[Interviews] Some interview perspective from an MMI rater
One of my close friends is an MMI rater at our school (top 50, so mid tier), and I was talking with them the other day about how they and other raters view applicants. I figured some of you might benefit from our conversation. Here are some of highlights.
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First impressions are so, SO important. According to my friend, the raters typically know what score you're going to get within the first 30 seconds of the MMI station. It can change throughout the conversation, but it happens less than you might imagine. Biggest reasons for poor first impressions: overly nervous/awkward, little to no eye contact, disheveled appearance, sounds rehearsed from the beginning (like you're reciting a play you've memorized), being underdressed/overdressed. If you're trying to stand out through your appearance, you're playing a dangerous game. It's very rater dependent on whether or not that bright neon tie/dress/suit is going to go over well. It's better to play it conservative and save the bright, loud clothes for after you're accepted. Some raters may love it, most probably won't.
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Answer the question. This one seems like it should be obvious, but apparently its one that many, many interviewees fail to do. If the question is "What is your favorite food and why?", they're not looking for you to somehow connect this to medicine through some contrived, 4D chess bullshit. They literally want to hear what your favorite food is and why. Everyone at the interview wants to be in medicine, that's understood, so don't try to connect everything to medicine, unless that is what the question specifically asks. If you don't answer the question, your score is gonna suck.
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The people who score the best are prepared without sounding like they're reciting a memorized script. Talk confidently and passionately about your answer to the question. My friend said its painfully obvious when someone hasn't ever done a practice interview before. They stumble around their thoughts, trying to think of the best way to frame something, and it ends up coming out this jumbled mess of what the interviewee THINKS the rater wants to hear. Be honest, be genuine and you'll score much better.
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Again, should be obvious, but don't disclose anything illegal or morally questionable you've done. This has happened multiple times to my friend, which I was blown away. Examples include disclosing cheating on exams, buying/selling drugs, running from the cops. Those interviewees get reported and their files thrown in the reject pile immediately. Don't be a dumbass.
Hope some of this helps. Good luck!
Posted Nov 6, 2019, 4:24 PM UTC
Since this is a "friendly" place I'm going to come out and say this kind of rater attitude is exactly why the MMI is a pile of shit and why I highly dislike them. It is nothing against you, it is against the MMI. <10 minutes is not an acceptable amount of time to judge someone. The sheer amount of bias flowing through this very post is insane. You sound like you want a mini robot who can fake enough of a personality to disguise as a person with amazing thoughts and feelings just long enough to scoot out of the room. I think I should have time to collect my thoughts and that I shouldn't need to have a knee jerk response to every possible question.
You're probably a great person irl, but if you were my interviewer I would be so unnerved because it clearly shows you don't want me to take my time and really be myself. You. Don't. Want. Genuine. Responses. You. Want. Rehearsal. You. Want. Canned. Interpersonal. Perfection.
When someone asks me "What is your favorite food?" it is clearly a personality question. Otherwise you wouldn't ask it because you don't actually care about what my favorite food is.
I agree with point 4. There is a professional line to draw. Point 3 is kind of obvious but much harder to be consciously aware of. Point 2, barring your example, is also helpful to an extent. But point 1 is my biggest issue I have with this idea. The MMI was invented because med school applicants found that the bias of their interview was deciding whether or not they were admitted. Yet in 30 seconds, bias is exactly what you are using to judge someone.
Sorry to be an edgelord but there is a ton of tough feelings and questions that this post calls to mind. I'm sure you're picking good kids for your school and that you are doing all things ethical but I am really upset by this concept of "30 seconds to make or break yourself/answer the prompt/rehearse but dont memorize--but wait actually memorize haha jk look at you, youre such a robot" culture that we have crafted with the MMI and the casper. I wonder if anyone else feels the same. The interviews I had where I was allowed to just shoot the breeze with my interview were by far the best ones. Much better than "hahaha 8 minutes to relate your favorite food to whether or not youre a good doctor" like fuck you I paid good money to be here.
