Right. I've been meaning to sit down and write this for almost a year now but I am lazy and LOTS has happened in my life since I had my first med school interview, so it's taken me this long!
1st disclaimer! Everyone's experience is ENTIRELY subjective, and they aaaalll vary depending on the university, their interview style, and what the university is looking for.
2nd disclaimer! This guide is very much tailored to universities that AREN'T Oxbridge, as their style is very different (I'll write on that later).
All you need to know for now is that, as I've said before, I applied first time to Oxford, Newcastle, Leeds and Bristol, and got one offer from Bristol, where I currently study (it's the best course/uni/city in the entire world ever applyapplyapply - totally not biased or anything). But the important thing for this post is that I had three interviews, from Oxford, Newcastle and Bristol. Here we'll discuss the latter two, one which was successful and one which was not.
Okay let's go through them as case studies. I'll detail my entire subjective experience at each interview, and then we'll analyse.
Interview 1 (at some point in November 2012) NEWCASTLE.
So basically I was a bit of an idiot when I applied to medical school. There's no definitive guide on exactly what to look at for your interviews, or in how much detail, so I just kind of felt about in the dark and hoped for the best. I had no idea at the time how difficult even getting an offer was going to be, as my friend P, who I've written about before, had received 3 offers the year before me (but they were always going to - they were stupidly intelligent, outgoing, and interviewed EXTREMELY well). I'd heard from friends that had received an offer from Newcastle that they were big on asking about NHS reforms and the structure of the NHS at interview (which I'm pretty sure they still are) so I read up on that BIG time, and researched as much as I felt I needed to, and then I trawled the Newcastle website to make sure I knew about the course. Obviously on top of that I had thought about answers to the typical interview questions you always get asked; 'Why do you want to be a doctor', 'Why not another healthcare profession' 'Answer this ethical scenario' etc etc etc.
So after all that it was time for the interview, I was travelling over to England from Spain (where I'd lived for 12 years previously) and meeting my uncle in Newcastle, who I was staying with before my interview in the morning. I was so nervous. INCREDIBLY nervous. Newcastle was my first interview, and as luck would have it, I'd been lucky enough to get an Oxford interview scheduled for later the same day and the next day, so I was doubly nervous as I had to take a 5 hour train journey to get down to Oxford as soon as my Newcastle interview finished. I had prepared more for the Oxford style of interview because of this; however I didn't help myself in the Newcastle interview anyway, as you'll see! My interviewers were incredibly friendly and really put me at ease - I think they were one male lecturer and one local GP. During the interview they asked me two questions that put the nail in the coffin for me; they were 'What do you like the most about the course here at Newcastle' and 'If you were a patient and you wanted to find out about how good your GP is, whether they really know their stuff, what would you do?'. The first one might surprise you, as it did me at the time, however my problem with that question was generally my own stupidity. Honestly I'm perfectly comfortable with admitting it: I was a bloody idiot, and I didn't research enough into EXACTLY what was involved in other medical courses and just the course in general. My answer was: 'You know what? I REALLY love the concept of the SSC that you do here at Newcastle, I think it's brilliant that you can customise the course based on your own personal interests'. Now the prepared among you will know that's a ridiculous answer, as that's nothing special at all - SSCs, or Student Selected Components, are a mandatory part of every medical course in the UK, and are not at all specific to Newcastle. I however, did not know that at all (due to a lack of research) and thought I was being really original. Even looking back on this is making me cringe, haha, they must have thought I was such an idiot! The second question floored me simply because I didn't know the answer at all, and still don't! I don't know whether it was because it wasn't something I'd come across in Spain (I had very very limited experience of the NHS) or whether I hadn't read far enough into the NHS reforms, but all I do know is that I sat there guessing like an idiot for 10 minutes whilst they sat there saying 'Nope' to everything I came up with. To be honest though, that's just the luck of the draw. Some questions will play to your talents, exactly like my experience with Bristol, and some questions will pull the rug from under you. It's how prepared you are at the end of the day that will make the difference - you can NEVER be too prepared.
ANYWAY now that's over with, let me tell you about the interview experience that has changed my life. :)
Interview 2 (28th February 2013 give or take a day) BRISTOL.
