate rationale for what you will contribute as a futurity doc.

Tip #two: Avoid excessive focus on irrelevant experiences

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

Tip #iii: Avoid getting too personal

Although your interviewer is trying to empathise details about you and your journey to medicine, remember that this is a professional environment. There are sure topics that may be too personal to discuss with someone you only recently met. Try to shy away from over-sharing and perhaps placing your interviewer in an awkward position. For case, if you are discussing a unique illness that one of your friends had at a young age that greatly affected you and inspired you to go into medicine, perhaps avoid detailing too extensively the toll that your friend'due south illness may have had on yous and instead focus on the lessons that it taught you and how you lot seek to help others suffering from like ailments.

Tip #four: Avoid sounding unconfident

Ane turnoff is to sound unconfident or insecure virtually your application. Exercise not apologize for your past experiences and answers.

Tip #5: Avoid sounding negative

Avoid expressing a large corporeality of regret or negative takeaways from experiences unless it bolstered your desire to apply to medical schoolhouse. Interviewers want to retrieve y'all positively, and not as someone who regrets many of their by decisions.

Now that yous know how to arroyo answering the "Tell me about yourself," medical school interview questions, yous are prepared to lay a potent foundation for your interview and impress your interviewer. With a articulate understanding of who you are and what motivates you, your interviewer is free to delve into detail areas they find interesting or movement on to other questions they may have. With the frameworks we have provided, you can confidently construct your narrative to convey your unique perspectives on how you volition make an first-class future physician.

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

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Blog post written by Kevin Li and Dr. Rachel Rizal

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Source: https://crackingmedadmissions.com/how-to-answer-tell-me-about-yourself-medical-school/

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