What medical school interview is your child preparing for? Traditional interviews, Multiple Mini Interviews, Oxbridge interviews… with so many different types, it can be hard to get your head around how best to support your child.
However, as a parent, you have a great opportunity to support your child with their preparation, even if you have no background in medicine. While you may not be able to give them lots of technical advice about the subject, there are several ways that you can help them enhance their performance in their interviews. This guide will demonstrate a few ways you can help them get their offer!
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Mock Medicine Interviews With Your Child
The primary way that you can support your child with their medicine interview preparation is to help them complete mock interviews. To do this, you need to be aware of the formats of the different interviews your child will be attending and research the kinds of questions that are typically asked at these interviews (be sure to check out our collection of guides which cover these topics).
Be aware that you should ensure your child is preparing for their interviews before they receive invitations. Some medical schools will not provide more than 2 – 3 weeks’ notice, which doesn’t give enough time to effectively prepare. We would suggest starting preparation in October at the very latest, though starting earlier will ease the workload later in the year.
Once you know what you’re your child needs to prepare for, whatever the format, you can find example questions online to test them in mock interviews. This will give your child the benefit of practising skills in a more relaxed, familiar environment, which is great for when they’re first starting. The more practice they receive like this, the more confident they’ll feel when it comes to the real thing.
In order to effectively interview your child, you need to play the role of a medicine interviewer. It’s important to remember that ‘being the interviewer’ doesn’t just involve you grilling your prospective applicant. While there will be some questions that want to know about background or work experience, the less traditional medical school interview (such as MMIs) will feature questions that allow the applicant to lead.
So, your role could vary greatly from question to question. Some examples include:
- Receiver of instructions: Your child may have a picture given to them, and they must use their communication skills to get you to draw the same thing.
- Roleplay Character: It could involve acting out a part (a task that your child might be asked to do in an MMI). You will have to act as if you are the relative of a patient who has just passed away, and your child must use their empathy skills to communicate this news to you.
- Task Instructor: You may need to set your child a task or give them instructions: for example, asking them to make an origami swan whilst they talk to you about the pros and cons of privatisation of the health service (yes, that is a real one)!
As strange as some of these may seem at first, your child must get used to dealing with each of these types of questions and can take them seriously on the day. You won’t be able to cover every possible type of question, but covering each of the broad categories in detail will ensure that your child can use their understanding to work through new scenarios and questions.
Starting off more casually is fine, but you should aim to make the preparation more realistic as time goes on, moving closer to closer to real interview conditions, including time limits and less advice during the question. However, you also need to consider that doing a mock interview with their parent is going to be less intense than with an actual interviewer, so it’s important that they’re also able to complete mock interviews at school and potentially with external providers as well.
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Tips For Medicine Interview Preparation Support
Here are some tips to help you with your task of supporting your child’s interview preparation.
Encourage A Natural Approach
It’s very important that your child doesn’t try to memorise answers to the point where they sound so rehearsed that they are no longer genuine. This can come across badly to any interviewer at any type of medical school interview. They are looking for someone with a passion for the course, and someone who sounds like a robot is not at the top of their list.
Instead, you and your child should be working through example questions and writing down the key points that should be discussed when answering. Aim to make a large database that is categorised by question type (e.g. ethical scenario, Personal Statement question, etc). This will provide inspiration for similar questions that they may encounter while also being easier for them to remember than a full answer script.
It’s also a good idea, particularly for an Oxbridge medical school interview, to get your child to practice talking through their ideas in a step-by-step approach when answering questions. This is useful when tasked to answer questions that require an opinion such as ethical ones. Your child should also be prepared to see both sides of an argument. Encourage them to be flexible and accommodate other views, whilst also remaining decisive.
Read The News
In almost every medical school interview, they will want to know that your child is aware of the current healthcare and social issues. This is so the interviewer knows your child is actually interested in the field and knows what to expect from their profession. It demonstrates that they have seriously considered the pros and cons of going into medicine.
Beyond just encouraging them to read and watch the news, you should be joining them so you can engage with them about these topics. Share stories that you find that are relevant, have conversations with them about topics and keep a bank of interview question ideas for your next practice session to keep them on their toes.
Plan For problems Together
It’s only natural to expect that your child will be nervous on the day, despite all the practice. But there are some things you can do to pre-empt these nerves and the issues that they may cause in a medical school interview.
Encourage your child to structure any answer they give to a question using a framework, such as the STARR Technique. This uses the formula of Situation, Task, Action, Result, Reflection. It is a good way to ensure your child doesn’t waffle so much that neither they nor the interviewer knows where their answer is going. If this isn’t a technique that works for them, work together to find one that does.
Personal Statement
For some final preparation before the medical school interview, it’s very important to help your child review their Personal Statement. Written under immense pressure and the threat of deadlines, it’s understandable that they may have forgotten what they wrote, which is why it’s so important to go over it again.
Questions in a traditional medical school interview may ask your child about their motivation for studying medicine, and it won’t look good if they contradict what they said in their Personal Statement!
That concludes our guide to support your child through their Medicine interview preparation. Of course, each family is different, so you may have different ideas on how to help your child during this stressful period.
Another way to support your child is to share any resources you find that could help them with their preparation, so be sure to share our selection of medicine interview guides. If you’re looking for comprehensive, expert support for your child, the UniAdmissions Medicine Interview Programme is the leading option for getting applicants into medical school. Our expert formula ensures that we more than triple our students’ chances of success, so book a free admissions consultation today to discover how we can support your child. Thank you for reading!
Early Interview preparation is essential in getting your child accepted to their dream medical school. Don’t leave it too late.
Our Medicine Interview Programme is designed to give your child the highest chance of a Medicine offer at the Interview stage. Our expert tutor will work with them based on their specific needs and personal circumstances to craft a strong Interview strategy that truly gives them an advantage that can make the difference between an offer and rejection.
Discover our Medicine Interview Programme by clicking the button below to enrol and triple your chances of success.