Can I just say before I begin this that this was a couple of months after the disaster that was Newcastle, and, in my opinion, I owe my offer at Bristol to a number of things. Firstly, I'd had two rejections after interview and one outright rejection at this point, so I was feeling pretty defeated and 'what have I got to lose' about this interview. Secondly, I had a friend finishing off a non-med undergrad degree in Bristol at the time, who wanted to apply for medicine and had been volunteering in the Bristol healthcare sector. She was invaluable. Thirdly, I had had the interesting life experience that was my Oxford interview. The amount I had to learn for the Oxford interview, and the amount I learnt from it, really helped me through my Bristol interview. Anyway, on to the experience itself. I think there were two questions at Bristol that this time helped me to clinch an offer, but again remember this is entirely my point of view. These were 'You sound like you know your stuff, can you explain to me the four principles of Medical Ethics', and 'What do you like about the course at Bristol'. As you can see there's a recurring trend here - what you say about the medical course itself can really make or break an interview - after all, you are going to be studying it for the next five or six years - they want to know you've really considered what you're going to be going into. Basically on the Medical Ethics front, I KNEW that I was going to be asked an ethics question at all of my interviews. This is something you have to expect, and I wanted to stand out, especially for Oxford, in a subject that interested me, which Ethics does. Therefore, I bought myself a Kindle book called something like 'A Short Introduction to Medical Ethics' or words to that effect, and read the entire thing. This acquainted me with the four principles of ethics and gave me a basic understanding of ethics as a whole. Unbeknownst to me (I've only learnt this in the past two months of studying here), Bristol is quite special in that we are one of the only UK medical schools that places a big focus on ethical learning right at the beginning of the course. So again, I was damn lucky! I was asked the usual ethical scenario at the interview and I began to consider it using the four principles. When I had finished, one of my interviewers, a male rheumatologist from the local hospital, asked me to go into more detail about them, which I did, and he seemed very impressed. Now with the question about the course, I had had two extra months to study the course structure at Bristol than I had at Newcastle or Oxford, and after my outright rejection from Leeds I threw myself into looking at the course structure in Bristol, as I had sucked at it with Newcastle, so that was a factor. Also, my undergrad friend at Bristol had a comprehensive knowledge of all the hospitals in Bristol (of which there are absolutely loads). So those were kind of the two things that helped me there - I talked a lot about the Academies system at Bristol, where they send you out of Bristol on placement to places like Bath and Swindon throughout the course and have teaching facilities and accommodation there, and about the opportunities within Bristol to learn. Now that I'm here though, I can honestly tell you there is more to this course than I ever imagined - I know I sound stupidly sycophantic when I talk about this course, but it really is brilliant so far, I love it here! At some point I'll post about all the pros and cons of the course, for anyone who's considering Bristol themselves. :)
Anyway, now that's done, let's have a look at the common themes here.
Rule number one: learn from my mistakes and PREPARE FOR YOUR INTERVIEWS IN DETAIL. Things to remember to research are the structure of the course (more than just the outline; really go into it!), the state of the NHS at the moment (ie recent reforms, any scandals in the last 50-100 years, general public opinion, future changes, things that are currently affecting it), aspects of medicine that interest you (try not to always go for the speciality-oriented ones, like the cardiovascular system or the like, as I've heard WAY too many stories about people who've researched a particular disease or body system and then been faced with an interviewer who's an expert in the field) and how your career will be structured in the future.
Ask ANYBODY you have at your disposal, family, friends, any contacts at all that have any connection with medicine, or maybe who don't have a medical connection but have an opinion, about their thoughts on various issues relating to the profession. It's always good to expand your own opinion so you have more to talk about at interview. Remember always that you are competing with people who have doctors as parents. You need to have that insider background knowledge; they will know what's going on in the NHS because it's their parent's job. If you are not in that lucky position, turn on the news and absorb it. Live your life as if you are going into medicine, and you need to know everything you can. If you are in the lucky position of having doctor parent/s, however, from what I have heard your task is to prove that you are going into medicine because it is YOUR decision, and that you have reasons for going into it rather than 'my parent's a doctor so I look up to them/want to make them proud/have always been around doctors/I've wanted to do it my whole life etc etc etc.
And last but not least, RELAX. Trust me, I know that's a mammoth task, read up to see how nervous I was at first, haha! I honestly think that the fact that I was less nervous at Bristol because I felt like I knew my stuff and had nothing to lose had a positive impact on my interview. Be confident, but not arrogant. Be sure in what you know, but don't give half-answers, or try to impress too much with big words. Treat the interview like a conversation - they are trying to help you, not hinder you.
I knew this was going to have to be a long post but I didn't realise it'd take me that long to get done, haha! As always PLEASE feel free to ask any questions you have at all, even if you think they aren't relevant or I won't know the answer, as I now have other friends on my course who applied to many other different universities, and they might!
To any of you who still have interviews left to go, congratulations on getting an interview, and the VERY best of luck to you! If you are coming to Bristol in the next couple of months, as I did a year ago, please message me as I'd love to help you out!
Speak soon!
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