So it seems to me like I must have failed to get my point across if this is the way you took it. Sorry about that! Let me try to explain myself a little better.
That was not the intent of my post at all. Knee jerk reactions are not necessary, nor is having a canned response for every possible scenario. The point I was trying to get across is that you should strive for having a well thought out response to common interview questions (ethical dilemmas, why medicine, etc) without sounding like you you're reading it from a book. I guess another way to say it might be to have a general idea of where you're going with certain questions, but not having memorized the exact path you're going to take to get there. Does that make more sense?
I see this a lot with premeds during the application cycle, and I totally understand why you might think this way. At least at my school, the questions don't fall into buckets (i.e. 'personality', 'why medicine', 'ethics') where there is some hidden meaning they want you to extract from the scenario and respond to. The raters are 100%, honest to god, just looking to have a conversation with you that is framed around answering the prompt. That is what I was trying to convey by the whole "answer the damn question" topic.
The MMI was never intended to remove bias, it was intended to limit it. Have a shitty first impression with 2/10 raters? Tough cookies, but you might have done great on the other 8. At least with MMI, a bad first impression might not sink your chances entirely. Personally I hate MMIs too. I'd rather have a conversation with 1 person for an hour, but that's not the world we get to live in unfortunately. Each approach has its strengths and weaknesses
I hope that helps clarify things a little bit. Again, sorry I failed in getting my point across.
Hey person, no sweat--I didn't intend to rage at you. You conveyed your point, but it was written in such a way that sounded a little cold at first. Again, I think you're a fine person, but it really calls to question what the MMI is doing and how one should approach it.
"That was not the intent of my post at all. Knee jerk reactions are not necessary, nor is having a canned response for every possible scenario. The point I was trying to get across is that you should strive for having a well thought out response to common interview questions (ethical dilemmas, why medicine, etc) without sounding like you you're reading it from a book. I guess another way to say it might be to have a general idea of where you're going with certain questions, but not having memorized the exact path you're going to take to get there. Does that make more sense?"
Yes this was the advice of my practice interviewer, the advice of everyone at the day of my MMI, and the exact reason why it is a hopeless scenario. I would like to claim, with little evidence other than some thoughtful analysis on how this "rating" process goes, that most people are admitted after an MMI either because they got lucky or because the rest of their application made up for their low score. That is, high scorers and low scorers are probably incredibly similar and are only different based on a few carefully chosen expressions and glances. That is a little fucked, no?
I get it, you want to help us. I want to help people survive this process too. But the MMI is honest to god another lottery. People will be people. There is no way to prepare. You just roll in, shoot from the hip, and pray. So, good intentions all around, this is mostly just me ranting. sorry to crash your post.
I think you’re probably right that you can’t know someone off of 8 mins answer, but I also think many schools use MMI to not assess qualifications, but to assess interpersonal skills. You gonna have like 10-20 min patient visits where you are talking with a random person and you have to be normal and relatable to some extent to help them.
MMIs of 8 mins in length assess this in my opinion. I do think it’s sketch to say someone’s 8 min answer made them more objectively qualified, but OK to say their 8 min interview left you feeling comfortable sending them out to be in super personal moments with random patients and their families.
The MMI I had more or less I couldn’t prepare for. Probably 25% of the Qs were preparable, the others were just talking about your experiences and having a real, yet brief conversation.
To sum up, if they think MMIs are good objective measure of better applicants, ehhhh I don’t really buy it. But to access non tangible characteristics of effective physicians? Sure.
Agreed it’s horse shit, hard not to be nervous with all that is at stake. Sucks for non trads who have less resources and access to ‘MMI Coaching’
The only resources you need for MMI prep are YouTube videos and a mirror to practice in. You can literally coach yourself to respond well given any scenario.
Good point, although some of the MMI resources on YouTube seem like common sense and not very helpful. I was thinking more students getting info on red flag responses or arguments from graders at their university. All in all, I think I have done okay on MMIs but was definitely nervous. Practice MMIs where you receive feedback on your responses from actual graders seems like it could help, was referring more to this type of resource.
Amen to this reply